I'm about to take a two part road trip, the first leg from Milwaukee, WI, up through Door County, Upper Michigan, and the Apostle Islands, and then to Santa Barbara, CA, by way of Minnesota, S. Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Nights will be spent camping in our national parks and forests, such as Painted Rocks, Yellowstone, and Mt. Hood. All of this ridiculously beautiful scenery will doubtless inspire quite a lot of fiddling. :D
Anyone have any good ITM camping experiences? Any spontaneous sessions with strangers? Evocative settings that made you just want to play? Odd experiences entertaining yourself and others with good tunes and television-less craic? Suggestions? I'm all ears.
Yes! ~ always ~ music and dance in wilderness bliss, a favourite... Along with wild foods... The only complaining neighbours were squirrels, but they may have just been bickering with each other, or maybe it was their way of showing appreciations? However, I did lose a favourite copper flute during one of these escapes from more denser human populations and the general bustle and modernity... However, it is especially nice shared ~ campfires ~ mountains, valleys or sandy beaches ~ the natural sounds around you ~ chat & story telling...
I wish you good times and good company on your journey...
Enjoy, sounds like a nice trip It's going to be pretty cold at night very soon. Bring warm stuff. This is tough on the fiddle too. Goes out of tune often when exposed to the heat of the fire and then the cold night air.
"The Mist Covered Mountain"
"Kid on the Mountain"
"The Green Mountain Petronella"
"The Mountain Top"
"The Ocean Waves"
There are graphite fiddles!!! ~ but even they are not impervious to the effects of temperature fluctuations...
If you're going with a fiddle, please ~ do not play it near the fire or that heat, any wood dependant instrument. With respect, sit back away from the fire, for the sake of all that makes up that instrument. With weather fluctuating as much as it has been wordlwide, please, also if it's wood, use a decent humidifier...
My problem with playing around a fire is not the temperature fluctuations, but what the smoke does to the hair of my bow. The ash settles into the hair, making the rosin ineffective. So, from now on, i stay clear of the smoke!! I have a fiddle, a cheap awful one, that I painted with acrylic paint. That's the one I use in those type of settings.
Jason, we're only a 3 hour drive from Yellowstone, so swing on through Helena, Montana, and we'll save you a seat at our session (Tuesday and Thursday nights).
I've enjoyed no few rounds of tunes around the campfires at Jenny Lake in the Tetons--seems that climbers also tend to be musicians. Same sort of scene in the kitchen pavilions in Canada's national parks--people from all over the world bring their music with them. Many memorable nights up in Banff and Jasper, in particular.
We were camped somewhere in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado some twenty years ago during our wonderful drive across the US.
My partner and child had vamoosed to hear a lecture on rock-climbing in the area, leaving me alone by the campfire with nothing but the crackling of the burning wood, the flickering of the flames and my harmonica. I riffed a few blues tunes and then tried 'The Dawning of the Day'. My playing was suddenly interrupted by a strange honking sound in the surrounding undergrowth, accompanied by a rather unnerving rattling noise.
After a moment's hesitation I attempted the tune again only to discern said honking and rattling approaching with alarming rapidity. An adult male porcupine rushed into the clearing and I leapt for the car door, managing to open it and esconce myself within just before the porcupine ran head tilt into the bodywork.
It sat there for a while, clearly dazed, before a further weird honking noise from the undergrowth drew its attention and it then scuttled off.
This is the only time in my life when I and my harmonica have been the subject of the amorous desires of a porcupine and I can only suggest not playing a slow air on the harmonica in any US National Park, Jason.
Hey, jason b. Have you been out this way before? You have put together a pretty ambitious itinerary. Too bad you have so much crammed into one road trip, for there is a lot here to savor.
Here being a distant point on the arc of a radius of a couple of thousand miles starting at....don't have my map handy, dang it!. Anyway does this give you a little better idea about the West. If you're seeing it all for the very first time in your life, you have my deepest envy.
Yes wyogal, I forgot to add staying away from the smoke, which is 'particulate', full of ash. Heat and ash and time turn rosin into amber, something you don't want glueing those hairs together...
AQ, I've been to Colorado a couple of times, but never the places I'll be seeing on this trip. It is a shame to try to cram so much into a week and a half (the West, that is, we have another week for WI and MI). My wife and I are moving to CA for my graduate school. Having to drive from WI to CA is a task no matter how you do it, but we thought we'd take the scenic route (that doesn't take my instruments through the deserts in the SW) and we figured camping our way out would be fun and potentially save a lot of money on hotels. We're hoping to be able to do more savoring on future trips.
The air is pretty dry up north, too. Put half an apple in your cases. It gets dry as soon as you cross the Missouri (which, if you are on i-90 is at Chamberlain, SD).
A few summers ago, at dusk, my husband persuaded me to play a few quiet tunes on my button accordion while sitting on the front porch of our secluded summer cottage in the woods. I usually play in a closed bedroom in order not to disturb any evening cottagers who might be out in a canoe, There’s no electricity on the lake, it’s remote and peaceful and the sky was beginning to fill with stars. The mountains in the background were already dark and no one had yet lit a candle.
As I finished a few tunes we were totally surprised to hear unexpected sounds through the woods, coming from our nearest neighbour. It was a lovely little jig, played on a mouth organ. I had no idea he played music though I’ve certainly heard his chain saw on many occasions. A third neighbour who often sits on his dock in the evenings across the lake from us playing lovely classical guitar soon joined us in turn. No one called out or said a word. We played in turn *together* in the darkness for at least half an hour as the music floated through the night air to the accompaniment of tree frogs. It was a magical experience I’ll never forget.
I have camped all across that area and found Mormons from
Salt Lake City all up to Yellowstone / Tetons and people from Los Angeles all over an 8 hour radius or so from there. The LA radius is probably larger now maybe 12 hours ...
Never any music encounters but I encountered mechanized and urbanized folks that more industrialized the wilderness. UCSB is well within the LA radius.
I went to UCSB undergrad and left there in 1975. Plus I'm from Madison, WI.
