Arboreality Returns in June

I am returning to Seattle this May, and Arboreality will be on vacation until June 1, 2008 while I pack and travel.

Arboreality extends a gracious thank you to Mike of 10,000 Birds for volunteering to host the Festival of the Trees next month on such short notice. Be sure to send in your submissions this April featuring trees, forests, and wood.

Once I am settled in Seattle I’ll be able to share images from my return trip across the US. We’ll return to the evergreen forests of my home-state with a fresh pair of eyes. Until then, enjoy the blooming spring or the glorious autumn (depending upon your location), and feel free to reminisce through the Pennsylvania hardwoods when we explored the Poconos, and my dear home right here at the farm in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

See you in June!

Fabulous Friday Philadelphia Snowfall

This morning we awoke to a beautiful snowfall which has given us about four inches in the last four hours (it’s 8am EST now). We took a quick walk to enjoy the boot-crunching-goodness of first-thing-in-the-morning snow. With little wind, the trees are well-coated; snow always accentuates the lovely shapes of trees. Today's top image is of the butternut tree (Juglans cinerea) over the driveway, an excellent tree and true friend, naturally photogenic in snow.

Just about everything looks good in snow, including our wood fence (built by The Fence Authority of Chester County, Pennsylvania). We’re thankful for our cedar fence (this is its first winter) which allows our husky Blackfoot to enjoy the yard as a good dog should. As you can see, the garden is also segmented, to keep our over-zealous husky out of the vegetables.

Now that it’s lighter outside I plan to go visit the local woods with my camera. More images to follow!

(Blackfoot's Washington buddy The Quilting Doberman posted some righteous pictures of the beautiful snow in the Cascades this January).

Winter Reds

Winter Woodshed

This winter we built a woodshed under the pine trees at our cottage in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Our design includes two segments of 8 feet square each: one for wood, and the other for the splitter.

When practical, we like to find opportunities to cut trees and split our own firewood from the rounds. This year we purchased our wood from the local Bradley Tree Experts as usual, and now we have someplace dry to keep it (rather than tarping the wood on the driveway).

The great thing about using wood heat for your home is that it warms you several times over. You warm yourself up stoking the fire. You warm yourself up every time you haul in a load of wood. You warm yourself up sawing, rolling, loading, unloading, splitting, hauling, and stacking wood. Managing the fire is part of how I keep active in the winter with the garden sleeping under snow.

Inside the fire is cozy, and with the cost of oil these days it’s actually a more affordable way to heat the home.

Outside, my guess is that the squirrels have all put down payments on the prime real estate, and are having an excellent weekend moving in to the coziest corners of the shed. I’ve already discovered walnuts in the stack!

New Content is Sprouting at Arboreality

Tree blogging is a genuine love of mine, and I especially enjoy the opportunity to exercise my amateur photography upon such an excellent and ever-evolving subject.

This Christmas my folks contributed once again to Arboreality with the gift of a new lens for my Nikon D80: the AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED lens. Now we shall boldly go where Arboreality has never been able to go before: high, high into the treetops! [For example, the nest in our first image - remember you can click on pictures to enlarge them.]

Suddenly it has all become to clear to me (no pun intended) as to how so many other bloggers can take pictures of birds: they have zoom lenses! No longer must I sneak within a few meters to obtain blurred images of indignant ornithoids: now I can stealthily snap their photograph without their knowledge! Ditto for deer, foxes, and other mobile lifeforms.

In addition to the sharper images at Arboreality, I will also be brining in content from other writers. Arboreality will invite its first guest bloggers this year, and will also be sharing articles from businesses who work in trees, plants, flowers, and gardening supplies. Our first book review of the Curious Gardener’s Almanac in November 2007 is the first of many to come; in fact, there are two books sitting on my desk, staring me down expectantly every morning.

Arboreality is one of three blogs I write in addition to Brainripples and AppleJade. Between these three blogs plus my (paying) work as an independent writer / editor, I find that I have an ever-waning amount of free-blogging time to wander the woods and wax philosophical. My hope is that by bringing new writers and businesses to the table at Arboreality, I will continue to bring you fresh ideas about trees and forests throughout the year - no matter how busy my work schedule becomes.

If you would like to contribute at Arboreality, please contact me via email at jadeblackwater [at] brainripples [dot] com with a brief query for consideration.

Also, for all my regular readers: please be sure to let me know if you ever have trouble loading Arboreality or its images. Thank you!

