Wildflowers of Early Fall

People, what is with me?  I lived 56 years and flowers never caught my attention.  Then just a few weeks ago, I saw the bushy round pinkish-purple heads of the Joe Pye weeds nodding along a rural roadside...  My conversion was instantaneous.  I stopped and picked a few.  Now I'm learning to identify them and dry them.  I've stopped picking them because I actually do have more than enough.  This low-growing plant is called heal-all.  I learned some years ago that it's used in herbal medicine to treat wounds, skin conditions, and sore throats.

I think this is white snakeroot, but it could be boneset.  It's blooming everywhere right now, even as the Queen Anne's lace and Joe Pye weed are fading.

No idea what this bedazzling creature might be...

The Joe Pyes are all fading to brown.

Asters and goldenrod.

And another kind of aster.

Jewelweed.  My brothers and I used to rub this stuff on our skin if we ever got stung by nettles.  It actually works!  Some people apply it to poison ivy.  They're wild impatiens that contain a lot of fluid.

I was surprised to learn that this is a wild sunflower.  Contrary to myth, sunflowers do not turn their heads to follow the sun.  My wildflower guide, which I bought used for $3, says that every part of this plant is edible except the roots.

Click on this photo.  Does it seem like this stuff used to be everywhere, and now it's not?  This is called smartweed.  No idea how it got its name.  When I was a kid, it seemed like it was in every lawn and green space.  Now I rarely see it.

Like I've said in previous posts, it amazes me that I can still be taking on new interests at my age.  But in a way it makes me sad to realize that I was missing out on so much beauty and joy for all these years.  Ah well, you could only have been who and how you were because that was the road that got you to who and how you are now.  True?

I mean...look at this weirdness.  I've got wildflowers hanging from the rafters of my basement up north.  After they dry, I spray them down with hairspray to keep them from falling apart, and in the winter I'll put them out in vases.  How did this become my life?  (Did you know they're still manufacturing hairspray?  It's used quite heavily up in the North Country...)

Samuel Justus Rail Trail

Friday was perfect for a 4-mile hike along the Allegheny River up in its northern reaches.  I hadn't hiked the Samuel Justus Trail in many years.  Rail trails are not my favorite.  I don't like sharing the trail with bikes and dogs.  Also, they tend to be heavily traveled.  Rail trails run through all the places where railroads go--or went--which means they sometimes take you through the grittier, less scenic parts of cities and towns.  But, like railroads, they do often follow rivers, which is nice.  I give money to the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy because I want America to have a network of public footpaths like they have in Europe.  In the United Kingdom, you can walk pretty much anywhere.  Wanna walk from London to Edinburgh using footpaths?  It's entirely possible--though some of those footpaths take you across pastureland with some very unpleasant bulls roaming about, and they can include road-walks.  In some ways, a network of rail trails would be better. 

The Oil City trailhead is tricky to find, so I hiked from Franklin toward Oil City.  I'm not sure how it is that it's only 5.5 miles from one town to the other if you walk the trail, but by car, it's 8 miles.  The road is on the other side of the river and might be on the outside of the curve, but that wouldn't add 2.5 miles to the trip, would it?

I'd like to walk the whole thing, but my cousin told me there's no Uber or Lyft up there, so I don't know how I'd get back to my car.  Might be fun to park in Oil City, kayak downriver to Franklin, then walk the trail back to the car.  It'd take quite a while.  (A thing people in Oil City used to say: "Flush your toilets; Franklin needs water."  If you know the two towns, then you know why that's ironic.)

The Allegheny: river of my life.  I've been in nearly 30 countries and all but 6 states.  I've lived in New York, Oklahoma City, and half a decade in Africa. I speak French quite well and a smattering of other languages--just enough to get by.  But I do love knowing where I'm from and keeping strong ties to that place.  This river feels like home.  It roots me.  

River Ridge Farm, Near Franklin

Above is a grainy photo of the main house at River Ridge Farm.  When the leaves are off the trees, you can still see this dark old house presiding aloofly over the valley of the Allegheny River and all the wooded hills around.  It's a beautiful sight.  It was built by a wealthy man named Sibley.  When I was a child, my father always pointed it out when we drove past--across the river and up in the hills.  He called it "The Sibley Estate" and said that a certain US President summered there once or twice and that Sibley himself lived there under house arrest--though I don't recall which President or why Sibley was under house arrest.  His money--like all the money around here--was in oil. 

The beautiful Samuel Justus Rail Trail leads you to the gates of the estate.  Here's the gatehouse.  That's to say, there used to be a train stop here.  The railroad tracks eventually fell into disuse, but then in the 80s or 90s, the wonderful rail-trail movement tore out the old railroad and used the bed to create a beautiful path along the river.  This brought people once again to the gates of River Ridge Farm.  

The driveway is long since disappeared.

In 1968, my father had the choice to buy the old farmhouse at River Ridge Farm or a big wooden house in Oil City.  Both were selling for $7,000.  The farmhouse was a huge, redbrick mansion in its own right, though not as grand as the 33-room main house.  My mother didn't want to live so far from town, so he opted for the (now abandoned and condemned) house in Oil City.   

 

Long ago, I saw black-and-white photographs of my mother sitting in the carillon tower pictured here.  The photos had frilly edges.  My father's Mustang--which he bragged about for decades after it was gone--was in the background.  I don't know what happened to those pictures.  My parents became hoarders, and so much good stuff got thrown away with the bad when we moved them out of their long succession of wasted houses.  Oh, but truly my mother was beautiful when she was young.  My father looked like an angry weird scarecrow, but she was lovely.  River Ridge Farm is still an enormous estate with a gatehouse, a guesthouse, a farmhouse, and a main house.  It's now owned by a fundamentalist sect that does recovery from addiction with a religious bent.  They're secretive, and the estate is closed to the public.  After Sibley died, the "White Fathers" set up a Catholic missionary training center here.  That, too, is long gone.

