Happy Imbolc (Groundhog Day) 2010

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Update, 2010-02-02: Swing, and a miss. It’s overcast this morning. The sun is up, and visible over the rooftops, but no shadows. Spring will arrive on time! (Oh, and my neighbor’s Snowdrops are up, if not yet in bloom.)

If the National Weather Service forecast for tomorrow morning is correct on this point, the sky will be clear for dawn in Flatbush. Flatbush Fluffy, the resident Marmota monax, will see his shadow, promising six more weeks of Winter.

Flatbush Fluffy

Groundhog Day, celebrated on February 2, has its roots in an ancient Celtic celebration called Imbolog [Wikipedia: Imbolc]. The date is one of the four cross-quarter days of the year, the midpoints between the spring and fall equinoxes and the summer and winter solstice.
– NOBLE Web: Groundhog Day

The groundhog, Marmota monax, also known as a woodchuck, groundhog, or whistlepig, is the largest species of marmot in the world.

Related posts

2009
2008
2007

Links

Wikipedia: Imbolc

Central Park Rabies Outbreak

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This month, 23 raccoons in and around Central Park have tested positive for rabies. In addition, 11 animals tested positive during December 2009, bringing the two-month total to 34.

Animal Rabies in Central Park, 12/1/2009-1/29/2010, NYC DOH

In contrast, from 2003-2008, only one raccoon tested positive in Manhattan. In 2008, only 19 animals tested positive for all of New York City.

This increase may be the result of increased surveillance by the Health Department:

With the identification of three raccoons with rabies in Manhattan’s Central Park in recent months – two during the past week – the Health Department is cautioning New Yorkers to stay away from raccoons, skunks, bats, stray dogs and cats and other wild animals that can carry rabies. The recent cluster of findings suggests that rabies is being transmitted among raccoons in the park. The Health Department is increasing surveillance efforts to determine the extent of the problem.
– Press Release, 2009-12-07

Historically, raccoons are by far the most commonly reported animal, comprising about 3/4 of reports from 1992-2008. Raccoons are nocturnal, and should be active only at night. Anyone observing a raccoon active during the daytime, or any animal that appears disoriented, placid, or aggressive, should call 311 immediately to report the location. Animal attacks should be reported to 911.

Related Content

Rabies reminder from NYC DOH, 2009-07-21
Rabies in NYC: Facts and Figures, 2008-07-08
Meta: Rabies More Popular Than Sex, 2007-03-07
News: Raccoon Tests Positive for Rabies in Manhattan, 2007-02-28

Links

Animals Testing Positive for Rabies in New York City in 2010, year to date
Health Department Cautions New Yorkers to Avoid Wild Animals and Vaccinate Pets against Rabies, NYC DOH Pres Release, 2009-12-07
Rabies, Communicable Diseases, NYC DOH

Mulchfest 2010: NYC Recycles Trees

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Updated 2009-01-05: Added a map of Brooklyn Mulchfest locations.

Park Circle Mulchfest 2009
Park Circle Mulchfest 2009

It’s tree recycling season in New York City. Residents can have their trees recycled into mulch for the City’s parks and gardens:

  • Remove all lights, ornaments, tinsel and tree-stands from your tree.
  • Leave your tree unwrapped. Don’t put it in a plastic bag.
  • Leave trees curbside from Monday, January 4, through Friday, January 15, for recycling pickup, OR
  • Bring your tree 10am-2pm Saturday, January 9th or Sunday, January 10th to one of over 80 locations citywide.

Residents can also pick up free mulch at designated chipping locations. Volunteers from Sustainable Flatbush, including your host, will be helping out at the Park Circle location of Prospect Park.

Map


View Brooklyn MulchFest 2010 in a larger map

In addition, Brooklyn residents are invited to drop off their Christmas trees at Green-Wood Cemetery for mulching, daily from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and on Jan. 9, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Master composters from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden will be on hand to discuss the benefits of using wood-chip mulch. Free wood chips will be available in exchange for those who bring their trees. Sponsored by the Green-Wood Cemetery and Brooklyn Botanic Garden; Green-Wood Cemetery, Fifth Avenue, at 25th Street, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn, (718) 768-7300; free.