Festival of the Trees 19 is Online at Hoarded Ordinaries

The Festival of the Trees 19 (our first FotT for 2008) is now online at Hoarded Ordinaries, courtesy of Lorianne. She shares a dense, rich forest of links, thoughts, and reflections. Starting us off with a look at trees of the past, Lorianne also presents “Picture perfect trees,” “Festive trees,” “Poetic trees,” and even “Mythic trees”!

If you’re still in a New Year’s haze, take a moment to see the trees for the forest, and explore the plethora of tree and forest blogging that Lorianne has collected like so many acorns to share with us at this month's festival.

To submit for next month’s festival, or to volunteer to host the Festival of the Trees at your blog, be sure to visit the Festival of the Trees coordinating blog.

Have a great, green 2008!

Snowy Chester County

The farm where we rent our cottage is nestled in Chester County, just outside of Philadelphia. For the last few days we’ve had a beautiful little snow dusting and crispy, cold temperatures. Our snowfall accumulated roughly two inches, and officially brought winter to our neck of Pennsylvania.

Yesterday’s sunrise illuminated the many oak trees which have not yet released their leaves. This phenomenon, called “leaf marcescence,” is common among oaks (Quercus), beeches (Fagus), and a few other deciduous trees. (Remember you can click on pictures to enlarge). I hope to take a drive up toward Phoenixville some time this winter so I can bring you pictures at Arboreality – there are beautiful swaths of forests (and lovely planted sycamores in town), and the blush of the young beech trees is always a warming sight in the cold of winter.

Of course, I can’t resist an excuse to share another picture of the stone silo. As an artist, I am perpetually inspired by the intermixing of farm, forest, and fauna here at my Pennsylvania home. This stone silo is one of a handful of remnants of the original farming days which once defined Chester County and the greater Brandywine Valley region. The third image is one of my favorite romantic staples in these parts: the elegant, imposing Black walnut (Juglans nigra).

Today, much of this land is being converted to suburban housing. Fortunately, the local culture allows room for a genuine interest in conservation, as demonstrated by the Open Space Preservation Department of Chester County. Last winter I had the pleasure of interviewing the Director, Mr. Bill Gladden. Check out the interview here at Arboreality, and stop by the Open Space Preservation Department website to learn more about local efforts to retain forest and farmland in the area.

Coming up at Arboreality: Christmas trees, winter planting, and green holidays.

Looking to bring a few more trees to your blog? The Festival of the Trees is a monthly blog carnival featuring trees and forests from around the blogosphere. Stop by the Festival of the Trees coordinating blog to learn how you can contribute your tree posts, or volunteer to host the festival right at your own blogging home! (An April volunteer is needed! April means Arbor Day for many in the US... what better time to host the Festival of the Trees?)

The Festival of the Trees 18 is Sprouting at Riverside Rambles

Larry Ayers of Riverside Rambles has spared no small effort in composing this month’s Festival of the Trees 18 - November Arborea. Watch it grow! There’s plenty to play with already online, and Larry is composing (composting?) the rest as we speak.

The Festival of the Trees is a monthly blog carnival featuring posts about trees and forests from blogs across the Internet. Check out the Festival of the Trees coordinating blog to learn how to share your own submissions, or volunteer to host a future festival at your blog!

November Forest

October was kind to Philadelphia this year. We enjoyed late summer heat, which means that I was still harvesting red tomatoes until just a few weeks ago. It also means that many trees are still holding their leaves in swaths of pink and gold – great news for us tree lovers!

And there’s more good news for us tree lovers:

First, the Festival of the Trees came twice this month, courtesy of Salix Tree at WindyWillow. Go forth to enjoy the Trees of Halloween – if you dare! Then take a leisurely stroll through the Trees and Fruit of Autumn. Delicious.

Second, forest biologist Nalini Nadkarni is putting the finishing touches on her most recent book, Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees, due out in Spring 2008 from the University of California Press. I have had the honor of working as her assistant in preparing this book, and I am very excited to share more with you in coming months.

For now - enjoy the pictures!

A Fresh Eye for the Trees

My folks gave me a new camera for Christmas (thanks Mom and Dad!), and I am currently in the process of learning how to use it. Soon I will be sharing clearer and more detailed tree images for you. Just in time for the spring blooms, eh?

Shown in today's image, the bark of our Eastern white pine.