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iNaturalist Workshops, The High Line, Saturday September 25

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Updated 2021-09-25: Added Links and QR Codes to “Getting Started with iNaturalist”.

I’m pleased to announce that Saturday, September 25th, I will be leading two iNaturalist Workshops “in the field” at The High Line. This is one of several workshops, and many other events, they have scheduled for Insectageddon, which runs from 3-6pm that Saturday afternoon.

Self-Portrait of an iNaturalist as an old man

I’ll be doing two walks:

  • 3:15-4:15 pm
  • 4:45-5:45 pm

When not out on one of the walks, I’ll have a table in The High Line’s Chelsea Market Passage, between 15th and 16th Streets. Please sign up there for one of the two workshops, as space will be limited. Each walk will start out from that location.

iNaturalist Workshop
Hosted by Chris Kreussling, aka “Flatbush Gardener”
Join Chris Kreussling for a walk on the High Line to explore plant and insect interactions and learn about the citizen scientist observation gathering tool iNaturalist. Tours begin at 3:30 and 4:45; please sign up upon arrival at Chris’s table in Chelsea Market Passage. Chris is a Brooklyn naturalist and gardener specializing in gardening with native plants to create habitat for pollinators and other invertebrates.

Visiting the High Line

Note that there are weekend restrictions in place for visitors to The High Line. You must register for timed entry; pre-registration is highly recommended. The only weekend entrances open are at Gansevoort Street, 23rd Street, and 30th Street. 

Please give yourself plenty of time to get to my table in Chelse Market Passage for the start of the walk. The 14th Street entrance is exit-only on weekends. The closest weekend entrance is Gansevoort Street, at the corner of Washington Street, the southern end of The High Line. This entrance is just three blocks south of 14th Street.

Getting Started with iNaturalist

  1. Sign up at https://www.inaturalist.org/signup

     

    • You must be 13 or older.
    • You can link to your existing social media account, such as Twitter or Facebook
    • If you don’t have an existing social media account you want to link to, you can create a new account with a valid email address
  2. If you have existing photos you want to identify, you can begin uploading them to iNaturalist through your Web browser.
  3. Recommended: Also install the iNaturalist app on your Android phone or iPhone or other Apple device. Be sure to link it to the account you just created. You can then take photos on your phone and upload them directly to iNaturalist.

    Android:
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.inaturalist.android

    Apple/iPhone:
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inaturalist/id421397028?mt=8

     

Related Content

Native Pollinator Walks, Wave Hill, Sunday, June 27, 2021-06-14
Pollinator Safari: Urban Insect Gardening with Native Plants, 2019-06-23
NYC Wildflower Week  Tour of my Gardens, 2016-05-15
NYC Wildflower Week Pollinator Safari of my Gardens, 2014-06-21

Links

iNaturalist

Getting Started

Grief & Gardening: 20 Years

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Written spontaneously as a Twitter thread, and transcribed to this blog post.

Anti-war graffiti on base of statue, Union Square Park, September 24, 2001 

I’m avoiding the news today. As well as the retraumatizing snuff porn documentaries. I’ve written about all of it before. I don’t feel the need to day to write any more. I wrote this 15 years ago about Anniversaries, my first “Grief & Gardening” post:

The ways we observe anniversaries is arbitrary. For example, I was shocked to tears for weeks by the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, which killed 100 times more people than Katrina [1st Anniversary]. The earthquake which precipitated it left the entire planet ringing like a bell. The observation of “25 Years of AIDS” at this year’s World AIDS Congress is pinned only to the first official report of a cluster of unusual deaths by the Centers for Disease Control in June of 1981. The timelines of epidemics don’t follow our categorizations of them.
Grief & Gardening #1: 1, 5 and 25, 2006-09-04


Fallen 

At the time, I didn’t have the blog yet. I wrote a lot in my journal. I transcribed some of it to back-dated blog posts. This was the first:

Like an earthquake, the initial shocks have affected each of us differently, and to different degrees. The aftershocks will continue for months. The effects will ripple out for decades. If I believed there was anyone to listen, let alone, answer, I would pray that each of us gets whatever we need to come through healthy and whole. I would pray that, individually and collectively, we respond to this violence with compassion, wisdom, courage and strength.
This Week in History, 2001-09-14

Roadside Sentiment, Hudson, New York, September 16, 2001 

The second back-dated blog post transcribes a letter I wrote to Rev. Joanna Tipple, then pastor of the Copake, NY church, which had been my husband’s church when he was growing up:

Again, and still, horrors are committed in the name of God. A month ago, more than five thousand people lost their lives in a smoking crater, killed in the name of God. It makes no difference to me whether the banner reads “Holy War” or “God Bless America.” This crisis has brought out both the best and worst in people. Like any tool, the idea of God is used for evil as well as good. Then what good is God?
Without God

Grieving Angel I worked in downtown Manhattan for 35 years before retiring two months ago. As the 5th Anniversary approached, Ground Zero was still just that, a wound. Everywhere were commemorative signs and symbols. You could feel it just walking around.