[bit.ly]

Related Content

Mulchfest posts

Links

Parks: MulchFest

Parks Press Release, 2010-01-11t

2009 Wrap-Up

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Agapostemon sp., Metallic Green Bee, Jade Bee, illustrated my guest rant on Garden Rant in 2009.
Agapostemon sp., Metallic Green Bee, Jade Bee

Here’s my review and recap of 2009.

Highlights

  • January 27: I attend my first – maybe my only – Plant-O-Rama at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
  • March 4: Robert Guskind, founder of Gowanus Lounge, dies.
  • May 2009: I attend the Chicago Spring Fling meetup of garden bloggers.
  • July 29: The City Council approves the Flatbush Rezoning Plan, a story I’ve been tracking for years on this blog.

There were several personal milestones and achievements, my pleasure in sharing them tempered by the absence of my father this past year, who would have been proud.

Twitter

I was new to Twitter this year, which has enabled me to share far more links, and be more conversational, than I can with just the blog.

Number of tweets posted: 2,025 tweets, 5.8 tweets per day. 

Overall stats

Number of posts published: 120, averaging 1 post every 3 days, half the number I posted in 2008.

31,252 people visited this blog during 2009, 73% were new visitors. There were 38,278 visits, a slight increase over 2008’s 32,073.

Most Viewed

According to Google Analytics, from which I’ve collected these stats, “unique page views” are the number of visits during which a page was viewed. Page views are higher, since the same page may be viewed multiple times during a single visit. Unique pageviews, however, doesn’t distinguish multiple visits from the same person or IP address.

  1. Robert Guskind, founder of Gowanus Lounge, 1958-2009, 2009-03-05, 1,990 visits
  2. Sphecius speciosus: Eastern Cicada Killer, 2009-08-18, 375 visits
  3. First Cherry in bloom at BBG, 2009-03-18, 367 visits
  4. Flatbush Rezoning Proposal certified, enters public review process, 2009-03-02, 331 visits
  5. And too close to call:

Most commented

  1. Native Plant Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2009-06-09, 12 comments
  2. Robert Guskind, founder of Gowanus Lounge, 1958-2009, 2009-03-05, 11 comments
  3. Blessing of the Animals, Chelsea Community Church, 2009-10-11, 8 comments
  4. Multi-way tie with 7 comments each:

Guest Rant

Special notice goes to my guest rant on Garden Rant: Who cares about honeybees, anyway?, 2009-11-04. It received 37 comments, and sparked rebuttal posts on other gardening and farming blogs.

In case you missed it

Here are some other 2009 posts that remain relevant, interesting, or which I’m otherwise proud of.

The End of “Gowanus Lounge”

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This morning I discovered that the domain for Gowanus Lounge had been appropriated by a commercial site. I learned this afternoon that the domain had been sold.

Gowanus Lounge had been the project of founder Robert Guskind, who died (too soon) in March of 2009. Archived content from Gowanus Lounge is now available at a new, “memorial” domain, bobguskind.com.

I’ll be updating my links to the old Gowanus Lounge site to the new domain in his name. It saddens me to have to do this, but I must, since Bob’s work is no longer available at the original domain. It’s clear to me that the new proprietor of the domain expects to garner hits through links to Bob’s old work. I refuse to support that.

How to find links

Two Google keywords let you find links from a specific domain to another:

link:
finds links to the specified domain
site:
limits the search to links from the specified domain

So, to find links from my blog to the old Gowanus Lounge domain, I searched this in Google:

link:gowanuslounge.com site:flatbushgardener.blogspot.com

[bit.ly]

Links

Robert “Bob” Guskind Memorial Site
Much Ado About the Gowanus Lounge, That Greenpoint Blog, 2010-01-03

Standing Still, Looking Ahead

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Illumination of Earth by Sun at the southern solstice.

This season’s Solstice (Winter in the Northern hemisphere, Summer in the Southern), occurs at 17:47pm UTC on December 21, 2008. That’s 12:47 PM where I am, in the Eastern Time zone.

