Laine's Blog, Thinking Out Loud

The Right Time for the Harvest

 

 

 

 

 

In wine growing countries the fall is a time of great excitement as the grapes approach the time for harvesting. Each bunch of grapes swells with juice produced from the long summer days of sunshine and rain.

 

The vineyard owner watches the grapes carefully to be ready for that time of optimal ripeness. Everything waits its appointed time, especially the harvest. You do not want to pick too soon and lose one scintilla of flavor or depth and you don’t want to pick too late and find you have lost some of your perfect grapes.

 

And like most things, the whole issue of ripeness has its exceptions too. Some grapes are intentionally left on the vine to await the first freeze. Those wines are called ice wines and are sweet and concentrated in flavor as the water in the grape has been lost to the freeze leaving only the delicious pulp. In France some desert wines are allowed to partially suffer what they call the “noble rot,” which makes the grapes shrivel and concentrate inside. Sauterne is one such wine.

 

Keep an open mind about expectations and judging. Even if a thing or situation or person is not perfect, it or he may very well turn out to be perfect in a completely different delightful and unexpected way. 

 

 

 

Photo by guest blogger Sue Harrison, location Dordogne region of France.

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Hidden Tracks on the High Line

 

 

 

 

In downtown New York City’s far west side there used to be a raised train track for the trains delivering or picking up meat and produce. Completed in 1934, it replaced a former street level train that had been the cause of many fatal accidents. So many that the city hired “cowboys” to ride horses in front on the trains and wave flags to warn cars and pedestrians.

 

When the new, elevated High Line railway was constructed it ran through the middle of blocks and directly through buildings instead of along the road. This let the trains stop inside the buildings they were delivering to and from. But as years passed trucking became a better shipping option and the number of trains decreased until the line was abandoned. The last cargo was three railcars of frozen turkeys in 1980.

 

But the High Line wasn’t finished. Parts were torn down and sold but much of the line remained like a largely unnoticed specter floating over busy lower Manhattan. Despite efforts to tear it all down, a group of devoted fans managed to finally convince the city in 2004 to turn it into a park.

 

Currently it runs about a mile, starting three blocks below 14^th Street at Gansevoort Street and ending at 30^th Street but another section north of that is in the works for the future. 

 

New Yorkers and visitors walk along pathways that sometimes include the rails of the former tracks and sometimes the rails run alongside with trees and flowers muscling into the rocks and wooden ties.

 

Change is inevitable. We never know what it will be. Sometimes a thing can look so permanent, like a big set of railroad tracks but it takes very little time for nature to take over. Other times things seem abandoned and cast aside but with enough care they turn into something else.

 

Take nothing for granted. Things may not be what they appear to be and tomorrow they may be completely different.

 

 

 

 

Photo by guest blogger Sue Harrison, location NYC.

 

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Frangipani — It’s all about the smell

 

 

 

 

What an odd plant the frangipani. It seems backward in making flowers before leaves but it seems to work.

 

Also known as plumeria it has long pointed oval-shaped leaves and flowers of delicate beauty and intense scent. It grows in tropical and subtropical areas including parts of Florida.

 

Out of season the plumeria is like a child’s drawing of a tree, a trunk and several limbs all the same size. Then the flowers and a few leaves come bursting from all over the barren trunks. And after most of the blooming is done a big crop of leaves finally fills in the tree.

 

The flowers are used to make perfume and incense. In Hawaii they are strung together to form beautiful leis and women traditionally wear one behind their left ear to show they are taken and behind the right ear if looking for love.

 

The flowers’ scent has a practical use. It lures the Sphinx moth to it for pollination. There is no nectar but the moth doesn’t know that and goes from flower to flower searching for that succulent sip of sweetness that never materializes. Hopefully the moth has other places to dine.

 

Unlike the moth, we require no nectar, we just can enjoy the beautiful flowers and heavenly scent they send wafting through the air.

 

 

 

 

Photo by guest blogger Sue Harrison 

 

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The Resurrection Fern

 

 

 

If you look up into the sprawling limbs of the big oaks in north Florida you will see something that looks like dried up ferns. And in fact, that’s what they are. But these are not regular ferns, these are resurrection ferns.

 

It’s an epiphytic plant, one that attaches to another plant and takes its nutrients directly from the air and any rain that falls on it. You can find this fern as far north as Delaware and as far west as Texas.

 

What is amazing about them is that when there is no rain, instead of dying like most plants do they just curl up and wait. They turn brown and roll their fronds ups looking as if they have lost the battle. But give them rain, just a little bit, and they uncurl and turn vibrant green again. 

 

Most plants die when they lose between 8 and 12% of their water. The resurrection fern can lose 97% of its water and survive. It is said, though who knows if it’s true, that the resurrection fern can go 100 years without water and spring back to life after one brief shower.

 

Remember, when life puts you through a hard dry period that everything special about you is still there, just under the surface. All you need is a little rain and you will unfurl and stand tall in the wind again. 

 

 

 

Photo by guest blogger Sue Harrison

 

 

Waiting for the Dawn

 

 

 

 

 

 

All across south Florida large flocks of ibis, like their cousins around the world, come home at sunset to nest in the same trees. During the night they stay low on the branches, hidden from hawks and other predators. But as dawn approaches they move ever higher in the trees until finally, backlit by the pale pearl wash of imminent sunrise they appear as silhouettes perched on impossibly thin branches.