I have been feeling this one, the 5th anniversary of 9/11. The city is feeling it, too. Peoples’ grief is closer to the surface, more accessible. Mine certainly is. I’ve also been remembering a lot of what it was like in the city right after. There are reminders of it everywhere, on the news, in the papers, special exhibits and events, and especially, at Ground Zero.
Grief & Gardening #2: Five Years After, “Ths Transetorey Life”, 2006-09-09

Haddadada
I moved to NYC, to the East Village, in 1979. Though I survived, many did not. It’s why grief and loss pervade my writing, including my blog. I wrote this in 2007, after learning of the death, from AIDS, of yet another of my last lovers.

Reminders of the upcoming 6th Anniversary of 9/11 are piling up. My first day back at work from my [recent] trip, I walked by the Deutsche Bank building – ruined in the attacks, condemned, and only now being dismantled – where two firefighters had lost their lives the day before. I could see the blackened scaffolding and walls of the building. I smelled the smoke, startled for a few minutes, taken back to the months after the attacks, when the fires burned for months, when we walked every day through the crematory of downtown Manhattan.
In the Shadow (How shall my heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?), 2007-08-08

Bulldog 6
On the 7th Anniversary, I wrote my name on a beam that was intended to become part of the Memorial at Ground Zero. I was briefly interviewed by a local radio reporter from 1010WINS. I met a good dog.

Flags, flags, flags … flags waving everywhere. I understand the impulse, yet I don’t feel it as a defiant gesture. It feels like a concession to me. That we have no greater symbol than our nation’s flag makes me sad. What evil has been committed in the name of that flag?
Seven years, 2008-09-10

Skytop and tower, Mohonk, New York, September 10, 2001
On the 9th Anniversary, with some perspective of years, I was able to write coherently about what our experience had been that day, that week. I worked downtown, through the months of smoke and ash that followed. And year after year in NYC.

We decided to hold to our vacation plans for the week, somber though it was. There was nothing we could do back home. My workplace downtown, blocks from Ground Zero, would not reopen for two weeks. Reminders met us everywhere we went. And everywhere we went, we were ambassadors for New York City. When we told people where we were from, as often as not, they broke down crying. We were their reminders.
Grief & Gardening: Nine Years, 2010-09-11

St. Paul's Enshrouded
I avoid “ticker tape” parades.

The gutters were thick with shreds of paper, and ash, for weeks and months after 9/11. The gray ash was the last to go. Living and working in downtown after 9/11 was being in a crematorium.
Grief and Gardening: Remains of the Day, 2019-07-11

So, I don’t feel a need to write anything new today. I’m going to spend the day away from television, and news, and commemorations. I will instead hug my husband, squish our cats, and spend time in the garden photographing bugs, observing and celebrating the diversity of life. *Agapostemon* on *Pycnanthemum muticum* in front of my garage, August 2021

Related Content

In chronological order. 2001-09-14: This Week in History
2001-10-15: Without God
2006-09-04: Grief & Gardening #1: 1, 5 and 25
2006-09-09: Grief & Gardening #2: Five Years After, “Ths Transetorey Life”
2007-08-08: In the Shadow (How shall my heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?)
2008-09-10: Seven years
2010-09-11: Grief & Gardening: Nine Years
2019-07-11: Grief and Gardening: Remains of the Day

2021-09-11: Twitter thread

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Native Pollinator Walks, Wave Hill, Sunday, June 27

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Update, 2021-06-23: These walks are now FREE with your admission to Wave Hill! Pre-registration is no longer required, but space is limited. Register on-site, the day of the walks, at the Perkins Visitor Center.

—–

I’m proud to announce that Sunday, June 27th, I will be leading two Native Pollinator Walks at Wave Hill in the Bronx. This is one of several events they have scheduled for their Native Pollinators Day, at the end of Pollinator Week.

Me hosting the NYCWW Pollinator Week Safari in my Front Yard, June 2014. Photo: Alan Riback

I’ll be doing two walks:

FREE with your admission admission to Wave Hill’s grounds.

