Invasive Plants

Mon-

In an area as worked as Huntington Harbor over the last three hundred years, it is inevitable that almost all the plants are invasive outsiders.  Here there are three: ailanthus, ragweed, and pokeweed.  All of them handsome in their way, but certainly not the original native species.

Of course, it is difficult to say what an ecology here should be at this time.  The most natural is no doubt the one that actually exists, ragweed and all.  The constant churning of dust and dirt and poisons is what the human interface brings with it, especially with a dense population.
Tue-

Jimsonweed is so handsome in its own way that it would almost make it in a garden.  Supposedly, narcotic properties which the young have discovered.  The flower is on its way to fruit, part of the long cycle.

We are so attuned to nature that all this looks right and excellent.  It does not matter if this particular plant was here a thousand years ago in the “natural” environment or if it arrived on a boat yesterday.  As long as it does not monotonously cover acres and acres while choking out everything else it adds pleasant contrast and looks just dandy as it is.

   Wed-

Phragmites are pushing out the native spartina grass.  They fill in the salt ponds, and march down the shore, and expand into disturbed flat meadows near the coastline.  Not particularly good habitat for wildlife, nor particularly useful to people.

But it is hard to argue that they are not beautiful.  The bright green stalks shoot up relatively early in the spring, making the harbor outlines more gentle.  In summer as they reach full height they frame views from every direction, a photographer’s dream.   And in fall and winter, the graceful plumes begin heavy and decay month by month never giving up their final outlines _ sometimes snow and ice-encrusted _ until the next year.  If they were not so persistent, they would be treasured.
Thu-

Some consider ragweed by far the worst of the invasive species.  It is everywhere, never particularly pretty with no flowers, little wildlife value, and contributes great amounts of pollen to aggravated allergy sufferers.  The French hate it so much (under the rather beautiful name of Ambrosia) that they have invented diabolical tractor attachments which extend several feet to each side, and produce a heat of hundreds of degrees to cook the plants as it passes over.

Yet, I rarely find it particularly invasive.  Bindweed, for example, is far worse.  Ragweed shows up in the garden but not the lawn, is easily pulled out, and easily identified.  In fact, it is far more at home where pretty much nothing else would grow, replacing not native nor more beautiful cultivated alternatives, but rather adding life instead of dust and mud which would be there otherwise.  Naturally, I am in a minority with this opinion.

Fri-

Bamboo fortunately does not propagate around here by seed, but once established in a clearing it crowds out everything and resists elimination by chemical, fire, or backhoe.  The patches have gotten so bad that the county has banned its sale or planting.  It’s pretty enough, but can destroy foundations and everything else in the way of its rhizomes.

It is not really a menace to whatever natural local ecology is left, because the local natural ecology is deep forest and dark spaces under large trees (as homeowners and utility companies constantly relearn to their chagrin.)  Bamboo needs some sunlight, the patch here is marginal.  I kind of enjoy it, the leaves beautiful in all seasons, lovely in winter.  This particular cluster has even provided a few fishing rods for my kids, in times gone by.
Sat-

Chicory fills vacant lots and roadside.  Although the foliage is stringy, the flowers are lovely in the morning when they are open.  Once upon a time the roasted roots provided a coffee substitute.

In my mind, this is less an invasive weed than a pretty wildflower.  All of our internal classifications are subjective and open to change, ignored by nature and reality.  To an artist, a rose in a cornfield is fit subject for a photograph or painting or short story, to a farmer it is a nuisance and loss of income.

   Sun-

No idea what these plants are, growing along the tideline where old boats, docks, and other flotsam is periodically dumped and picked up by the town.  Could be foreign, could be native, scratching out a thriving living where obviously nothing else is making it.  And making pretty yellow flowers in spite of the obstacles.