 

When the sun crosses the horizon and the light is at just the right spot, and only they know when that is, the birds lift their ungainly selves into the air and fly together in a single direction. Usually one bird jumps into flight and within seconds, dozens or hundreds are right behind it.

 

They are going to feed but who knows how they decide which way all of them are going to go each day? Do they return to where they were the day before and slowly work their way across the landscape or, what?

 

The ancient Egyptians fashioned their god, Thoth after the ibis. Thoth was responsible for writing, mathematics, measurement, the moon, magic and time. As if proving the Egyptians were right, the ibis still knows the exact moment to begin and end the day. 

 

 

 

Photo by guest blogger Sue Harrison, taken in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

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Sunrise in the Everglades

 

 

 

When the sun rises over the Everglades it seems to explode out of the blackness of night. As it lifts above the soft sawgrass horizon birds burst out of rest and into the sky. Every winged creature seems to have someplace to go and they head off toward it.

 

In the water, turtles look for logs to crawl up onto to take in some of the sun’s heat. Gators do the same thing a little later on. First they float like nearly submerged logs and then they raise themselves up on their short legs and find a nice muddy bank to stretch out on.

 

Fish start working the surface of the water and snakes can be found on low hanging branches or undulating their way across the canals.

 

There is something about the coming of the light and the dying of the light that each of us responds to in an almost primal fashion. When the sun goes down we know it will come back but that makes it no less delightful when it does.

 

Every day is like the first day and when the sun comes up, life is waiting to begin anew.

 

 

 

Photo by guest blogger Sue Harrison, location Everglades, Florida

The Pollarded Trees Along the Walk

 

 

Since medieval times European farmers have pollarded their trees. That means cut all the branches off and leave stubs. They harvested tops of their trees for fodder and for the wood. The tree looks nude and if one can give it a human emotion, forlorn.

 

Sounds terrible but come the spring the tree throws out a huge array of branches from the end of each stub like a bouquet of flowers in a vase. It seems a tree can be pollarded for many years without lasting harm and in fact often live longer than untouched trees.

 

Now trees are pollarded more for a decorative effect and they form lollipops along side country roads and arches over walkways in the park.

 

But what comes to mind for me is that an event that seems terrible when it happens turns out to do nothing but make the tree stronger, more beautiful and more long lasting. Some of those difficult times we weather in life do exactly the same for us.

 

 

 

Photo by Guest Blogger Sue Harrison, location Sarlat, France. 

Consider the Starfish

 

 

They don’t call them starfish anymore. They are sea stars now but whatever you call them there is hardly anyone who can see one without smiling and pointing.

                                                                          

Why do we love them so much? They are pretty and come in so many colors but it must be more than just a pretty face. Do they remind us of stars in the sky? — I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight?  Can they make wishes come true?

 

Do they remind us of ourselves? Arms and legs and torso with a little head?

 

Most of them have five legs but some have more. And almost all of them can regenerate a leg if one is damaged. Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s the idea that something shaped like us can replace a missing part.

 

And in truth, that’s what we do when we heal from pain, especially emotional pain, we slowly replace a missing piece of happiness. Just like the starfish.

 

 

Photo by guest blogger Sue Harrison, location Key Largo, Florida.    

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The Staircase

 

 

We rarely think about stairs. We run up and down them and pay little attention to them. But when we encounter a stone staircase in a 12^th century building we do stop to notice how different they are from the ones we are used to seeing.

 

The staircase in the picture is in a tiny town called Sarlat in the southwestern part of France. The building has had many uses but now the town has turned the upper floor into a series of intimate art galleries. There is only a small sign with an arrow pointing up outside the door and once inside you face these steep winding stairs.

 

At the top the landing opens up and several French artists are working on their watercolors and landscapes and each stops and greets you with a cheery, “Bon Jour,” and a smile.

 

Later, when you leave, you go back down the stairs and take the time to notice that each of the stair treads is worn away into a gentle dip in the middle from the thousands of feet that have gone up and down over the hundreds of years.

 

But far from looking damaged they just look often used and well loved. People are like stairs, they get older and parts get worn. And like a staircase leading to a welcoming place, when a person has been a path of love, their dips and ridges only make us smile and love them more. 

 

 

 

Photo Sue Harrison, location Sarlat, France.

Vacating...

 

 

Where's Laine?

 

I don't know.

 

Maybe she's hungry.

 

Did you say Hungary?

 

No, I said hungry.

 

Oh. Why?

 

I don't know!

 

 

 

 

Laine's Blog will be shaken and stirred for the next couple of weeks, with some help from guest blogger, Sue Harrison and some repeats from the archives. Have a great few weeks and be back before you know it!

 

 

Empty Bucket

 

 

 

Life is a big empty bucket. That is not a bad thing. It just means there is always space to add more, to gather in what the world has to offer.

That doesn't mean driving to another lake everyday to see if there is some water. It may just mean putting the bucket out to let it fill with sweet rain. 

An empty bucket can be a drum or a silly hat or the place for your most precious treasure. That is the beauty of your empty bucket, it is yours and yours alone. We all have one but not all of us have learned to understand that empty is just a place for full to come and live.

 

 

Family photo © courtesy guest blogger Sue Harrison, somewhere in the great southwest desert.