Flowers attract the attention of both human and animal visitors. Honeybees, bumblebees, and butterflies are easily spotted in the garden but solitary bees, beetles, and other native pollinators are often overlooked. Learn about pollination and observe native pollinators busy at work in the garden with naturalist and gardener Chris Kreussling. Ages 10 and older welcome with an adult. Native Pollinators Day event.

Registration required, onsite on the day of the walk, at the Perkins Visitor Center. Space is limited. Questions? Please email us at information@wavehill.org or call 718.549.3200 x251.

Related Content

NYC Wildflower Week Pollinator Safari of my Gardens, 2014-06-21

Links

Native Pollinators Day, Wave Hill

NYC Regional Native Plant Sales, Spring-Summer 2021

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2021-06-09: Added Tufts Pollinator Initiative Native Plant Sale
2021-03-27: Initial listing. I will continue to update this throughout the season as I learn of more events.

This season’s native plant sales in and around New York City. Events are listed by date. For year-round sources of native plants, see Sources for Native Plants.

Native Plant Acquisitions, Gowanus Canal Conservancy Plant Sale, April 2018

Tufts Pollinator Initiative – Native Plant Sale

  • Date: Sunday, June 20th (start of Pollinator Week) – Rain Date Sunday, June 27th
  • Time: 9am – 4pm
  • Address: 574 Boston Avenue, Medford, Massachusetts

Past Events

Native Plant Center at Westchester Community College

DEADLINE FOR ORDERING: March 31
  • Pre-order only
  • Minimum order $200
  • They will schedule your pickup for mid-May

NJ Pinelands Preservation Alliance Online Native Plant Sale

https://pinelandsalliance.org/explore-the-pinelands/pinelands-events-and-programs/spring-native-plant-sales/

  • Virtual Native Plant Sale from April 22nd to April 28th
  • Plant sales managed by Pinelands Direct
  • Curbside pickups at Pinelands Direct
  • Smaller items can be directly shipped

Gowanus Canal Conservancy, Brooklyn

  • Saturday, April 24th, 10:30am – 1:30pm
  • Saturday, May 8th, 10:30am – 1:30pm
  • Saturday, May 22nd, 2:00pm – 5:00pm

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Links

Recipe: Maple Sugar Cookies

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2021-12-13: Updated with tweaks from my latest batch, the best yet!
I also added weight equivalents for most of the ingredients.

I also added some notes for what, if anything, to adjust when doubling the recipe, which is what I usually do for giving away cookies during the holidays.

Leaves of Acer saccharum, sugar maple, Inwood Hill Park, November 2015

Living in New York City most of my life, I’m not in what one would think of as “maple country”. But the northeast is rich with sugarbushes – the managed groves and forests of maple trees from which sap is harvested and boiled down to make this nectar of the gods. And nearly every NYC Greenmarket (farmers’ market) has at least one farmer that sells maple syrup and other maple prodcuts, even if it’s not their primary business.

The key ingredient to this recipe is DARK maple syrup. If you only have regular/light maple syrup, to keep the mapley flavor, you can use that and add 1/8 teaspoon of real maple flavoring, available from specialty baking suppliers.

The extra spices are optional. I found the ginger and cloves enhance the mapleness of these cookies.

Ingredients

Double, as needed. Do not attempt to halve this recipe; it calls for one egg.

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted (“sweet”) butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1/2 cup vegetable shortening, softened to room temperature
  • 1 cup (213 grams) dark brown sugar
  • 1 cup (312g) DARK maple syrup
  • 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract (I really like vanilla. Original recipe calls for 1 teaspoon)
  • Optional: 1/8 teaspoon real maple flavor, either to make up for lack of dark maple syrup, or to boost the flavor
  • Optional: ¼ teaspoon ginger
  • Optional: 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
  • Optional: ½ teaspoon salt (I nearly always omit this from my baking. These cookies don’t need it.)
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 4 cups (480g) pastry flour, or pastry blend flour, sifted to remove lumps.
  • Optional: maple sugar or white granulated sugar, for decoration

Preparing the Dough

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.
  2. Add the maple syrup, vanilla, and your chosen flavorings.
  3. Scrap down the bowl, blend thoroughly, and taste to adjust, as needed.
  4. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
  5. Add the baking soda and mix thoroughly.
  6. Add the flour gradually, blending at slower speed, until all flecks of flour are gone. 

Chill the Dough

This is a very soft dough. Chill the dough, covered tightly to keep out air, for at least two hours. It’s even better overnight.

Baking

  1. Preheat the oven to 375F. 
  2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  3. Scoop out tablespoon sized balls of dough.
  4. If you want, roll them in the sugar.
  5. Set them far apart on the cookie sheet. They will spread.
  6. Bake for 11 minutes.
  7. Let the cookies cool on the sheet until they are firm enough to remove.