A Goldfinch Molting to Winter Plumage

I work every Sunday and many Saturdays.  For that reason, I usually take Fridays off and go to my place up north after work on Thursday evenings.  One of the first things I do when I arrive up there is to refill the birdfeeders.  I want to draw an avian crowd on Friday morning, so I can watch all the many hungry birds from the deck.  Nothing makes me happier than a flock of goldfinches swarming around the feeder with other songbirds waiting in branches nearby.  As usual, the feeder out back was pretty much empty when I got there this past Thursday evening...except for this poor fellow.  Some hapless feathered creature found its way inside the birdfeeder and got itself trapped in there.  Poor thing was fluttering and throwing itself against the clear plastic walls in a state of pure panic, which only got worse when I approached to help it out.

Upon closer inspection, I found that it was a male goldfinch in mid-molt: its bright yellow summer garb was already fading into a drab winter garb of muted grays and browns--retaining the deep black markings on its wings and tail.  Evenings up north have been chilly, and the year-round birds have already begun to grow softer, thicker feathers against the cold.  I lifted the roof of the feeder--a roof that had been heavily damaged by two separate bear attacks--but the goldfinch wasn't about to fly straight upward into the face of the pale, frightening humanoid creature (me) who stood beaming at it like an idiot.  When I raised the clear plastic side, it flew away immediately with three loud squawks in rapid sequence.  "Wut, wut, wut!!!"  I like to think it was thanking me for setting it free.

I can't get enough of the abandoned farmsteads in the far northeastern corner of Venango County.  I've posted shots of this place before, but I don't think I'll be fully happy till I do an oil painting of it.

Which could take a while because I don't know anything about oil painting.  It looks like it was a happy home at one time.  Someone still mows the big yard and works the farm, but curtains hang in tatters from the farmhouse windows.  

I'm guessing someone uses this old farmstead as a hunting camp now--but that's only a guess.  It's less derelict than the larger farm down the road (above), but it's still got a distinct air of loneliness about it.  The barn sits near the house, but the fields--I think--have been sold off to nearby neighbors.  There's a small, newish, well-maintained cabin in the back field, invisible from here.  In three years, I've never seen any signs of life around this farmhouse.  Never a vehicle parked outside nor a light inside.  There's not even a driveway.  And yet, it seems to have a solid metal roof.  I wonder what stories these old farmsteads are trying to tell.  Were they here during the oil boom of the 1860s and 70s?  Were they overrun with derricks and fortune-seekers from around the globe?  Did their peace return only after the oil ran dry?  

Washington Park Overlook, Warren

A little chore took me to the pleasant town of Warren just yesterday, where I discovered this view out over town.  Warren is a small city full of grand old mansions and stately public buildings.  If the Kinzua Dam ever fails, this town will get washed away in seconds.  It'll be Johnstown all over again.

Off Trail at Oil Creek State Park

There were more folks than I expected at Oil Creek State Park on Labor Day.  I tend to avoid public parks on holidays, but it called to me from across the miles.  There's too much uncertainty in my life right now.  I miss my daughters who are away at college.  I've been feeling a little edgy and bored.  I had to do what I've been doing all my life: Take it to the trees.  The trees have seen it all, and their counsel is always wise.

The weather was nice, not too hot, and I didn't have time to go too far from home.  It would have been a good day to put a kayak on Oil Creek, but who would taxi me back to my car?  

Oil Creek doesn't disappoint--with its rugged, steep terrain, its pleasant vistas, and its lazy, winding stream.  I'm hoping to do the whole 37-mile loop someday.  But I always expect summers to hold far more adventures than you can fit into them.  

At one point, I got into a pretty heated text conversation with a faraway friend and wandered off the trail and onto private land, where I made this slightly eerie discovery.  It's an old Detroit from late 30s or early 40s.  Someone drove it in here long ago, pushed it over on its side, and left it.

Midlife Wonders: Birds, Wildflowers, Houseplants

My weird, unexpected, and perhaps slightly less than manly interest in wildflowers continues.  So much so that I've taken to drying them, so I can put them out in the winter.  I still have a "best friend" from my college days--though it feels strange for someone my age to have such a thing.  When I told him about my new interest in wildflowers, he disapproved.  Funny how Gen X men are always policing each other's masculinity...

No one ever told me that your mid-50s would be like a second childhood--a time when you regard the world with wide-eyed wonder and a fresh openness to new discoveries.

I've gone over half a century without noticing birds and wildflowers.  But now?  Now I can't look away.  How did I miss them for all these years?  I even bought two low maintenance houseplants yesterday.  Never in my life have I owned a houseplant.  Now I wonder how I lived so long without them.  

There was a whole flock of goldfinches at my feeder up North--beautiful small birds with bright yellow bodies and black wings.  I sat and watched them like a movie, grinning like a fool.  And there were chickadees, and nuthatches, and tufted titmice, and house wrens--like the one who used to live in a little box on my grandmother's clothesline pole.  She called it "Jenny Wren."  Chipmunks and mourning doves chased each other beneath the feeder, picking up the fallen seeds.  The world is a place of many wonders.  But it takes us so long, so, so very long to have our eyes opened to many of them.