nature – Page 5 – I dream of sumac and milkweed (and other wild things)

Blooming things

May 4, 2017June 16, 2017 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

Things just caught up to me last night and today. Like, ohmygod I’m about to travel to South America kind of things. Work things. People things. Some kind of stomach bug things. All those things poked me awake at 4 a.m. and refused to let me be. And all those things, compounded by the no sleep thing, really rattled my chain and made today a little messy.

I felt lousy. But a walk around my backyard with my digital camera made things feel at least a little righter. So did reading a guidebook for my destination and looking at a map and picking out a few things I for sure want to do. And talking with people who accept my occasional messiness. Crying helped, too. I realized I hadn’t done that in a while and I’ve gotta say, I’m one of those kinds of people who has to do that every now and then. It’s like opening a valve and releasing the pressure. Like a really good sigh.

But the ferns along my fence are coming up. There are sweet little violets all over my lawn, and a clump of some tiny blue flowers (forget-me-nots, possibly) near the ferns. We have a purpleleaf sand cherry shrub on the side of the house, whose leaves are such a gorgeous deep wine and its tiny whiteish-pinkish flowers smell like heaven. It’s easy to shake off the fog when you see and touch and smell these tiny delights.

fern shoots

entwined

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LDC_20170503_IMG_5685 — possibly forget-me-nots?

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LDC_20170503_IMG_5717 — purple leaf sand cherry

Frantic limbo

April 17, 2017April 17, 2017 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

I’m right in between things.

barn and field, Kodak Tri-X, Mamiya 645 1000s

leaning shed, Fuji Acros, Mamiya 645 1000s

In between a work trip. My film photography class is ending. Then a vacation to an unknown and, to me, exotic place. Then a move from town to the beach for the summer. And in the meantime I feel the unease of my kids as they finish their college terms. Does that part ever end, I wonder–the part where you feel the pain of whatever stress or difficulty your (albeit adult) children are going through? Somehow I don’t think I was totally prepared for that part of parenting.

Oh but who am I kidding? All the parts of parenting have surprised me. Why would I think that now, because they are grown, it should be any different?

White River Light, Kodak Tri-X, Mamiya 645 1000s

In any case I feel such a sense of limbo right now. I’m trying to roll with it.

And speaking of rolls… I have been frantically shooting film like I have the budget of someone who has, well, a big budget for film. I’m a copy editor, after all, and last I checked no one ever said they wanted to go into copy editing to make the big bucks. But here I am buying and blowing through rolls of film like they’re free or something.

LDC_20170416_img198 — creeping juniper, Ilford FP4, Minolta SRT 102

LDC_20170416_img195 — new shoots on the forest floor, Ilford FP4, Minolta SRT 102

I have developed 22 rolls of black and white film for my class and will develop three more this week before the lab will be off limits. I had four rolls of color film developed in February; I’ve got five rolls of color film at a lab right now, and had two rolls of color film developed a few weeks ago. That’s 36 rolls of film shot and developed since January. Of nothing special, even. I could have far worse vices, right?

LDC_20170415_img193 — orchard road, Fuji Acros, Holga

For my last class assignment I wanted to photograph a thing I love. The sand dunes at Silver Lake offer a shifting landscape that at times buries and other times unearths the ghostly treasures of its past. I’ll never tire of hiking these dunes and coming across these alien, sculptural roots and trunks of the trees that once forested this landscape. The light cooperated, but I found the resulting photos an interesting juxtaposition–these images look serene, but the wind was so fierce it nearly knocked me off the tops of some dune ridges and sand came out of my scalp for two days after I got home.

I still have so many more to scan, and a few might show how windy it really was.

long shadows on the dune, Fuji Acros and Holga

driftwood and dunegrass in valley, Fuji Acros and Holga

driftwood, Fuji Acros and Holga

waves, Fuji Acros and Holga

LDC_20170416_img200 — resting under a live tree, Ilford FP4, Minolta SRT 102

Ilford FP4, Minolta SRT 102

LDC_20170412_img180 — alien on the dune, Fuji Acros, Mamiya 645 1000s

Still (barely) upright

April 12, 2017April 12, 2017 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

LDC_20170412_img186 — one corner left, Fuji Neopan Acros, 100 ISO, Holga

There’s just a corner left standing after this winter. I’ve been watching this farmhouse in west Michigan deteriorate for decades. Really, for my entire life since it has been empty as long as I’ve known it.

