Dead Coots

Over the past few weeks, as I cruise the streets, alleys, and parks in my lake hugging Northwestern Montana town, I notice an occasional large dead bird. They turn out to be coots. American Coots, white beaked, black water fowl that I rarely notice the rest of the year. Yet in winter, they create massive flotillas on this end of the winter lake that seem to stretch for miles.

One year when the lake froze over during a sudden mercury plummet, hundreds of hapless coots became trapped in the ice. Later that day, a convention of bald eagles converged on the spot right on Highway 93, near KwaTaqNuk. They settled on the ice to eat coots, leaving a good distance between themselves and neighboring diners. Also converging on the site of this quiet massacre were bird watchers with the longest telephoto lenses you've ever seen.

So back to the dead coots. This year word has gone out on the eagle telegraph and these massive birds of prey, symbol of our great land, have been spotted in treetops around the lake and river. Apparently, they are back to supplement their diet with more American Coot. My friend and avid bird photographer, Eugene says that the dead birds on the ground are the ones that the eagles couldn't manage to carry all the way to the treetops.

Think about the logistics of this. An American Bald Eagle weighs ten to fourteen pounds and a coot weighs in at about one pound. Add some ice and water clinging to feathers, a hundred pounds of survival instinct, and some disproportionately large, dragon-ugly feet aiming for your eyes, and coots suddenly don't look like such an easy lunch. Add to that an aerial, 'water pluck' with major eagle competition on your flight path and making it to a high branch still in possession of edibles becomes a real long shot. So much easier when they are stuck in the ice.

My other photographer friend, Janice Myers, took this photo a few Saturdays ago looking downriver from Riverside Park. Jan pursues photo ops from one end of the valley to the other, in her lemon meringue VW Bug. This magnificent American Bald Eagle might have just finished off an unlucky coot or be about to go find one.

When you venture outside into the byways of your little town, you just never know what you might run across. Who knew this high drama was taking place right under our noses.

Just this morning in Riverside Park, three or four plastic sled carcasses appeared. They could have been under the snow that just melted off, or were flung there when they couldn't cut the mustard any more. I imagine they gave their last polypropylene gasp on a heart bouncing race to the bottom. Now sliding days will be at a premium since the hard packed base coat has given way to greening grass blades and warmer weather. We're not fooled, though. We have lots of winter left for slip sliding down alleys and watching those clouds of waxwings and starlings that have been ravaging winter wild cherry and mountain ash trees.

If you happen to notice one of those dead coots on the ground near the river or lake, check out their legs and feet. Talk about weird!
Photo credit for American Coot: Peter S. Weber copywright

Happy Hunting, whatever it is you're after!

SlipSliding down Winter Alleys

I was going to title this, Beware Winter Alleys, but what is there to say? Fall down, go boom...end of conversation. I was one of those youths who had a legion of well meaning folks ever cautioning me to avoid his or that. The conversation started with "Don't you dare... as I recall. I always did, dare that is. I snuck out my window and roamed at night as a pre-teen. From the same window, I hopped into friend's cars as a teeny bopper, which we then had to roll down the street with lights out to avoid detection. Later on, when the DO NOT list started with boys, I knew if I ignored that advice, there was something great awaiting me, and I was right. I biked 2500 miles alone across Canada one time, which was the topic of much advice. So now I'm more sensible and the temptation list is really short.

However, even I know I should heed my own advice and avoid winter alleys buffed to a high gloss. Alleys in spring are a salad buffet, in summer, the miniature countryside of fragrant foliage and good eating, in fall a comforting, quiet get away (mind the garbage bins, stray cats and back yard mechanics).

Winter is another story. It can be either a skating rink or a geography of icy ridges, lightly covered mounds of dog poo, light powder on glass, like sawdust on a dance floor. I have lucked out so far in that all my spills have been benign and I do keep meaning to buy those ice traction get ups for boots. I see the tracks in my neighborhood of the sensible walkers who stick to the main streets and wear metal cleats.

Speaking of tracks, one clear January day, I saw a distinctive running shoe track in the snow way over by the city dock and as my course took me back several blocks to my neighborhood, I picked up the exact track along 5th Ave. W, followed it through this alley and then let it go, since it was just curiosity pure and simple. I had figured out it was a woman based on shoe size and stride. When I lived on the edge of 10 miles of mixed deciduous, conifer forest in Canada, tracking was our winter fun! What creatures we 'spotted'-bobcat, mountain lion, bear, deer, rabbit, porcupine, moose, weasel, ferret- if only by their footprints.
As these photos show, there is not a bleaker landscape than a
winter alley, and yet because this is only one aspect, albeit an ugly one, I know better things are in store. Like your beloved in winter, who is a decent sort of guy or gal, but who is cranky and out of sorts at this season, the winter alley is just biding its time, seeds snoring softly under the frozen earth, thousands of buds lining the bowed branches, poised to bust open, just awaiting the wake up kiss of spring.