It used to give me great pleasure _ a kind of control _ to be able to name everything I say and somehow relate it into the world of book knowledge in my head.  Now, not so much.  The vastness of the world is enchanting in and of itself without being identified, categorized, and filed.  Learning to let go of useless approaches to experience is a difficult task, and too often seen as a loss rather than a gain.

 

Tides

Mon-

In a tidal area, the view changes dramatically just with the passage of an hour or so.  And yet it is one of the things we can grow so used to that we just ignore it, to the point that when I drove along this harbor every day at work, I would never have been able to tell you later what tide it had been.

Fisherman care, of course, and tidal charts are commonly available.  For people my age it is mostly only important in the summer when we might want to go swimming during the day, or when we want to plan to picnic at night.  The gnats and flies are much less of a problem when the water is high.

Tue-

Low tide exposes some of the detritus heaped on the bottom from long use.  It would be romantic to say centuries of dumping, but in fact the harbor was dredged around 1980 which effectively killed off most of the clams and a lot of other stuff.  Anything there now is mostly rather recent, at least near the middle channel.  Supposedly the good news is that Huntington can now host private yachts the size of ocean liners.

The lobster industry of Long Island Sound didn’t end until the mid Nineties, probably from pesticide use to kill mosquitoes.  The financially interested users of pesticides have lawyers and kept scientists who dispute that.  As in most legal matters, statistics can be manipulated by the wealthiest as necessary.  Anyway, there used to be huge stacks of lobster traps stacked on shore or floats during off season.  Now all we have are these algae covered relics, picturesque enough in their own way, I guess.
Wed-

Typical high tide pushes up so there is little room between the deck of the dock and the waves.  During storms, the water will ride well over the platform, often pulling up the pilings and forcing them to be driven back into the bottom muck with a pile-driver on a barge that constantly is pushed from marina to marina by a cute little tugboat.

This is another outpost of the town beach, the kayaks are part of the summer kid’s program.  They’re cheaper and more versatile than little sailboats, but somehow a little less picturesque in spite of their bright colors.  Anyway, looked at with  open mind, almost anywhere is a lovely view.

Thu-

Fishermen pay close attention to tides in mysterious ways.  Depending on where they are going, the season, the moon, the weather, and just common fisherman knowledge there are times when it is worth going out into the wider waters, and times when it’s just better to do nothing.  Of course, I suspect that is also a way to get away from other distractions and relax as well.

I’m not a particularly good photographer and have constant trouble even keeping the horizon level.  The tilt of the shoreline may evoke a seasickness, but you will just have to compensate.

 Fri-

Wading birds like this large heron prefer the incoming half tide, when little fish abound.  They’ve adapted surprisingly well to the massive industrialization of the marinas and shoreline, although this side of the harbor is somewhat isolated and protected by the road running along it.

I enjoy the surprising interactions of the wild and the “civilized” more than I do the pure wilderness or the completely urban.  I hope that eventually others will come to share this aesthetic, not completely one, not completely the other, but each able to coexist and interact in surprising and thoughtful ways.

-
Sat-

An unfocused beach rose frames the tidal flats, filled with clams which can no longer be harvested this far from the inlet due to pollution and tiny hermit crabs which come out each low tide to wave their claws in seeming protest at the sun.  If you walk along the edge, you are likely to see horseshoe crabs flowing about in their ancient rituals.

Tides are pretty unpredictable in terms of how low or how high they actually get.  Each one is somewhat different _ some massively so _ depending on the time of year (solar relations of earth and sun), phase of moon, atmospheric pressure, and, of course, the influence of large storms out to sea. 

Sun-

Fortunately, we still have more seaweed than algae around here, in spite of people fertilizing their lawns excessively and the dog waste which washes down from the hills and road.

That is not completely luck, since the county has fairly strict rules on what fertilizers can be sold and when they can be applied, which is at least followed by most of the yard crews.  And people are now picking up the dog shit more often than not.  So laws and habits can make a difference, and that is always something to keep in mind no matter how hopeless and massive problems may seem.