I have always been fascinated by this house and I’ll mourn the day there’s nothing left to see, but until then I’ll keep photographing it so that I can hold the image of it and the stories I’ve created for it in my mind.

Pervasive fog

January 23, 2017 sumacandmilkweed9 Comments

We woke up to a fog yesterday that never diminished. It blanketed my riverside town and persisted even into the early hours of this morning. Today calls for more rain and fog, I guess the result of unseasonably warm January temperatures.

I don’t think I’ve touched my digital camera in more than a month now–maybe longer. While I did shoot a roll of black and white film yesterday, I wanted some images I could see right away, so my DSLR went into my bag. My friend Jane and I drove to some of our favorite local natural spots to wander, get muddy, laugh, see things through our foggy lenses.

Desolate dunes

December 12, 2016June 16, 2017 sumacandmilkweed4 Comments

There is something I love about being in a huge space all by myself.

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On Saturday I walked a short, wooded trail that opened up onto the Silver Lake dunes, not the spot where I usually go but an area closer to the lighthouse. The dune grass was prolific here and is a gorgeous warm, golden color right now–nothing like the vibrant green of midsummer. I thought it was a beautiful contrast to the sometimes stormy sky that was occasionally letting loose with lovely, light flakes of snow.

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From the top of the first dune I climbed, I was treated to these amazing vistas, Lake Michigan in the distance and rolling, grassy dune criss-crossed with paths, either made by humans or by the many resident deer. The clouds sometimes opened and the sun peeked through, lighting up changing sections of the dune before me.

I didn’t see another soul as I hiked toward the area where the dune buggies race all summer long. This is among the things that I love most–being the sole inhabitant of this spacious land, now filled with the natural sounds of wind through the dried grasses, tugging on the remaining leaves that crinkle and tap against dry branches, roaring lake in the distance. It’s exhilarating. I can be alone here for hours and never feel lonely.

How can you be lonely with the wind whispering love poems in your ear?

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Aside from the vistas that stretch out from atop a dune, there are low sections of trees and plants that love these sandy areas. And of course ghosts of the trees that once were. I’ll never get tired of seeing these, the trunks and former root structures of these formerly living trees. They’re majestic now, sun-bleached and wind-whipped and topsy-turvy. They tell stories. Tall tales.

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I love the changes in color, too. This low, earthy growth turns shades of gray and warm gold where in the summer it’s a lush, deep green. During my hike it held oak and poplar leaves from the nearby trees in its grasp, and tiny pockets of snow.

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Red stands out, and this red–some earthy growth both on the ground and on this stump–was easy to miss until I noticed it. And then it seemed to be everywhere.

And then camera batteries die and fingers and toes and noses get mighty cold, and it’s time to remember that you’re not part of the landscape here, and you must go back to a warm cottage and cement the sounds of the wind on the dune and the images of golden vistas and roots reaching skyward into your brain until the next venture.

Ah, outside

December 7, 2016 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

Sometimes it just takes a walk outside in the sunshine to set you straight again.

ldc_20161207_img_4534 — phragmites, bullrushes, marsh, sky

Even if it’s the kind of cold out that takes you a little bit by surprise, because after all you were just walking downtown a week ago without a hat or gloves or anything.

The kind of cold that on three hours of sleep doesn’t feel all that great and takes a little too long to recover from. That kind of cold.

But who’s complaining? The sun made a grand appearance today after what seemed weeks of grey. A cold wind blew, but look how majestic the grasses on the marsh look as they’re blowing?

I’ll take it.

October on film

November 5, 2016November 5, 2016 sumacandmilkweed10 Comments

Aside from the two rolls of purple film in October, I also ran a roll of Kodak Gold 400 and Agfa 200 through the Minolta SRT 102 and Pen EE3, respectively. Countryside, mid-October colors, the usual (for me) suspects. No edits, other than the addition of a watermark.

I’m still smitten with film. The planning, the composing an image, the waiting, the surprise. It just slows everything down in a super delicious way that I’m finding I’m really okay with.

ldc_20161026_77770002srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770003srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770004srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770012srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770015srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770016srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770019srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770022srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770026srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770030srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770032srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770033srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77770034srt102_kodakgc_400 ldc_20161026_77780007ee3_agfa_200 ldc_20161026_77780020ee3_agfa_200 ldc_20161026_77780022ee3_agfa_200 ldc_20161026_77780025ee3_agfa_200 ldc_20161026_77780039ee3_agfa_200

Coming to Terms with the Dead

October 18, 2016 sumacandmilkweed4 Comments

I nearly step on its body,
the small bird that the wave pushes rolling and tumbling ungracefully
as a watery offering toward my feet on the shore.

