Strawberry Bush, Euonymus americanus

This plant is known as “hearts-a-burstin'” down south.  Here’s a quote from “Good Houses,” by Athens singer-songwriter Madeline:

Good endless surprises.
Good reasons for waking.
Good friends are good family
with hearts over flowing
from kindness from strangers.
The will to survive. Continue reading →

American Beech, Fagus grandifolia

Two Yellow Leaves

by Erinn Batykefer

October has slicked the mirror-flat rivers with yellow

leaves.  We pull them from the current

and mark time: the color of my infant skin under a bili light;

a dozen July apples carried to the kitchen

in your shirt, their yellow sugar slick on a serrated knife.

I see the high sun snapping against sheets on the line,

my hipbones pressing out and opening late one summer,

the yellow outline of bone under skin.

I see here: the 16th Street Bridge flinging skeins of yellow iron

over the flood-ochered Allegheny, this morning’s diner-

on an edge of light as blinding autumn flutters

through the poplars’ paper-coin leaves.  My leaf-shaped heart

welling up through the river, yellow.

Narrow Leaf Cattail, Typha angustifolia

Vegan cattail recipes:

Cattail-Wild Rice Pilaf

This recipe can be made with brown rice, but the wild rice adds a special dimension to it.

1 cup dry wild rice (4 cups cooked)
2 Tbsp sesame oil
½ cup chopped green onion
2 cups cattail shoots, sliced (about 30 cattails)
2 tsp salt
½ cup slivered almonds
1. Cook the wild rice until tender.
2. Sautee onion and cattail shoots in sesame oil until tender and translucent.
3. Mix the rice and the sautéd cattail shoots and onion together.
4. Add salt and slivered almonds.
5. Serve hot.

Source: http://wildfoodplants.com

Cattail Wild-Rice Soup

1 cup dry wild rice (4 cups cooked)

2 Tbsp sesame oil

 

½ cup chopped green onion

 

2 cups cattail shoots, sliced (about 30 cattails)

 

2 tsp salt

1. Cook the wild rice until tender.
2. In a heavy-bottomed soup pot sauté onion and cattail shoots in sesame oil until tender and translucent.
3. Add the cooked wild rice, salt and 4 cups of chicken broth or other soup stock of choice.
4. Simmer together for 15-20 minutes and serve.

Source: http://cattails.info/Cattail_Recipe.html

 

 

Saw Palmetto, Serenoa repens

The trail beyond the saw palmetto leads to a secret skate spot we frequented as kids called the “Indy Wall.”

It’s an old concrete drainage ditch with seven foot banks and a tight four feet of flat bottom.

Now long faded, the first piece of graffiti was a large Independent Truck Company symbol on the far wall.

With two skateparks in the county, once treasured spots like these are now mostly neglected.

Crooked River State Park

I knew a girl who spent the first few years of her life on Cumberland Island among the dunes and mangle of maritime forest.  On our first visit to the island together, she showed me how to eat saw palmetto.  Grab ahold of the center-most spike of a young plant and give it a tug.  The soft, lower few inches taste a bit like heart of palm.

The USS George Bancroft is a decommissioned nuclear submarine now half-submerged in front of the main (Franklin) gate of Kings Bay Naval Base.  At the age of eleven, I begged my dad one day to let me join a raucous group of Greenpeace activists and Hare Krishnas in the same spot.  Today children climb on the US monument to mass murder.

Red Bougainvillea, Bougainvillea glabra

St Marys, Georgia

Elqui Valley, Chile

This bougainvillea adorned balcony in Santiago’s Barrio Bellavista rests around the corner from “La Chascona,” Pablo Neruda’s home named for his lover and third wife, Matilde Urrutia.  The name means “the uncombed.”

Street art surrounds the curious homes in one of Santiago’s most bohemian enclaves.

 

In the center of Santiago, some college kids spent an afternoon of their winter break giving away free hugs, or “abrazos gratis.”  In stark contrast to the youthful positivity, the man standing next to his bike was prosthelytizing about brimstone and hellfire, and the second coming of Jesus.

At times it was safer to pull out a handheld recorder, than a bulky camera that could easily get snatched.  Listen to a stroll through the heart of Santiago:

 

Later, we came across a blind couple and their young daughter singing for change.  The girl sat on the ground between her mother’s legs.  Listen below:


Air Plants, Epiphytes

 

Epiphytic plants obtain water and nutrients from the air.  They use other plants or structures, such as fences, for support.

Oconee National Forest

Oak Grove Cemetery, St Marys, Georgia

White Trail, State Botanical Gardens of Georgia

Pink Wood Sorrel, Oxalis crassipes

Until now, I never associated shamrocks with flowers.

While enjoying a bowl of spicy vegan chili, I unexpectedly caught some live Irish music this afternoon at The Globe.  Around four o’clock, a group of grey haired men lugging instruments began filing in and shuffling furniture, while forming a circle of chairs around a central microphone attached to a small black monitor.  Initially there were seven: two guitars, one accordion, two violins, a mandolin, and a slight woman with a small harp. Luckily, I had my recorder with me, so I sampled their set.  I chose not to edit background noise/conversation, as it was part of the experience.  Listen to the first two songs below.

In the middle of the third song, a woman in a purple hoodie walked in carrying a soft, violet dulcimer case.  A man with a mustache and a violin followed.  Closest to the musicians sat a group of five children under three feet tall.  One fellow in Superman pajamas struggled to get situated in a rocking chair, and as the musicians played, he rocked back and forth to the rhythm. To listen to a couple songs including the dulcimer, click below.