Heat

Mon-

As the highest temperatures of the year grip the area, people used to flock to beaches and onto boats, anything to get into cooling breezes and away from the stifling, fly and mosquito infested inland areas.  Now there is somewhat less seasonality, as people rush to air conditioned barns to browse and buy what they think they need, and hide out in hermetically sealed homes and cars to avoid the possibility of sun exposure and possible risks like lime disease or west nile virus or e-coli polluted water.

I end up feeling, with a few fellow adventurers I meet walking about or the “lower classes” toiling on yards and actually doing work on the boats, like an almost different race of beings.  The “outdoors” is nature, less artificial, more healing, and whatever danger it may present is danger that is usually to our benefit.  And the stimulation you get _ looking at the deadly nightshade or the neglected rowboat or the weeds in this view, for instance _ is worth almost any price to experience fully.

Tue -

In spite of the sign, there is a lifeguard sitting in the tower at Brown’s beach _ remnant of an old estate.  Hardly anyone goes in at low tide, and besides it’s pretty early in the morning early in the week.  Mostly sandy bottom, but it turns to muck, and the water quality here in the actual harbor _ even though it is right in front of the inlet _ can be suspicious, although it is tested daily.

But it’s a lovely scene and actually quite heavily used, even in the winter.  Kids can run around in the sand, use the playground, and scream their heads off; adults can just stare at the horizon and unwind a bit; and frantic younger folks can grab an hour at lunch or around jobs to sit for a short suntan before heading back.  And it doesn’t cost a dime, which is certainly something an egalitarian like me appreciates a lot.
Wed-

Grand to have a country dirt road on an old estate near my house.  It leads through the overgrowth past a pond from the mansion to the boathouse,  and is filled with flowers and various kinds of wildlife, including _ recently _ a fox.  In a solidly populated metropolitan area (which is what we are here) it’s a breath of an earlier and simpler _ if just as economically unfair _ time.

On a hot July morning, the cicadas are already loud, the birds hide, the tadpoles are just developing, the raspberries are almost ripe, and the humid heat has not yet had an entire summer to ravage the leaves which remain lush.  I could almost pretend I am a kid walking down to the water barefoot with a bamboo pole in hand.  Places that evoke fantasies are as necessary as those that remind us of the interconnected nature  of all life.

   Thu-

By eight AM the temperature is already heading into the 80’s, so people who can have already been out and about.  There is, of course, a significant drop off when any extremes of weather hit _ rain, cold, or heat _ but walking, jogging, or cycling along West Shore road is a favored activity of many when they consider it possible.  The regulars are usually cheerful and friendly, there are lots of others who grimly stride along, trying to lose weight or lower blood pressure, listening to music or talking on phones, angry that their perfect lives should be interrupted by anything so mundane as bodily health.

I’ve always considered it a privilege to be here, where I can walk a block from my house and have the constantly changing seascape and people and their activities besides.  My own personal problem is that sometimes I get too wrapped up in my internal musing to pay much attention to what should be feeding me interest for the rest of the day. 
Fri-

 

At this time of year the harbor is filled with boats _ the visible ones floating, although hulks from many years litter the bottom.  As pleasure boaters go upscale they tend to use marinas instead of dinghies to reach their vessels.  And the clammers ferrying out are fewer and fewer as time goes on.

An inconspicuous yellow hawkweed forces its way out of the asphalt to ripen into soft floating seed carriers. It’s the kind of loveliness you never see when riding a car or bicycle, and rarely when engaged jogging, talking on the phone, listening to a music player or even (my particular sin) following a heavy train of thought. 
Sat-

 

Kayaks are sitting under the willow, providing a bit of color to the solid greens of midsummer.  Kayaks have become ubiquitous in the last few years, which is certainly a good thing since they have no motors and make no pollution (at least after they are made and until they are thrown away.)  There do seem to be a lot more on the shore and in the racks than there ever are actually on the water.