I think your campfire concept is valid, but you're not likely to
find fiddlers etc on a cross country trek even if you are stopped on a state road to cool your VW engine or eating breakfast at the eastern portal of Yosemite at US 395.
Yes. you will meet Mormons and Los Angelinos further and further out from their population bases. Thanks dogmageek for that observation. Makes me chuckle. The Mormons are peacable enough. It's good for Los Angelinos to get out into the hinterland to actually see for themselves how arid the West is; and how artificially green Los Angeles is by contrast. Oh yes, the West is arid. Jason b, pay careful attention to the steady disappearance of water on the landscape as you go. After a time you will be obsessed with thoughts of water.
The northern route will be a bit greener than the southern route. The southern route, while it has its charms, is not kind to delicate things like musical instruments. Good call. Bravo for not flying in, but going by land instead; even if it's dictated by nothing more than economic necessity. Have you ever read 'Basin and Range'?
uh, not really. seriously. It will be cooler (slightly, upper 90's here), and that's about it. Until one gets to the mountain ranges, it's bone dry and brown unless there is irrigation. And because LA and Phoenix want our water, there's not much of that!
Does anyone else out there have negative feelings about the very limited, very franchise culture offered up by the Interstate? Oh, and sorry jasonb, for the old dig about obsessing about water. I couldn't resist it. Have a good trip!
Don't take the interstate! It is the most boring part of the trip through WY. Sure, I-25 is nice in parts, as it runs parallel to the mountain ranges. I-90 is nice when it meets up with 25 at Buffalo, at the base of the Bighorns. There is a stretch of I-80 that runs past Elk Mt. that is pretty, then again, that's the most closed stretch of the interstate during the winter, because of it's nearness to Elk Mt. There is a porn shop out in the middle of the Red Desert, along the interstate. Personally, I think they should call it the "Porn Palace" (like the "Corn Palace" in SD) and decorate it with.... There are plenty of 2-lane roads that are great, little traffic, and pass through some quaint towns. The interstate across MT is pretty nice, though. Just make sure you watch out for rattlesnakes! There is a rest stop on the interstate up there that has a sign that gives that warning!
I stand corrected. jason b: The northerly route won't be any greener than the southerly route. Thanks wiogal. That far to the N, I've never gone E beyond Glacier National Park. The southerly route, as has been iterated, and re-iterated, is a heat blasted wasteland. Still, you should go see it some time, preferably when the desert wild flowers are in bloom. It is the wondrous, and strange place it is.
no prob! Yes, the desert in bloom is absolutely amazing! And the various shades of brown and gold (GO POKES!) is beautiful, in its own way. Took me years to appreciate that. Then there is the sky... words can't describe...
This time of year (end of monsoon season), the SW isn't dry at all (you should of seen the mud puddles and river crossings i've been through lately), and is fabulously green. And the SW is far more than deserts, I live in the mountains of southwestern NM and the plants outside my door are well above my head and the landscape is a cacophony of sunflowers, rocky mountain beeweed, western mugwort and wild blue sage.
A lovely place to play a fiddle, if I do say so myself.... no sessions for many hours in any direction though, unless you count playing along with the coyotes or better yet, the mating screams/singing of the mountain lions, who have also been called mountain canaries :D
there's a great amount of fiddling around these southern parts, between the mariachi bands, old timey types and so on... i tend to think it's the sudden shift in humidity rather than just the dry air that's hard on the wood, though I do try to keep my instruments humidified in the winter when we heat with wood.
after you get a taste of playing to the mountains and open skies, playing indoors will forever seem stifling and strange. Don't forget to find a nice canyon and check out the acoustics. I like to sit on a rock ledge over the river in our canyon and listen to the way the music moves through the landscape.
great time to gather wild foods and such if you're into that -- wild grape leaves, wild olives, blackberries, baby nettles, beebalm and so on....
Sounds luscious! Right now up here, we wake up everyday to the smell of campfire, which is really coming from the east entrance to Yellowstone, west of Cody, the Gunbarrel fire. Yesterday, I drove to Laramie and could hardly see Elk Mountain because of the smoke down there. Not sure where that is coming from. The pine beetle ravaged forests are starting to burn. (which they need to do) The forests in Colorado are just sickening, they are orange and dead. Not in all areas, but around Frisco/Silverthorne(?) they are devasted.
Wow, I didn't realize how dry it was up there right now! We usually have our fire season about june, and this year we were blessed in that it was brief and didn't come to near. Although the burnt ridge visible to the north is proof that there have been some close and dangerous ones in the last few years.
There's pine beetle damaged forests to the north, south and west of us but so far not here, for which I am very grateful....
Thanks Sweetbriar, for the facinating report. I was foolhardy to sum up the South West in summer by saying it's anything other than varied. While travel with musical instruments through the Mojave Desert right about now might be a bit of a trial, travel to other states in the SW might yield pleasent surprises by the sound of things. Happy to make your acquaintance, BTW.
PPS Can anyone here tell me where is the actual division between where the yellow sage grows in the west, and blue sage grows in the East? I've never seen the blue sage. Does rabbit brush grow in and among blue sage brush too? That would be a sight.
Don't blame the beetle. They just do what they do. Blame climate change. And who is to blame for that ? All of us who have relied upon an oil and coal economy for the last 150 years, but more specifically, USA, who produced most of the CO2, and even more specifically, Bush, who has denied and procrastinated and obstructed, because USA has a system where politicians like the money from the coal and oil lobbies (not to mention the military)..
There was time to avoid this problem, but nobody wanted to hear...
All you lovely people in America...you don't need to worry about the price of gasoline...you need to worry how you's going to survive when there isn't any...
Of course, just like people here, most'll wave the problem aside, "We'll use hydrogen" or electric cars and nuclear power, oil from tar sands, or photoelectricity, or windpower, or tidal barrages, or biofuels or coal with carbon capture, algae or nanotechnology, or ...what ?
These are all techno fantasies. None of them are here now.
What's here now is a petrochemical economy that's taken a century to build. We don't have a century to replace it. We have maybe seven years, and that's probably over-optimistic. All the alternatives take time and huge quantities of energy to set up, whichever you choose...