I see more as I walk, first five in close proximity
and then six, seven, nine, twelve dead birds in open shore-graves
until I can count no more and turn back to the cottage, weeping.

I recognize them as the swallows that nest in holes dug into the sandy cliffs
that form too close to the water, cliffs which were battered by yesterday’s storms
and the wild waves and wind that erode the shoreline.

I wonder if these dead are mourned—if the birds I see now
darting along the beach as I walk home are searching, frantic,
for the holes they built not long ago to nest their young?

My footprints disappear as quickly as I leave them,
the depressions in the sand fill instantly and without fanfare;
a reminder of my own impermanence and the lake’s dispassion.

There is no rescuing to be done;
I can pluck a struggling moth or two from death for today, and dry my tears.
The lake carries on.

More fungi everywhere

October 10, 2016June 16, 2017 sumacandmilkweed7 Comments

Total fungi-fest in the woods here (or is it fungus-fest?). Way more fungus afoot than there was when I shared images in my post about mushrooms on the last day of August.

Which is fantastic because it’s a nice little filler, considering the fall colors aren’t quite showing yet and there are hardly any more flowers still blooming aside from some chicory, a few straggler blooms of Queen Anne’s lace, some thistle, an occasional yellow wildflower. None of which I bothered to photograph yesterday, because, well, too many gorgeous mushrooms, you know?

I’m not usually here on the lake for more than a short weekend in this in-between stage, so it might really be the first time I’ve let myself wander aimlessly in the woods, no time frame or rush, seeking out mushrooms. A whole afternoon of it, in fact.

I never realized quite how much fungus happens in the woods right now. I mean, it’s everywhere. White, yellow, beige, pale salmon-y pink, red, brown, pearlescent, moldy-looking (for real, I came across one type that looked like it was covered in a white mold). Growing on trees, from the sandy ground, from moss, from life and from decay.

deshantzcook_20161009_IMG_2178 — coral-like fungus

It’s like a world that I bet plenty of people go their entire lives not knowing anything about. I’m so glad I get to see it.

I’m not going to attempt to identify any of these. I just like taking pictures of them. And looking at them in their natural habitat. And smelling them (they were particularly pungent yesterday).

deshantzcook_20161009_IMG_2104 — eyeballs*

And it’s interesting, but once you see one on the forest floor, usually there are tens, hundreds maybe, just nearby. Of the same variety and/or different varieties. And it’s easy to wander off the path as you see one just there, and then there, and then farther over there…

And then you look up and realize you have no idea where the path is and your heart starts to quicken just a little bit and then oh, nevermind, there’s the path right there. Not that you were concerned.**

Anyway, I know these woods, but I won’t pretend to know anything about mycology (except that mycology is the study of mushrooms).

So I’ll leave the identifying to people who know what they’re talking about, and hope you enjoy my photos of mushrooms in a western Michigan forest.***

*No, not really eyeballs.
**Maybe for a second.
***If you’re reading this and you know about these things, feel free to comment and identify any of these.

Urban wilds

October 5, 2016 sumacandmilkweed7 Comments

I used to be more of a city girl.

I’m finding now that even though I do love a city adventure, I really want to be outside. Not just outside, but preferably in nature, surrounded by growth and wind and water and wild (and yeah, bugs even).

deshantzcook_20161004_img_1790 — *“I knew it wasn’t important”* –unknown

So even when I am base-camped in urbanity I’m drawn to the wild areas. In the Detroit metro area, thankfully, there really are many.

When I’m not on the west side of Michigan I gravitate to this marsh, Pointe Mouillee State Game Area. It’s a game and nature preserve south of Detroit and encompassing some 5,000 acres, butted up against Lake Erie, and I love every bit of it.

deshantzcook_20161004_img_1847 — empty bottle on drainage pipe

My friend Jane and I ventured there last evening. There’s always something new to see (like one of the smaller parking lots, this time filled with discarded furniture in varying states of decay, a bed, used condoms–hey, urban nature isn’t always beautiful). And even when there’s nothing new, there are different things blooming or drying (depending on the season), different colors, different angles.

Even with the marshy smells here, and last night’s prolific mosquitos that only seemed to be biting me and not Jane, it was a nice break from the inside world of work and the concrete of my suburban neighborhood.