Surprisingly, surrounded by water and boats, I am not a boat person.  I like to walk _ I subscribe to the belief that golf is “a good walk spoiled” _ and time on a boat with nothing to do is very like being in prison with high definition television.  Something grand like the Staten Island ferry is acceptable.  Thinking about having my own platform on the water just makes me nervous. 

 Sun -

Summer just started, it seems, and heat is high, but already there are premonitions of times to come.  Like these dead leaves at the Brown Pottery site park.  In fact, there are signs everywhere, but it is more fun to wallow in the days that are, rather than worry about the future rain, ice, and cold.

I’m afraid I’ve always been something more of a grasshopper than an ant.  I found life uncertain, and never quite trusted long term plans.  Each moment is more than enough, and we should strive to be aware of and grateful for each one.

Height of Summer

Mon -

Somewhere, the fields of grain are ripe and being harvested.  A few hundred years ago, this whole area had been cleared and made into fields, but the forest has recovered its ascendency.  Of course, many of the trees are ornamental, and there are mostly exotic flowers tended carefully in gardens, even the weeds are generally invasive imports, trying to keep pace with global urbanization.  But much of it is very pretty, and the birds and various wildlife have mostly kept up.

I’ve always been more a fan of the interfaces between humans and nature rather than areas where the people have eliminated nature, or where nature is completely wild.  I am fascinated about how we interact with the world, often for the good, tragically too often for the bad.  Knowing that the past has changed so much, even in a few decades, is somehow comforting to my own sense of impermanence.  This too shall pass.  But, at least at midsummer this year, it remains very good indeed.

Tue-

That guy sitting almost hidden is nominally fishing _ you can see his pole stuck in the rocks if you look closely.  In earlier spring, you might catch some flatfish.  In later summer you could get snappers (baby bluefish) or maybe even a lost striper (bass). And I guess there’s always hope for an eel.  But here in July … nah, probably not.

There used to be a red shack here, worthy of Maine, but after it was torn down, guys (almost always guys, often alone) come and sit for a while and go home with empty pails.  I think it is mostly just to get away from everyone and everything.  Like fishermen and hikers everywhere, just losing worries and spending some quality time with the horizon.

Wed-

Summer seems to have just arrived, but the Ailanthus seeds are already turning red, preparing for the next season.  From solstice on, the varied greens of spring fade into a single dark hue, and the early flowers vanish to be replaced by late bloomers and, increasingly, seeds of all types.

No matter how we may want things to stand still, especially while they seem so perfect, they rush by, the days disappear into the past, and one day we look at colored leaves suddenly swirling and wonder what happened.  As I grow older, I find that as days have always been, years have become.  What happened to the world, that I wake up a stranger here in my autumn?   I can only hope that my seeds, also, physical and immaterial, are prepared for their next season and will prosper no matter what may come.
Thu-

Hecksher Park is about a mile and a half away, with a shallow pond fed by streams from the hills, a source of power and recreation since the town began.  It has always had turtles (some quite large!) and of course swans, geese, and ducks, but lately it has also become home to some river otters, which are apparently recolonizing Long Island in the last few decades.  Behind me is a cute little art museum, and a bandshell where free concerts are given almost every summer evening.

Being a romantic, I like to come here sometimes and sit on the bench, watching the people jog and stroll by, pretending I am in some Parisian green space.  And, to be fair, that is not so far off, in certain ways.  In important ways, of course, where I am is not at all Paris.  But one might equally say that the park I inhabit _ filled with my memories, my selections, my observations, my summarizations  _ is not the “real” Hecksher Park at all.  It’s fun to have the time to consider such bizarre bits of useless speculation.

Fri-

Even in paradise (maybe especially in paradise) it rains sometimes. And around here there are also seasons.  Anthropomorphically I see them as nature’s moods, when the world seems calm, or tired, or refreshed, or lively. 