According to the Peak Oil bell-curve people, it'd be the end of the century before we run out of oil, the last drop.
That might be true, but if we're half way through the supply, from here on, it get's harder and harder to get the remaining oil, until you're using the energy from one barrel of oil to extract and deliver one barrel of oil, at which moment the whole enterprise becomes pointless. It becomes economically unprofitable a long time before that.
And, during this transition period, replacing oil with other energy systems, there's going to be global chaos, because of climate change, sea level rising, nations fighting over water, etc, etc...seizing any resources they think they can get away with...so immense instability internationally, and internal chaos in states because of rioting populations...
wolfbird, you won't find any argument here. Thanks for all the websites you submitted to DD, and any other interested parties at the scrag end of that other, more crazy, discussion.
yeah, I was referring to the fires not the beetles in regards to dryness... although it's my understanding that drought causes stress on the trees that causes them to be more vulnerable to the beetles in the first place, though certainly the hard freezes of winter help keep insect populations in check.
Good to meet you too, Mr Quigley. I wasn't meaning to imply anything in regards to your post, it was actually more directed towards the original post but it's also rather automatic for me at this point - since I spend most of my time teaching on the subject of the ecology of the SW, specifically the Gila bioregion I have an automatic "I do not live in the desert" button LOL.
By Blue Sage do you mean an Artemisia spp? We have Blue Sage here but they are of the Salvia variety, and we also the Rabbit Brush. We also have lots of Artemisia spp which the locals call Silver Sage or White Sage....
Wow - plant talk, peak oil and climate change all on a ITM forum. I must have wandered into the right place, or at least one nearly as strange as I am. ;)
Seems like the fiddle plays extra sweet during the rainy season though, and plays nice harmony to the sound of nearby floodwaters. And as dry as it CAN be here, I spent six months of the last year packing in my supplies on my back because the river was too high to cross by jeep. I'm very glad to have gotten my new fiddle out to a city for full setup before it floods this fall though, it makes me very nervous to backpack it across chest deep water.
One would think our South West would be a perfect place to set up solar electric generation projects. It's going to happen, and soon. Before we set off on this scheme, I would like to say something on behalf of the desert which is about to be transformed, again. There is a fragility about these deserts. Heretofore, the big public works; highways, and dams, have been a mixed blessing to the desert flora and fauna.
Well the Gila bioregion itself is mostly mountains and grasslands, but we have the nearby Chihuahua and Sonoran deserts, and the Sonoran desert definitely has Saguaro. Here we mostly have cane cholla, prickly pear and various little types like the red flowered claret cup.
I'm glad you changed that, Mr Quigley, as I'm not sure I'd ever consider a dam a blessing of any kind.... unless it's a beaver dam ;) and even that depends on the maturity/stability of the riparian area in which it's undertaken.
The Forest Service introduced beavers in one of the drainages of Mono County. It was on the Virginia, or the Green; I've forgotten. The CDF made a real pact with the devil that time. The poor old beavers were just doing what beavers do. The ugly business of killing the animals went on for a decade. All the dams are still there, hundreds of them, from before the mid 60s.
Then there is the subject of mining in the desert, with all the attendant spoliation of the landscape. Just think of the quantity of mercury and cyanide that all the stamping mill opperations left up there. Today's too nice a day to think about such things.
Last year, on a visit to one of the medium-high parts of the Eastern Sierra ( 7,000 + feet ), we stumbled across a wild rose bush growing among prickly pear cacti, and 'fried egg' flowers. Now, back to the subject of sage brush: every one here just calls it sage, between the Sierra and the Mojave. Its bloom is a straw yellow, like tiny bits of crepe paper. The rabbit brush, in and among it, gives it all the look of a more vivid yellow.
Atahualpa - Is the "fried egg" flower a low-growing spreading plant with finely-cut leaves and lots of flowers about an inch across, whitish with bright yellow centres? That's a description of Limnanthes douglasii, an American plant (at least, Douglas was a plant-collector who worked in North America) grown in British gardens and called "the poached egg plant". Not in mine, though; it is heavily invasive by seed, and takes over flower-beds and lawns like no-one's business.
Lovely thread. Have enjoyed reading about travelling bush (as in country not Dubya) in the US. I'd like to see some of these beautiful places. We have egg and bacon plants in Australia:
Atahualpa - Northumberland, being mostly rural and by English standards sparsely populated, does harbour a lot of wildlife. Those that are game species, or vermin, or both, get taken out regularly and often by the Northumbrians, for whom shooting and catching things and eating them in pies etc. is a major part of life.
The edibles include roe deer, hares, rabbits, grey squirrels, woodpigeons, wild ducks and geese, pheasants, partridges, red grouse, woodcock and snipe; from the rivers, trout, salmon and sea-trout. The pigeons, rabbits and grey squirrels can be vermin too; in this category, not edible unless your tastes are experimental or you're starving, come also foxes, rats, mink and carrion crows.
Notable and protected animals include the Chillingham White Cattle, kept for centuries in the park of the castle or stately home there and possibly a close link with the extinct Aurochs (European wild cattle); feral goats in the Cheviot Hills, which I think are supposed to be descended from escapees from domestication; red squirrels, and otters.
A particularly wide range of migrating or wintering birds can be spotted at places along the coast, especially on Holy Island (Lindisfarne). There are resident seabird colonies on the Farne Islands, and also grey seals that breed there.
I don't believe Northumberland's wild flora is particularly distinctive, but anyone with a passion for trees may take an interest in the variety of conifers in the county's unusually large (for England) softwood plantations, and in the many plantations and specimens put in by gentry round or near their stately homes.
More singular examples of animal magic in Northumberland include The Laidley Worm of Spindlestone Heugh, The Felton Were-Rabbit and Freddie The Dolphin. Their biographies are quite easy to find on the Internet.
Creatures from Northumberland and elsewhere were beautifully illustrated in wood-engravings by Thomas Bewick (c18), widely held to be the greatest (visual) artist produced by Northumberland and Tyneside in the modern era. The Northumbrians do notice and esteem their critters - on the domesticated front, ferrets, racing pigeons and all manner else, while sheep farmers cultivate that most admirable of all dogs, the Border Collie.