Happy Alley Sliding!

February Under the Big Sky

Winter in Montana is not the time you would associate with alley grazing, though as you may have read in earlier posts, my friend Mary and I did dig collards out of the snow a couple winters ago. My morning and evening jaunt is more like alley crawling, stomping, slip/sliding or even skiing. Most winters, Polson doesn't have enough new powder to do anything except...sledding. That most ancient of winter pastimes happens with a vengance at our own Riverside Park, only four blocks (and one alley) from my home.

And that my friends, is a sight to behold. Grab your little red sled, toboggan, or old fashioned Red Flyer (remember, the one with runners) and the thickest coat you have, and head to the park. Riverside Park overlooks the swift running Flathead River, Polson Bridge clicking under a steady stream of cars, and in the water, Canada geese, coots ganged up in flotillas, maybe even a Bald Eagle or two. My friend Jan took this at the park last Saturday with an extremely long lens.

The slope from 1st Street down to the playground is steep enough that, with some new powder, and a little push to start your sled, you go like a blue streak, pushing your heart rate into triple digit arythmia. Little bumps engineered into the hill give your tail bone a thrill as well. However, the local snowboard set has upped the ante with a rock hard snow ramp ending in a picnic table that launches the erstwhile snowboarder into a free fall of about 8-10 feet. Yowza.
So from the bucolic peacefulness of early morning and late
evening alley strolling, I am but a few blocks from the break neck wildness and hilarity of Riverside Park. The few times my dog, Sam ever escaped during the summertime, I found him at Riverside, chest deep in the river, where he was invisible under a couple dozen hands caressing his waterlogged body. If a dog could purr, he would have. His favorite companions are the sun baked kids who swim away their days like otters. Even the dogs in town know where the fun lives.

photocredits: winter Fotosearch.com copywright http://www.fotosearch.com/CSK398/ks95544/

Fun is always just around the corner!

Garden grazing

In the previous post, I mention the greenhouse surprise of non-stop chickweed. This is what it looked like up close. You can detect broccoli plants adrift in this sea of chickweed. This truly is a stellar crop. Sorry, couldn't resist the pun on stellaria, fancy name for chickweed. When they blossom, hundreds of tiny white stars appear, hence the name. This photo by Patrick J. Alexander captures stellaria's namesake flower and it's perfect symettry.

At the time of my last post, that is mainly what my little greenhouse was growing-chickweed. A grow- it-themselves frenzy of green. Left to their own devices, Stellaria plants will climb up fences and buildings, and grow where no plant dares to go, like under the cottonwood tree out back that shades out everything.

I made a power drink by pulling up these very chickweed plants and stuffing my blender full. I just added some water and tamari. Yum. Talk about turbo-powered. Funny how world class nutrition thrives in the forgotten places, the unplanted wastelands, the gravel byway where someone threw their used motor oil, around fence posts, garbage bins and telephone poles.

The alleys and fence rows are currently full of lamb's quarters ripe for the picking at about 12-18 inches. They have big arrow shaped leaves that are slightly fuzzy. Their appearance doesn't do justice to the succulent feast contained therein. They are much better eating than cooked spinach, in my book. I steam them in a little bit of water. Later in the season, when they're bitter, I boil them in a lot of water. Lamb's quarters are particularly partial to growing around telephone poles on this side of town.

After I peeled the greenhouse off the garden, those broccoli, lettuce, and onion plants started to take off. To that I added more lettuce seed, peas, both sugar snap and edible pod, a couple tomato plants and pansies.You can see me standing behind broccoli surrounded by lettuce, both Simpson Seedless and Red. With all that rain the past few days, the broccoli really shot up. The white backboard to the former greenhouse will hopefully be covered with scarlet runner beans sometime in the next month or so.

Yep. It looks like the grazing has moved from the alley into the garden.

Not only that...Since I signed up for weekly delivery of locally grown organic produce, I'm buried in baby greens, lettuce , spinach, green onions and radishes. This has been nipping my alley grazing right in the bud. I probably will have to turn in my alley grazer credentials and just poke around my own garden and collect my weekly bale of greens from Julian. That is until the plums start coming. Then you will see me out there with my baskets and Super 1 bags loaded down. Hope to see you then!

Photo credit for Patrick Alexander's stellaria flower: USDA, NRCS. 2008. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov/, 18 March 2008). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

Salads-R-Us

A month ago, I opened up my tiny greenhouse that had not been heated since early February. Lo and behold! The seeds I had planted in January and abandoned in February, were thriving. Lettuce, onions, and a forest of chickweed volunteers. I built a large salad and planted more seeds. As I mentioned in an earlier post, chickweed cut fine with scissors adds an amazingly wonderful taste and texture to salads.