Nothing much bothers me since I spent some money and bought appropriate gear for just about everything, for which my wife makes fun of me.  I have shoes for rain, and snow, and normal days.  I can dress from almost naked to eskimo bundled.  If I cannot get out any given day, I feel I have failed.  Making it into the world, and actually looking around and listening (not buried in email or recorded music or feverish planning) is one of the ways I respect and pay homage to the world around me.  From it, I receive a benediction which I treasure.
Sat-

When anywhere is truly understood, there are many magical times and places and light effects.  A seacoast is favored by mist and fog, or by startling clarity, or by blinding reflection, or by diffuse colored light interactions with the water, land, and clouds.  This makes every day a different visual feast.

I’m excited by the variety, although one of my faults is I tend to become a little too affected in my moods by my projections into the weather.  A foggy day feels different _ more inward, more calm _ than one of bright sun.  I try to reach beyond that projection, and work on the beauty and meaning of everything that is offered to me.  Fortunately, what I learn, like the forms of the moments themselves, is inexhaustible.

   Sun-

Sunday the bicyclists often tour in groups along West Shore road.  Especially relatively early in the morning, before the full heat of the day arrives.  The same reason I am out here now.  Most of them are, it seems, too busy talking to each other to much notice the views, and certainly none can observe the plants, nor hear the birds, nor feel the breeze as I do.

Nothing wrong with bicycles, except that lately their riders have become holier than thou types who think that their few minutes a week on wheels is saving the planet.  They treat all cars with contempt and expect drivers to conform to whatever riders want to do, regardless of common rules of the road.  They expect pedestrians to get out of their way in awe, when they are not ignoring them as a bird or rat in their path.  This inability to emphasize beyond one’s temporary current role (for riders will soon enough take on the roles of drivers and pedestrians) is characteristic of our selfish and increasingly badly focused culture.  Grump, grump, grump, goes the old guy …

Around and About

Mon –

Huntington inlet leads out to Huntington Bay and from there connects to Long Island Sound and the great wide world.  The town has documents proving its founding in 1653, and since then boats have come through the channel constantly, continuing on the final mile to the town docks.  At first it was settlers, and commerce, which then became coastal trade of grain to New York for manufactures, evolving into various bulk deliveries, and finally today only pleasure boats.  I love living in a place with a long written history, so many stories to connect with and changes to contemplate.

I know that many others have lived here since the glaciers retreated thousands of years ago.  Each paleolithic individual lived as full a life as I have, had just as many hopes, fears, experiences, dreams, and existence; and eventually met the same fate.  Perhaps that way of life was best, for understanding the nature of the world and not wrecking it with improvements and tenuous cosmic fantasies.  Yet I cannot help but be a child of my culture, and stories are what I love, and for me the story of each person in the prehistoric dawn of time cannot help but feel the same, compressing all those years into one vague dreamtime with one foggy life experience.

Tue -

Everywhere in midsummer is a visual feast.  Puppy Cove terminates in a preserved tidal grain mill, although most of the rest of the homes are quite recent.  Not visible even at low tide is the huge barge sunk in the middle, which the kids and I used to paddle around.  No doubt many other artifacts litter the bottom, hidden from view as are the tiny snappers recently hatched and whatever else may be around this season.

Living in one place for decades has the fine effect of placing a patina of memory over everything, extending the moment into ghostly pasts, still true for me, which nobody else can see.  Unfortunately, it also means I get nothing done.  Fortunately, it turns out I have nothing to do.

Wed-

Local folklore claims Einstein summered here in the twenties at the height of the Gold Coast, and walked this very road while it was sand and gravel.  Sometimes it is interesting to consider such notions, for it adds a thickness to my rather trivial stroll and provides a bit of escape from the soupy climate today.  But of course, Einstein is no more (and no less) of this place than Napoleon or Buddha or Jane Austin or anyone else who ever lived.