Another animal commonly encountered in Northumberland is the Geordie (Rockus borealis, Rumpus bibulus insanus). This is a gregarious biped that lives in Newcastle and uses Northumberland as his back garden at weekends. Until climate change he had it to himself as it was always too bloody cold for anybody else. Recently, however, stray specimens of Homo sapiens have been recorded here; it is not yet clear what effect the ceaseless local rain of very recent times is going to have on the northward movement of this species.
Thanks for the last bit. Loved it. We see herds sheep on our visits to Mono county in the late summer and early fall. By that time they are paddocked lower down the mountains, and awaiting shipment. The shepherds are mostly Basques who favor dogs from Spain or Portugal. I'd love to see a sheep outfit being worked by Border Collies.
Deer season is nigh, the woods of the Eastern Sierra will be filling up with the annual migrations of Rumpus Bibulus Doofus, with all his fire power. Are there off-roaders in Northumberland? Most people who drive off the highways in the SW tend to keep to the two-track roads through the deserts. Some so-and-sos have to go and make their own roads.
What would you say is the oddest find ( of flora or fauna) you've ever made while tramping through your locality? The wild rosebush, and prickly pear cacti I saw, were thriving in an avalanche chute, of all places.
Off-roaders are universal in the English countryside, but it's not on to razz them into the hills and churn the ground up at random; their use in rounding up sheep or following shoots is carried out fairly responsibly by people whose interest is in leaving the land in the state it was in before, quite apart from any laws that could be brought to bear on their misuse.
Northumberland has places and times where people can rally (drive or race beat-up, souped-up vehicles, off-roaders, etc.) to their heart's content, notably along tracks in Kielder Forest, England's largest (it's a conifer forest planted from mid c20). But attempts to do this along country tracks in general are met with very short shrift. The tracks could do without the extra wear and tear, the animals without frightening, and locals value peace and quiet. Someone in my part of the world investigated the wider tracks in his valley, saw that they did join up to make a lengthy and attractive circuit, and advertised holidays majoring on driving groups of off-roaders round them. It raised a storm and he backed down; good thing too, IMO. Used by hikers, pony trekkers and mountain bike riders, these tracks remain quiet links of an ample, spacious landscape; used by lots of offroaders or bikers, they'd diminish the valley to another noisy suburb.
Other than flora or fauna, the oddest find I've encountered lately in this rural part of Ireland is a complete WC (basin, seat, cistern and all), discovered in a ditch halfway up a green track too muddy even for tractors.
In my own garden a couple of days ago I came across a plum tree, a relative rarity in Ireland, and I only recognised it as such because of the tiny fruit growing on it.
Plum trees are rare in Ireland? Well I'll be....! Does your plum tree have thorns? Is the bark a shiny black? Are the branches all twisted in spooky shapes? What is the tree that the Irish refer to as the blackthorn? I Always assumed they were talking about a sour plum. Back to WCs ~ the deserts are the final resting place for all sorts of funky detritus from civilization (?) All that stuff just sits up there, nineteenth century garbage bestrewn with garbage from the twentieth.
Given long enough, future archaeologists will find them as exciting as the papyrus-strewn rubbish-dumps of ancient Egypt, where written papyrus fragments have been preserved by the dryness of the desert.
Given long enough. People are scavenging the nineteenth century stuff, because that's "old" here. Right now, lots of junk is getting carted away for scrap metal value, whatever its age . This is a new trend, along with the state-wide plundering of the infrastructure for any and all metal. While the first developement doesn't trouble me too much, the second is scary.
Yes, it's happening in the UK. A main target is copper cable, notably from unwatched railway routes - as if we didn't already have enough things causing trains not to run. One day the thieves'll literally dig up the Internet and we'll have to go back to smoke signals.
In an effort to get back to the topic: Does your part of Northumberland get evening serenades by foxes? It's more of a kind of shiek, or so I'm given to understand. Our foxes are pretty quiet. The coyotes in Santa Clara County don't waste energy advertising their presence by holding sing-songs anymore. They used to do, quite a bit too, when I was a kid.
There are coal mines in your part of the world. You see their by-products first hand. You might have mixed feelings about coal, and the coal mining industry: it clothed, fed, and housed a lot of people in Britain. If Ian Campbell's songs about the early pits are a true indicator, mine work gave people nothing but the barest subsistence, and a lot of grief besides.
Tunes in the Woods
Tunes in the Woods
I'm about to take a two part road trip, the first leg from Milwaukee, WI, up through Door County, Upper Michigan, and the Apostle Islands, and then to Santa Barbara, CA, by way of Minnesota, S. Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Nights will be spent camping in our national parks and forests, such as Painted Rocks, Yellowstone, and Mt. Hood. All of this ridiculously beautiful scenery will doubtless inspire quite a lot of fiddling. :D
Anyone have any good ITM camping experiences? Any spontaneous sessions with strangers? Evocative settings that made you just want to play? Odd experiences entertaining yourself and others with good tunes and television-less craic? Suggestions? I'm all ears.
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by jasonb
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Yes! ~ always ~ music and dance in wilderness bliss, a favourite... Along with wild foods... The only complaining neighbours were squirrels, but they may have just been bickering with each other, or maybe it was their way of showing appreciations? However, I did lose a favourite copper flute during one of these escapes from more denser human populations and the general bustle and modernity... However, it is especially nice shared ~ campfires ~ mountains, valleys or sandy beaches ~ the natural sounds around you ~ chat & story telling...
I wish you good times and good company on your journey...
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Tunes in the Woods
That's two times 'however', I must be tired...
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Enjoy, sounds like a nice trip It's going to be pretty cold at night very soon. Bring warm stuff. This is tough on the fiddle too. Goes out of tune often when exposed to the heat of the fire and then the cold night air.
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by t4kne
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Maggie in the Woods; Cotton Wood, those are the only two "woods" tunes I can think of.
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by t4kne
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Play: "The Woods of Old Limerick"
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by browndog
Re: Tunes in the Woods
"The Mist Covered Mountain"
"Kid on the Mountain"
"The Green Mountain Petronella"
"The Mountain Top"
"The Ocean Waves"
There are graphite fiddles!!! ~ but even they are not impervious to the effects of temperature fluctuations...