Maple Sugar Cookies, November 2020

Notes and Tips

  • You can use all butter, if you don’t have shortening, or prefer not to use it. This is already a very soft dough, so you may need to use less maple syrup to compensate for the increased moisture from the butter.
  • If you double the recipe, 2T = 1/8C for the vanilla.
  • Real/natural maple flavor can be over-powering. So taste the batter before adding the eggs, and adjust as needed. Even when doubling the recipe, 1/8 teaspoon is likely enough.
  • The original recipe called for 2 teaspoons of baking soda, and the cookies came out more poofey/cakey than sugary/crispy. If you prefer your cookies that way, you may want to experiment with increasing the baking soda by 1/2 teaspoon.
  • This comes out as such a soft dough, it can be difficult to work with when forming the cookies. I want to try substituing some of the brown sugar with maple sugar. I would probably need to also substitute some of the baking soda with baking powder to compensate for the reduced acid.
  • Pastry flour has a lower gluten content than others and makes for a more tender cookie.You can use all-purpose white flour, or even white whole wheat flour, instead.

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This recipe is adapted from “Maple Cookies” from AllRecipes.

Extinct Plants of northern North America 2020

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Wanna know what's really scary? Extinction. #ExtinctSymbol #Resist

As in past years, I’m limiting this list to northern North America for two reasons:

  1. Restricting this list geographically is in keeping with my specialization in plants native to northeastern North America.
  2. There are many more tropical plants, and plant extinctions, than I can manage.

In past years, I’ve only been able to find records for 6 plant species that have gone extinct. This year’s list is a major update: 59 extinctions, and 7 extinct in the wild. This is largely due to the research presented in this August 2020 paper:

Vascular plant extinction in the continental United States and Canada

The summary is terse, and grim:

Given the paucity of plant surveys in many areas, particularly prior to European settlement, the actual extinction rate of vascular plants is undoubtedly much higher than indicated here.

Note that they only examined vascular plants. So their list excludes Neomacounia nitida, Macoun’s shining moss. It remains on the full list, below.
Because of the large number of added species, and sun-species taxa, I’ve highlighted those from past years with an asterisk *. Everything else I added this year. If you have additions or corrections to this list, please let me know, and provide a link which I can research.

Extinct

Extinct in the wild (IUCN Red List code EW)

  • Arctostaphylos franciscana, Central Coast, San Francisco County, California. Last observed in the wild 2009
  • Crataegus delawarensis, Delaware, 1903
  • Crataegus fecunda, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, 1930s
  • Crataegus lanuginosa, Webb City, Jasper County, Missouri, 1957
  • Euonymous atropurpurea var. cheatumii, Dallas County, Texas, 1944
  • * Franklinia alatamaha, Franklin Tree
  • Prunus maritima var. gravesii, beach plum, groton, New London County, Connecticut, 2000

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Links

Vascular plant extinction in the continental United States and Canada, 2020-08-20, Authors: Wesley M. Knapp, Anne Frances, Reed Noss, Robert F. C. Naczi, Alan Weakley, George D. Gann, Bruce G. Baldwin, James Miller, Patrick McIntyre, Brent D. Mishler, Gerry Moore, Richard G. Olmstead, Anna Strong, Kathryn Kennedy, Bonnie Heidel, Daniel Gluesenkamp

Mary Kreussling, 1931-2020

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If you want to read these in sequence:
2020-09-23: The Night’s Watch
2020-09-25: Waking Up From Death 
2020-09-28: The Last Goodbyes

My Mother's Deathbed

My mother passed away peacefully at home this morning around 5:30 am, Eastern Time. She’d been in home hospice for the past week. She’d been living at home with my sister since 2009, where she moved after our father passed away. She was 89 years old.

She was born with cerebral palsy. Despite her disability, she worked as a legal secretary, typing, and taking shorthand dictation, for much of her life. Taking after her mother, she enjoyed sewing throughout most of her life. In retirement, she took up weaving, and created many beautiful works which her family continues to enjoy.

She and our father were active volunteers in many community organizations everywhere they lived, including various community theater groups in Florida and New York, and the Mineral and Lapidary Museum of Henderson County in North Carolina, where they retired.

She was charming, and made friends easily. Stories abound of how she befriended strangers, whether they be people waiting on line with her, wrong numbers at our home, or truckers on the Long Island Expressway. She will be dearly missed by all who knew her.