Only I, in all the universe, could make such a connection, think such a thought, follow it into logical or fantastic trails of words and internal myths.  That is frightening, and exhilarating , and smug,  and a very fun casual snippet of being that I forget as easily as it drifted into my awareness.  Just part of the wondrous glory of being who I am, today, on this harborside street.

Thu -

July 4, the docks are decorated, the barbeque begins soon.  Community beer and burgers on our little patch of sand, comparisons and rivalries and ambitions temporarily forgotten in a grand celebration of being alive and well (and thriving) in a great country at a great time on a great day.  Sometimes it is best to just forget our cares and woes and concentrate on all the good things we have.

I suppose we are all patriots in our own way _ thankful to be Americans and free.  We pay our taxes and obey the laws, complain as we will.  But that “in our own way” comprises an awful lot of differences, some of them bitter.  It is said that is what makes democracy strong, but it can also make most of us feel powerless most of the time.  Churchill’s remark still stands; the day is bright and hot and beautiful; the future is filled with possibility; and our cares will explode and fade like the evening fireworks.  Until they all come back tomorrow, of course, but that’s another story.

  

Fri-

 

Like most of the inlets on the North Shore, Huntington Harbor originally ended in a large tidal marsh.  Fortunately for the settlers,  it only extended a half mile inland, and the town could be build where the land begin to rise, within easy distance of the important docks.  The main reason Huntington exists is the several passes through the high sandy shoreline cliffs, providing relatively easy access to interior Long Island, and via another pass in the Ronkonkoma moraine to the South Shore beyond.  In any case, the village proper has no shoreline, and the colonists, being quite enterprising, rapidly built a tidal dam where the deep water turned to marsh.  This is today’s Mill Dam road.

The deli sits where the old power plant once stood, supplied by barge with coal in the early 1900’s.  Today this is all recreation _ marinas, ball fields, parkland, boat launch ramps.  History has moved swiftly around here.  No doubt, in not many years, everything will be submerged and possibly tidal marsh will reclaim the thriving village.  By then, as always, what people remain will probably have adjusted.  It is exhausting to worry about the cosmic future, and in some ways futile to worry about it much.  Yet wondering what we can do, what we should do, to try to preserve things as they now are is also a natural and correct human reaction.

 
Sat-

 

Halesite is supposedly where Nathan Hale came ashore as a spy and was captured in the revolutionary war.  It’s the site of the traditional town docks, now filled with marinas and restaurants.  Looking back up the harbor on this side, are the Knutson boatyard sheds, where some kind of coastal defense vessels were built in WWII.  There is also a picture from the late 1800’s of a beached whale, which caused a lot of trouble trying to remove when it began to stink.

 

A whale would die long before it made it this far into the harbor these days.  Pollution and dredging at one point turned the inner waters into an oily bathtub in the early ‘90’s.  Fortunately, some amelioration is now in progress with a sewage and overflow treatment plant, restrictions on home and industrial chemicals, and a better public attitude.  It would be nice to see the dolphins playing again here, as my wife saw them do in the ‘50’s.  With rising water levels, it’s only a question of how long these deceptively stable shorefronts can remain.
Sun-

This was once part of Gatsby’s Gold Coast, and this shot looks back from the site of the old Ferguson mansion, since turned into condos, with some architecture saved.  It provides nice views from the other side of the harbor, on East Neck Road, across from my normal daily stroll.  I try to get all the way over here a few times a week.  The area has a relatively strange past, near the town docks but not far from the old pottery factory and boatyards.  Lately, the gateway to the extremely swanky Huntington Bay neighborhood.

Why should I care, anyway?  Is it not enough to enjoy the bright days and the new grapevine, and my own racing thoughts?  Like so much of my knowledge, this does me no particular good, especially in the only sense people much talk about here, which is real estate and money.  But my curiosity has always led me into peculiar paths, like the little monkey George, and even if I do not own the waterfront I probably get to fully enjoy it more than most of those who do.