If you're going with a fiddle, please ~ do not play it near the fire or that heat, any wood dependant instrument. With respect, sit back away from the fire, for the sake of all that makes up that instrument. With weather fluctuating as much as it has been wordlwide, please, also if it's wood, use a decent humidifier...
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Tunes in the Woods
My problem with playing around a fire is not the temperature fluctuations, but what the smoke does to the hair of my bow. The ash settles into the hair, making the rosin ineffective. So, from now on, i stay clear of the smoke!! I have a fiddle, a cheap awful one, that I painted with acrylic paint. That's the one I use in those type of settings.
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by wyogal
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Jason, we're only a 3 hour drive from Yellowstone, so swing on through Helena, Montana, and we'll save you a seat at our session (Tuesday and Thursday nights).
I've enjoyed no few rounds of tunes around the campfires at Jenny Lake in the Tetons--seems that climbers also tend to be musicians. Same sort of scene in the kitchen pavilions in Canada's national parks--people from all over the world bring their music with them. Many memorable nights up in Banff and Jasper, in particular.
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Tunes in the Woods
We were camped somewhere in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado some twenty years ago during our wonderful drive across the US.
My partner and child had vamoosed to hear a lecture on rock-climbing in the area, leaving me alone by the campfire with nothing but the crackling of the burning wood, the flickering of the flames and my harmonica. I riffed a few blues tunes and then tried 'The Dawning of the Day'. My playing was suddenly interrupted by a strange honking sound in the surrounding undergrowth, accompanied by a rather unnerving rattling noise.
After a moment's hesitation I attempted the tune again only to discern said honking and rattling approaching with alarming rapidity. An adult male porcupine rushed into the clearing and I leapt for the car door, managing to open it and esconce myself within just before the porcupine ran head tilt into the bodywork.
It sat there for a while, clearly dazed, before a further weird honking noise from the undergrowth drew its attention and it then scuttled off.
This is the only time in my life when I and my harmonica have been the subject of the amorous desires of a porcupine and I can only suggest not playing a slow air on the harmonica in any US National Park, Jason.
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Hey, jason b. Have you been out this way before? You have put together a pretty ambitious itinerary. Too bad you have so much crammed into one road trip, for there is a lot here to savor.
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Here being a distant point on the arc of a radius of a couple of thousand miles starting at....don't have my map handy, dang it!. Anyway does this give you a little better idea about the West. If you're seeing it all for the very first time in your life, you have my deepest envy.
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Yes wyogal, I forgot to add staying away from the smoke, which is 'particulate', full of ash. Heat and ash and time turn rosin into amber, something you don't want glueing those hairs together...
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Tunes in the Woods
AQ, I've been to Colorado a couple of times, but never the places I'll be seeing on this trip. It is a shame to try to cram so much into a week and a half (the West, that is, we have another week for WI and MI). My wife and I are moving to CA for my graduate school. Having to drive from WI to CA is a task no matter how you do it, but we thought we'd take the scenic route (that doesn't take my instruments through the deserts in the SW) and we figured camping our way out would be fun and potentially save a lot of money on hotels. We're hoping to be able to do more savoring on future trips.
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by jasonb
Re: Tunes in the Woods
I will also try to avoid porcupine turn-ons. :P
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by jasonb
Re: Tunes in the Woods
The air is pretty dry up north, too. Put half an apple in your cases. It gets dry as soon as you cross the Missouri (which, if you are on i-90 is at Chamberlain, SD).
# Posted on August 25th 2008 by wyogal
Re: Tunes in the Woods
A few summers ago, at dusk, my husband persuaded me to play a few quiet tunes on my button accordion while sitting on the front porch of our secluded summer cottage in the woods. I usually play in a closed bedroom in order not to disturb any evening cottagers who might be out in a canoe, There’s no electricity on the lake, it’s remote and peaceful and the sky was beginning to fill with stars. The mountains in the background were already dark and no one had yet lit a candle.
As I finished a few tunes we were totally surprised to hear unexpected sounds through the woods, coming from our nearest neighbour. It was a lovely little jig, played on a mouth organ. I had no idea he played music though I’ve certainly heard his chain saw on many occasions. A third neighbour who often sits on his dock in the evenings across the lake from us playing lovely classical guitar soon joined us in turn. No one called out or said a word. We played in turn *together* in the darkness for at least half an hour as the music floated through the night air to the accompaniment of tree frogs. It was a magical experience I’ll never forget.
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by JNW
Re: Tunes in the Woods
wow JNW thats a wonderful story.
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by hakanozel
Re: Tunes in the Woods
I have camped all across that area and found Mormons from
Salt Lake City all up to Yellowstone / Tetons and people from Los Angeles all over an 8 hour radius or so from there. The LA radius is probably larger now maybe 12 hours ...
Never any music encounters but I encountered mechanized and urbanized folks that more industrialized the wilderness. UCSB is well within the LA radius.
I went to UCSB undergrad and left there in 1975. Plus I'm from Madison, WI.
I think your campfire concept is valid, but you're not likely to
find fiddlers etc on a cross country trek even if you are stopped on a state road to cool your VW engine or eating breakfast at the eastern portal of Yosemite at US 395.
But you never know.
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by dogmageek
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Yes. you will meet Mormons and Los Angelinos further and further out from their population bases. Thanks dogmageek for that observation. Makes me chuckle. The Mormons are peacable enough. It's good for Los Angelinos to get out into the hinterland to actually see for themselves how arid the West is; and how artificially green Los Angeles is by contrast. Oh yes, the West is arid. Jason b, pay careful attention to the steady disappearance of water on the landscape as you go. After a time you will be obsessed with thoughts of water.
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
The northern route will be a bit greener than the southern route. The southern route, while it has its charms, is not kind to delicate things like musical instruments. Good call. Bravo for not flying in, but going by land instead; even if it's dictated by nothing more than economic necessity. Have you ever read 'Basin and Range'?