Now there are collards, spinach and new lettuce coming up from my recently planted seeds. In three weeks, I will peel the plastic off the green house and replant. By then, the alley foraging should be getting off to a great start. Between the greenhouse, garden and alleys, I get to fill up on fresh greens for free.

For me, there is something so incredibly satisfying about the ease of growing things when all you have to do is add water. Oh sure, there are a few bugs munching the tender lettuce. But, unless they are hogging the leaf, it doesn't seem to hurt the taste or aesthetics. I like to think of it as sharing.

The steamy ambiance of a greenhouse on a blustery spring day when the wind cuts you like a knife is sublime. A great place to hide out, meditate or dream.

Last fall, I hung a piece of 2x4 on my fence with holes for the PVC pipe ribs , attached some uprights, threw plastic over it and called it a greenhouse. Oh yes, I added a little door (it's behind the tree).

It is an amazingly simple and affordable home project for around $30, counting the seed. A little $30 ceramic heater keeps it warm through the brutal cold. I call it "going to Florida" when I open that door in an icy gale and tuck myself inside for a spell. It somehow makes winter seem more optional, being able to take a break from it. And the salads, oh how they melt in your mouth and lift your winter weary spirits.

Itching to Browse the Byways

Now that March is sliding toward April, my alley grazer instincts are being reawakened. If you read the original entry, you know that I got excited about all the free food lying around my Montana lakeside town just waiting for harvest.

While alley grazing might not excite everyone I know, food that is local, fresh and free, just about sends me into a rapture. I do love to garden. I garden with gusto, with a greenhouse. However, the pure joy of taking a walk and coming back with groceries, is not to be missed.

I had a few winter months of blogger angst when I couldn't post. In the meantime, I was feasting on the fruits of my fall plunder. A quick turn in the cuisinart turned those back alley plums into ambrosia for toast or waffles. Apples from the seemingly owner-less orchard up the hill became pies and apple-plum sauce, and collards gone wild in my two years previous garden nourished me as soups, stir fry, and steamed greens.

In March here in the mountains, gardens are still slumbering, while the alleys begin thier explosion of spring growth. Some brave souls plant their peas now. I start looking for dandelions and chickweed (stellaria). Every couple weeks, another edible green comes along ready to pick. Eulle Gibbons step aside. This smashing photo of stellaria is provided courtesy of Patrick J. Alexander (USDA, NRCS. 2008. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 18 March 2008). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.)

Last February, I was heading over the hill to work when I spotted a stellaria crawling up the hospital wall. I couldn't believe my good fotune! I swung the car around and pirated the works before the maintenance people had a chance to poison it. Best salad green there is. I just cut it up with scissors and splash on a lemon-olive oil vinaigrette.

A south facing fence or wall will be the best bet for March munching. It is a bit early yet, but a warm stretch like this, complete with pussy willows, usually means wild greens in our very near future.

To identify what you find, check out kingdomplantae.net or ask your gardening friends. They usually know a weed when they see one.

Happy munching alley grazers!

Winter Harvest

Here it is December in Montana, 20 below and all that. Not today, however, in the banana belt. In previous posts I confessed to my passion for prowling humble back alleys of town for the wild edibles that might lurk there.

Yes, I was out today with a fair snow cover of about four to six inches. Would you believe that on this very Sunday, attempting to take the edge off a caffeine buzz, I wandered back to my erstwhile garden. Yes, the very same collard patch about which I previously rhapsodized in the Sectet Life of Collards (below). Would you believe I reached under the snow and pried up several frozen, green leaf stalks. I am going to cook them up for lunch and report back.

If, by now, you wonder about the mental stability of someone who openly admits to being a collard fiend, I can't blame you. Until a few years ago, I would have agreed, as I am a recent convert.

I marvel at the pure good fortune of finding three of my favorite foods within arms reach of my home in town! Exactly a month ago, after two snows and several freezing nights, I picked a couple bushels of plums just a stones throw from my back door, off the ground. Several cooperative plum trees had dumped their bounty. The ones that passed the touch test became freezer plums and plum-apple sauce. Yum!

My dog Sam (see photo) fully appreciated the outing today. On the nine block journey up the hill, I saw four ravens harassing a seagull over the pines, deer tracks down a major thoroughfare, and the snow covered rubble of a burnt down apartment building that once housed neighbors. There is much to see on foot on a quiet Sunday morning, not to mention a wealth of unexpected nutrition.

By the way, I am munching on those long-in-the-tooth collard greens I just picked and they taste delicious. I confess, they needed to cook for at least seven minutes, not the usual three. Even the stalks are good.