No immediate service or memorial is planned.  In keeping with her wishes, her remains will be cremated, to be scattered with those of her husband at a future date. The family will plan an online celebration of life sometime in the future.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be sent to your state or local chapter of United Cerebral Palsy (UCP), https://ucp.org/find-us/

Related Content

2020-09-28: The Last Goodbyes
2020-09-25: Waking Up From Death 
2020-09-23: The Night’s Watch

Links

The Last Goodbyes

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20200926_213307

2020-09-26 21:50

I said my last goodbye to my mother today. I don’t think she heard me. I whispered, because I didn’t want to disturb her, and she’s hard of hearing as it is.

I don’t expect her to rally again. I don’t expect any more lucid minutes, or moments. I believe our mother is gone, but her body doesn’t know it yet.

The only time today she exhibited any arousal – not even awake, really – was when the home health aide came this morning and we changed her. She only accepted two syringes of thickened cranberry juice, and waved off the rest. She didn’t even wince when we pulled her higher up on the mattress, an act which was causing her excruciating pain just a few days ago.

She fell asleep after that. She slept all day. She still sleeps now. Her breath is shallow, but easy and regular.

It’s her third day not eating.

We’re just waiting, now.

2020-09-28, 22:00

It’s two days later. Five days since she’s eaten anything. It’s now been a week since we officially entered hospice. We are still just waiting.

She sleeps. She no longer has any even semi-conscious moments. Mornings had been the worst time for her pain. We’re still only moving her once each morning to change out her incontinence supports and make sure she’s not developing any compression injuries, i.e. “bedsores”. During this morning’s changeout, she had no reaction. She is gone. Her body just hasn’t caught up.

Goodbye #2

Still, I gave her another goodbye this evening. I held her arm and hand, the “bad” one, on the right side of her body, affected most by the cerebral palsy she was born with. Among other things, I said her hand was beautiful to me, that it always was. This goodbye was less tearful than Saturday’s. There is some acceptance in me, yes, but also I’m just exhausted.

When my father was dying, they drew up reciprocal documents naming each other as health care proxies, powers of attorney, and estate executors. When my father died, those roles and responsibilities transferred to me. There are some things we can do beforehand. Since my mother is no longer responsive, and can no longer speak for herself, I’m acting in accordance with her wishes.

We “check on her” adhoc, or whenever we pass by the room where she’s setup. She’s no longer restless or agitated in sleep, which is good. So for me, euphemistically “checking on her” means first looking to see if she’s (still) breathing. If so, I’ll check her temperature at her forehead, her hands, her feet, and adjust her covers accordingly. If her breathing is a bit labored, I may lower the head of the bed even further to reduce compression on her diaphragm.

20200926_214340

At some point – soon, I hope – one of us will walk in on her and she will no longer be breathing. Whoever finds her, son or daughter, will tell the other. We will tear down the dams and release the rivers of grief we’ve been holding back. We will sob and weep, wordlessly holding each other, now just the two of us left in our little family. When we’re ready, I’ll start making the phone calls that will set us on our journey away from our mother.

I’ve already had the last conversation I will ever have with my mother. I’ve said all the goodbyes I can. I just want this part to be over.

Related Content

2020-09-25: Waking Up From Death 

2020-09-23: The Night’s Watch

Links

Waking Up From Death

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Goodbye #2

We’re nearing the end. Mom hasn’t eaten anything, not even a popsicle, in two days. The “comfort” drugs are powerful, blunt instruments that can only do so much to relieve her pain and discomfort. She is sleeping more and more. Her breath is shallow, but – thankfully – untroubled right now.

This morning, we got to have a few lucid minutes with her, before she fell back asleep. Cass – her granddaughter, my niece – and I were with her in the room. She said to us: “It feels like I keep waking up from death.” A pause, then “It feels weird”. “I bet it does!” I replied. “Does that make sense?” she asked. “Yes,” I answered. Then she began to say “But you …” and dismissed what she was going to say. I understood it as “You don’t believe in anything” as I’m atheist.

I do believe in the sacredness of this time, this experience. This morning’s conversation, however brief, was a blessing. There are no magic spirits behind any of this. It’s what we bring of ourselves to it.

Wishing that this would end soon arises from both kindness and selfishness. They coexist in us. There is so much else going on around me and my family right now, I don’t know how we endure it. Not to mention the state of the world, the peril we face in this country. But endure we must.

I am tired. I need to sleep. I hate the idea of leaving my mother alone in this room. I don’t want her to wake up and see there’s no one here. But that’s an unrealistic fear. She is sleeping peacefully right now, and most likely will for hours. I will be up hours before we get her up in the morning to change her.

I just want one of us to be with her when she passes. When she no longer wakes from her last death.

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