The name is derived from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), because at the solstices, the Sun stands still in declination; that is, its apparent movement north or south comes to a standstill.
– Solstice, Wikipedia

We got about 10″ of snow over the weekend, and it’s not going anywhere soon. So it’s definitely wintery here. Here’s another of my neighbors’ illuminary displays.
9 Lewis Place, Beverley Square West

Related Posts

2008: Stand Still / Dona Nobis Pacem
2007: Solstice: The Sun Stands Still

Links

Solstice (Wikipedia)

It Begins

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Update, 2009-12-26: Holiday Lights 2009

The Wizard of Slocum Place does it again, with help from his next-door neighbor.

284 Stratford Road, Beverley Square West

For best effect, view this photo on a black background.

I took this snapshot last night with my little Nikon P&S while walking home from dinner at Mimi’s Hummus on Cortelyou Road with Blog Widow. Tonight’s snow will create an ideal wintery photo-op.

http://bit.ly/5pJUwh

Related Content

Happy Holidays, 2008-12-19

Names, World AIDS Day (Off-Topic)

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2021-12-01: See Names, 2021-12-01

In observance of World AIDS Day, I thought I would re-publish this list of names from my old (neglected and needing to be retired) Web site. These are some of the people, all men, I lost, nearly all to AIDS. I stopped actively maintaining this list in 1994. In alphabetical order.

  • William “Wolf” Agress, a lover, died in 1990
  • Andre, a bartender at the Tunnel Bar in the East Village, now defunct
  • Vincent Barnes
  • Jerry Bihm
  • Bobby
  • Colin Curran
  • Erez Dror, co-owner and -founder of the Black Hound Bakery in the East Village, New York City, now defunct
  • Jeff Glidden, a lover
  • Paul “Griff” Griffin
  • Martin Noel Jorda
  • David Kirschenbaum, community organizer with the New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project
  • Art Kohn, founder of the BackRoom BBS in New York City, now defunct
  • Jim Lewis
  • Luis
  • John Mangano
  • Jeffrey Martin
  • Morris Matthews
  • Karl Michalak
  • Mark Melvin
  • Norm
  • Tony Panico, my first lover in New York City
  • Charles Pope, barfly extraordinaire
  • Gordon Provencher, 1955-1992
  • Tom Raleigh
  • Craig Rodwell, founder of the Oscar Wilde Bookstore in Greenwich Village, NYC
  • Tony Rostron
  • Jurgen Schmitt
  • Giulio Sorrentino
  • Buddy Volani
  • Jeremy Wells
  • David Joseph Wilcox, 1957-1996

These are only 31 names of people I knew who died before I was 35 years old. There are countless scores, hundreds, more whose names I did not know, whose fates I never learned, or who have died since I stopped maintaining this list in 1994.

Related Content

David Joseph Wilcox, 1957-1996
Back in the Day, about the Backroom BBS, my first online community, in the 1980s.

Links

World AIDS Day

Ginkgo Gone Wild

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The Ginkgo Walk at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, November 2008.
Ginkgo Walk

Another Brooklyn blogger reports:

One crisis I’ve been tasked with dealing with [from a co-op board meeting] is one of our ginkgo trees in the front of our building has apparently decided to change its sex – from male to female; or at least one branch of it has done so.
– Thoughts While Looking Up, Ink Lake, 2009-11-17

Ginkgo biloba is a dioecious species, with male and female flowers on different plants (usually). The fruit of Ginkgos, which arise only from the flowers of female plants, is notoriously messy and smelly, hence the co-op’s concern. We had a close encounter with some on the Sustainable Flatbush Street Tree Walking Tour a few weeks ago.

The gender of dioecious flowering plants can’t be determined until they flower; male and female plants must be selected and copied through vegetative propagation techniques as cultivars, i.e.: clones. Hollies, Ilex, are also dioecious, and gardeners who want berries on their Hollies must purchase known-female cultivars and ensure that compatible males are close enough for pollination.

Flowers on the female cultivar of Ilex verticillata, Winterberry, in my backyard native plant garden. The sticky stigma, which receives the pollen from the flowers of the nearby male plant, is clearly visible in the center of the flower.
Ilex verticillata, Winterberry (female)

The ability of dioecious plants to change gender has been observed before, though it’s unusual. The mechanisms by which individual plants “choose” their gender remains unknown; the accelerating capabilities of genetic technology are likely to change this. If any reader has some good references, please share them in a comment below.
[bit.ly]

Related Content

Sustainable Flatbush Street Tree Walking Tour

Links

Wikipedia: Plant Sexuality