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
uh, not really. seriously. It will be cooler (slightly, upper 90's here), and that's about it. Until one gets to the mountain ranges, it's bone dry and brown unless there is irrigation. And because LA and Phoenix want our water, there's not much of that!
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by wyogal
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Does anyone else out there have negative feelings about the very limited, very franchise culture offered up by the Interstate? Oh, and sorry jasonb, for the old dig about obsessing about water. I couldn't resist it. Have a good trip!
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Don't take the interstate! It is the most boring part of the trip through WY. Sure, I-25 is nice in parts, as it runs parallel to the mountain ranges. I-90 is nice when it meets up with 25 at Buffalo, at the base of the Bighorns. There is a stretch of I-80 that runs past Elk Mt. that is pretty, then again, that's the most closed stretch of the interstate during the winter, because of it's nearness to Elk Mt. There is a porn shop out in the middle of the Red Desert, along the interstate. Personally, I think they should call it the "Porn Palace" (like the "Corn Palace" in SD) and decorate it with.... There are plenty of 2-lane roads that are great, little traffic, and pass through some quaint towns. The interstate across MT is pretty nice, though. Just make sure you watch out for rattlesnakes! There is a rest stop on the interstate up there that has a sign that gives that warning!
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by wyogal
Re: Tunes in the Woods
I stand corrected. jason b: The northerly route won't be any greener than the southerly route. Thanks wiogal. That far to the N, I've never gone E beyond Glacier National Park. The southerly route, as has been iterated, and re-iterated, is a heat blasted wasteland. Still, you should go see it some time, preferably when the desert wild flowers are in bloom. It is the wondrous, and strange place it is.
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
THAT it is
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
no prob! Yes, the desert in bloom is absolutely amazing! And the various shades of brown and gold (GO POKES!) is beautiful, in its own way. Took me years to appreciate that. Then there is the sky... words can't describe...
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by wyogal
Re: Tunes in the Woods
This time of year (end of monsoon season), the SW isn't dry at all (you should of seen the mud puddles and river crossings i've been through lately), and is fabulously green. And the SW is far more than deserts, I live in the mountains of southwestern NM and the plants outside my door are well above my head and the landscape is a cacophony of sunflowers, rocky mountain beeweed, western mugwort and wild blue sage.
A lovely place to play a fiddle, if I do say so myself.... no sessions for many hours in any direction though, unless you count playing along with the coyotes or better yet, the mating screams/singing of the mountain lions, who have also been called mountain canaries :D
there's a great amount of fiddling around these southern parts, between the mariachi bands, old timey types and so on... i tend to think it's the sudden shift in humidity rather than just the dry air that's hard on the wood, though I do try to keep my instruments humidified in the winter when we heat with wood.
after you get a taste of playing to the mountains and open skies, playing indoors will forever seem stifling and strange. Don't forget to find a nice canyon and check out the acoustics. I like to sit on a rock ledge over the river in our canyon and listen to the way the music moves through the landscape.
great time to gather wild foods and such if you're into that -- wild grape leaves, wild olives, blackberries, baby nettles, beebalm and so on....
Welcome to the West.
~Kiva
# Posted on August 30th 2008 by Sweetbriar
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Sounds luscious! Right now up here, we wake up everyday to the smell of campfire, which is really coming from the east entrance to Yellowstone, west of Cody, the Gunbarrel fire. Yesterday, I drove to Laramie and could hardly see Elk Mountain because of the smoke down there. Not sure where that is coming from. The pine beetle ravaged forests are starting to burn. (which they need to do) The forests in Colorado are just sickening, they are orange and dead. Not in all areas, but around Frisco/Silverthorne(?) they are devasted.
# Posted on August 30th 2008 by wyogal
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Wow, I didn't realize how dry it was up there right now! We usually have our fire season about june, and this year we were blessed in that it was brief and didn't come to near. Although the burnt ridge visible to the north is proof that there have been some close and dangerous ones in the last few years.
There's pine beetle damaged forests to the north, south and west of us but so far not here, for which I am very grateful....
# Posted on August 30th 2008 by Sweetbriar
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Thanks Sweetbriar, for the facinating report. I was foolhardy to sum up the South West in summer by saying it's anything other than varied. While travel with musical instruments through the Mojave Desert right about now might be a bit of a trial, travel to other states in the SW might yield pleasent surprises by the sound of things. Happy to make your acquaintance, BTW.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
That d@mned pine beetle! That d@mned pine beetle! That d@mned pine beetle!
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
actually, it's the weather. It hasn't gotten cold enough for a long enough length of time to kill them... calling wolfbird....
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by wyogal
Re: Tunes in the Woods
PPS Can anyone here tell me where is the actual division between where the yellow sage grows in the west, and blue sage grows in the East? I've never seen the blue sage. Does rabbit brush grow in and among blue sage brush too? That would be a sight.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
I hear you wyogal...
Don't blame the beetle. They just do what they do. Blame climate change. And who is to blame for that ? All of us who have relied upon an oil and coal economy for the last 150 years, but more specifically, USA, who produced most of the CO2, and even more specifically, Bush, who has denied and procrastinated and obstructed, because USA has a system where politicians like the money from the coal and oil lobbies (not to mention the military)..
There was time to avoid this problem, but nobody wanted to hear...
All you lovely people in America...you don't need to worry about the price of gasoline...you need to worry how you's going to survive when there isn't any...
Of course, just like people here, most'll wave the problem aside, "We'll use hydrogen" or electric cars and nuclear power, oil from tar sands, or photoelectricity, or windpower, or tidal barrages, or biofuels or coal with carbon capture, algae or nanotechnology, or ...what ?
These are all techno fantasies. None of them are here now.
What's here now is a petrochemical economy that's taken a century to build. We don't have a century to replace it. We have maybe seven years, and that's probably over-optimistic. All the alternatives take time and huge quantities of energy to set up, whichever you choose...
According to the Peak Oil bell-curve people, it'd be the end of the century before we run out of oil, the last drop.
That might be true, but if we're half way through the supply, from here on, it get's harder and harder to get the remaining oil, until you're using the energy from one barrel of oil to extract and deliver one barrel of oil, at which moment the whole enterprise becomes pointless. It becomes economically unprofitable a long time before that.
And, during this transition period, replacing oil with other energy systems, there's going to be global chaos, because of climate change, sea level rising, nations fighting over water, etc, etc...seizing any resources they think they can get away with...so immense instability internationally, and internal chaos in states because of rioting populations...
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Tunes in the Woods
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0805/full/climate.2008.35.html
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Tunes in the Woods
wolfbird, you won't find any argument here. Thanks for all the websites you submitted to DD, and any other interested parties at the scrag end of that other, more crazy, discussion.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
yeah, I was referring to the fires not the beetles in regards to dryness... although it's my understanding that drought causes stress on the trees that causes them to be more vulnerable to the beetles in the first place, though certainly the hard freezes of winter help keep insect populations in check.
Good to meet you too, Mr Quigley. I wasn't meaning to imply anything in regards to your post, it was actually more directed towards the original post but it's also rather automatic for me at this point - since I spend most of my time teaching on the subject of the ecology of the SW, specifically the Gila bioregion I have an automatic "I do not live in the desert" button LOL.
By Blue Sage do you mean an Artemisia spp? We have Blue Sage here but they are of the Salvia variety, and we also the Rabbit Brush. We also have lots of Artemisia spp which the locals call Silver Sage or White Sage....
Wow - plant talk, peak oil and climate change all on a ITM forum. I must have wandered into the right place, or at least one nearly as strange as I am. ;)
Seems like the fiddle plays extra sweet during the rainy season though, and plays nice harmony to the sound of nearby floodwaters. And as dry as it CAN be here, I spent six months of the last year packing in my supplies on my back because the river was too high to cross by jeep. I'm very glad to have gotten my new fiddle out to a city for full setup before it floods this fall though, it makes me very nervous to backpack it across chest deep water.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Sweetbriar
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Thanks, Mr. Quigley. Love and rage.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Tunes in the Woods
One would think our South West would be a perfect place to set up solar electric generation projects. It's going to happen, and soon. Before we set off on this scheme, I would like to say something on behalf of the desert which is about to be transformed, again. There is a fragility about these deserts. Heretofore, the big public works; highways, and dams, have been a mixed blessing to the desert flora and fauna.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Does the Gila Desert have Saguaro cacti? I've never seen those either.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
The right expression is not "a mixed blessing" Please substitute "mixed curse" instead.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Well the Gila bioregion itself is mostly mountains and grasslands, but we have the nearby Chihuahua and Sonoran deserts, and the Sonoran desert definitely has Saguaro. Here we mostly have cane cholla, prickly pear and various little types like the red flowered claret cup.
I'm glad you changed that, Mr Quigley, as I'm not sure I'd ever consider a dam a blessing of any kind.... unless it's a beaver dam ;) and even that depends on the maturity/stability of the riparian area in which it's undertaken.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Sweetbriar
Re: Tunes in the Woods
The Forest Service introduced beavers in one of the drainages of Mono County. It was on the Virginia, or the Green; I've forgotten. The CDF made a real pact with the devil that time. The poor old beavers were just doing what beavers do. The ugly business of killing the animals went on for a decade. All the dams are still there, hundreds of them, from before the mid 60s.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Then there is the subject of mining in the desert, with all the attendant spoliation of the landscape. Just think of the quantity of mercury and cyanide that all the stamping mill opperations left up there. Today's too nice a day to think about such things.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Last year, on a visit to one of the medium-high parts of the Eastern Sierra ( 7,000 + feet ), we stumbled across a wild rose bush growing among prickly pear cacti, and 'fried egg' flowers. Now, back to the subject of sage brush: every one here just calls it sage, between the Sierra and the Mojave. Its bloom is a straw yellow, like tiny bits of crepe paper. The rabbit brush, in and among it, gives it all the look of a more vivid yellow.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Atahualpa - Is the "fried egg" flower a low-growing spreading plant with finely-cut leaves and lots of flowers about an inch across, whitish with bright yellow centres? That's a description of Limnanthes douglasii, an American plant (at least, Douglas was a plant-collector who worked in North America) grown in British gardens and called "the poached egg plant". Not in mine, though; it is heavily invasive by seed, and takes over flower-beds and lawns like no-one's business.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by nicholas
Re: Tunes in the Woods
It comes up to the knees. The flower looks like a clever reproduction of a life-sized egg, fried sunny-side-up.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
I've only seen it in the high desert, or in the Eastern Sierra. It would take some doing to get it to grow at sea level.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Fried eggs on plants:
http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/membgnewsletter/Volume2number3/Friedeggsonplants.html
Romneya coulteri, maybe?
http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/membgnewsletter/images/volume2/Romneyaflower3.jpg
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Ramiro
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Ramiro, gracias. Those are indeed the flowers. Que le vaya bien, senor.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Romneya coulteri es el nombre.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Romneya coulteri - yes, that is planted in gardens in the UK too, and is a lot classier than the poached egg plant I mentioned.
# Posted on August 31st 2008 by nicholas
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Lovely thread. Have enjoyed reading about travelling bush (as in country not Dubya) in the US. I'd like to see some of these beautiful places. We have egg and bacon plants in Australia:
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/life/nature/flora/880244_flowers_egg_and_bacon.php?id=880244
# Posted on September 1st 2008 by zepherin
Re: Tunes in the Woods
clogstepping, please reciprocate with your observations of the natural world around you.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Anyone wishing to write about wildlife in Northumberland needn't be shy either.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Or Spain.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Atahualpa - Northumberland, being mostly rural and by English standards sparsely populated, does harbour a lot of wildlife. Those that are game species, or vermin, or both, get taken out regularly and often by the Northumbrians, for whom shooting and catching things and eating them in pies etc. is a major part of life.
The edibles include roe deer, hares, rabbits, grey squirrels, woodpigeons, wild ducks and geese, pheasants, partridges, red grouse, woodcock and snipe; from the rivers, trout, salmon and sea-trout. The pigeons, rabbits and grey squirrels can be vermin too; in this category, not edible unless your tastes are experimental or you're starving, come also foxes, rats, mink and carrion crows.
Notable and protected animals include the Chillingham White Cattle, kept for centuries in the park of the castle or stately home there and possibly a close link with the extinct Aurochs (European wild cattle); feral goats in the Cheviot Hills, which I think are supposed to be descended from escapees from domestication; red squirrels, and otters.
A particularly wide range of migrating or wintering birds can be spotted at places along the coast, especially on Holy Island (Lindisfarne). There are resident seabird colonies on the Farne Islands, and also grey seals that breed there.
I don't believe Northumberland's wild flora is particularly distinctive, but anyone with a passion for trees may take an interest in the variety of conifers in the county's unusually large (for England) softwood plantations, and in the many plantations and specimens put in by gentry round or near their stately homes.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by nicholas
Re: Tunes in the Woods
More singular examples of animal magic in Northumberland include The Laidley Worm of Spindlestone Heugh, The Felton Were-Rabbit and Freddie The Dolphin. Their biographies are quite easy to find on the Internet.
Creatures from Northumberland and elsewhere were beautifully illustrated in wood-engravings by Thomas Bewick (c18), widely held to be the greatest (visual) artist produced by Northumberland and Tyneside in the modern era. The Northumbrians do notice and esteem their critters - on the domesticated front, ferrets, racing pigeons and all manner else, while sheep farmers cultivate that most admirable of all dogs, the Border Collie.
Another animal commonly encountered in Northumberland is the Geordie (Rockus borealis, Rumpus bibulus insanus). This is a gregarious biped that lives in Newcastle and uses Northumberland as his back garden at weekends. Until climate change he had it to himself as it was always too bloody cold for anybody else. Recently, however, stray specimens of Homo sapiens have been recorded here; it is not yet clear what effect the ceaseless local rain of very recent times is going to have on the northward movement of this species.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by nicholas
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Thanks for the last bit. Loved it. We see herds sheep on our visits to Mono county in the late summer and early fall. By that time they are paddocked lower down the mountains, and awaiting shipment. The shepherds are mostly Basques who favor dogs from Spain or Portugal. I'd love to see a sheep outfit being worked by Border Collies.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
I'm told by travelers that much of Mono County looks a lot like Northern Spain, only minus the architecture and ruins.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Deer season is nigh, the woods of the Eastern Sierra will be filling up with the annual migrations of Rumpus Bibulus Doofus, with all his fire power. Are there off-roaders in Northumberland? Most people who drive off the highways in the SW tend to keep to the two-track roads through the deserts. Some so-and-sos have to go and make their own roads.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
What would you say is the oddest find ( of flora or fauna) you've ever made while tramping through your locality? The wild rosebush, and prickly pear cacti I saw, were thriving in an avalanche chute, of all places.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Off-roaders are universal in the English countryside, but it's not on to razz them into the hills and churn the ground up at random; their use in rounding up sheep or following shoots is carried out fairly responsibly by people whose interest is in leaving the land in the state it was in before, quite apart from any laws that could be brought to bear on their misuse.
Northumberland has places and times where people can rally (drive or race beat-up, souped-up vehicles, off-roaders, etc.) to their heart's content, notably along tracks in Kielder Forest, England's largest (it's a conifer forest planted from mid c20). But attempts to do this along country tracks in general are met with very short shrift. The tracks could do without the extra wear and tear, the animals without frightening, and locals value peace and quiet. Someone in my part of the world investigated the wider tracks in his valley, saw that they did join up to make a lengthy and attractive circuit, and advertised holidays majoring on driving groups of off-roaders round them. It raised a storm and he backed down; good thing too, IMO. Used by hikers, pony trekkers and mountain bike riders, these tracks remain quiet links of an ample, spacious landscape; used by lots of offroaders or bikers, they'd diminish the valley to another noisy suburb.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by nicholas
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Other than flora or fauna, the oddest find I've encountered lately in this rural part of Ireland is a complete WC (basin, seat, cistern and all), discovered in a ditch halfway up a green track too muddy even for tractors.
In my own garden a couple of days ago I came across a plum tree, a relative rarity in Ireland, and I only recognised it as such because of the tiny fruit growing on it.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Plum trees are rare in Ireland? Well I'll be....! Does your plum tree have thorns? Is the bark a shiny black? Are the branches all twisted in spooky shapes? What is the tree that the Irish refer to as the blackthorn? I Always assumed they were talking about a sour plum. Back to WCs ~ the deserts are the final resting place for all sorts of funky detritus from civilization (?) All that stuff just sits up there, nineteenth century garbage bestrewn with garbage from the twentieth.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
More acurately, those are the deserts where the mining districts are located.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Given long enough, future archaeologists will find them as exciting as the papyrus-strewn rubbish-dumps of ancient Egypt, where written papyrus fragments have been preserved by the dryness of the desert.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by nicholas
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Given long enough. People are scavenging the nineteenth century stuff, because that's "old" here. Right now, lots of junk is getting carted away for scrap metal value, whatever its age . This is a new trend, along with the state-wide plundering of the infrastructure for any and all metal. While the first developement doesn't trouble me too much, the second is scary.
# Posted on September 2nd 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
Yes, it's happening in the UK. A main target is copper cable, notably from unwatched railway routes - as if we didn't already have enough things causing trains not to run. One day the thieves'll literally dig up the Internet and we'll have to go back to smoke signals.
# Posted on September 3rd 2008 by nicholas
Re: Tunes in the Woods
In an effort to get back to the topic: Does your part of Northumberland get evening serenades by foxes? It's more of a kind of shiek, or so I'm given to understand. Our foxes are pretty quiet. The coyotes in Santa Clara County don't waste energy advertising their presence by holding sing-songs anymore. They used to do, quite a bit too, when I was a kid.
# Posted on September 4th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
SHRIEK
# Posted on September 4th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Tunes in the Woods
There are coal mines in your part of the world. You see their by-products first hand. You might have mixed feelings about coal, and the coal mining industry: it clothed, fed, and housed a lot of people in Britain. If Ian Campbell's songs about the early pits are a true indicator, mine work gave people nothing but the barest subsistence, and a lot of grief besides.
# Posted on September 4th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley