Category: Nature

Manhattan in the Fall

JWF Leave a comment

RETURN TO MANHATTAN

Manhattan in late May was quite lively; Manhattan in October is brimming with energy.  Yes, there are a sad number of empty storefronts, but people are out and about and bustling here and there.  Outdoor dining structures remain popular while many restaurants seem to have been re-discovered.  Having to show proof of Covid vaccination to eat inside provides a welcome sense of comfort.  Waiters also are masked. 

Before arriving, we downloaded the NYCCOVIDSAFE app to our phones and added photos of our driver’s license and vaccine card.  Easy to do and easy to show this when entering a restaurant.  So far, we’ve dined at several favorite or familiar restaurants and one new to us. We also ventured to 34th Street to eye the old post office building, now transformed into the grand and soaring Moynihan Train Hall.  Such a magnificent improvement over tired Penn Station!

RESTAURANT REPORT

August

August’s attractive dining room

This small Upper East Side restaurant is cozy and welcoming. With mirrors on the back wall and above the bar, the space has a bit of an Art Deco feel about it.  Patrons were a mix of ages and gender with several couples, a table of four, and a single woman diner.  

Service was efficient and the menu intriguing.  Tempted to try several new dishes, we over ordered.  The warm cornbread came cut in pieces in a cute square cast iron dish.  A wire basket of zucchini strips looked like the world’s best skinny fries.  Both were very good!  

Zucchini strips

For entrees, we sampled the ahi tuna on crispy rice and the sole meuniere over spinach and marble potatoes.  They were also tasty.  Based on this one dinner, we will return to explore more of the menu.

Glazed ahi tuna

RECENT READING

SCIENCE IN THE TREE CANOPY

The Arbornaut:  A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees above Us by Meg Lowman

Meg Lowman (canopymeg.com)

Decades before I knew Meg Lowman, I read a review of her first book, Life in the Treetops in the New York Times. I bought the book and read it and thought about using it as part of a presentation I was going to give.  We were in Florida around that time, and realizing she worked nearby, I contemplated contacting her to chat about her career.  I didn’t and the years passed.

Fast forward to late 2013 and I had the opportunity to meet Meg.  The Chief Penguin hired her at the California Academy of Sciences.  We got to know her and consider her a friend.  Early on, we celebrated New Year’s Day, January 2014, with a memorable picnic in Myakka River State Park.  Having grown up in winter climes, the idea of a picnic in January was unheard of, but appealing.  Meg was chief organizer.  We met some of her friends, ate well, and then climbed the canopy walkway she helped design.  On the tower, you are 75 feet up overlooking the trees and greenery below.

Meg’s new book, The Arbornaut, is partly memoir, partly science, and completely engaging.  From a childhood in upstate NY spent outdoors, to graduate school and research in Australia, to stints as a professor/single mom at two colleges, to field work and being an international ambassador for tree conservation, it’s a multi-faceted, varied life.  As one of the few, and sometimes the only woman, in class or out in the field, Meg faced discrimination, indifference, and occasional sexual harassment.  Yet her love of trees and her passion for saving this key planetary resource kept her plugging away, always creating partnerships for future collaborative work.  Along the way, she made it a priority to include and mentor girls and young women in her branch of science.

In person, Meg is exuberant and an enthusiast for her cause.  Her infectious spirit comes through on the page too.  I learned a LOT about the kinds of leaves in various tree canopies and about which or how many insects nibbled, chewed, or put holes in them.  Her explanations of the field work and her research studies are accessible and tinged with the occasional humorous bit.  

For her adventuring spirit, no challenge is too much.  Individual chapters on the treetop BioBlitz in remote Malaysia, preserving the church forests in Ethiopia, and tree climbing in Kansas with disabled individuals are all fascinating.  By the end, the reader is well acquainted with Meg the person and Meg the field biologist.  Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)

Note: Header photo of the Queensboro Bridge and the food-related photos are ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Here & There: Lakes and Trees

JWF 5 Comments

FINGER LAKES

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Skaneateles, NY, a charming village on the northern edge of Skaneateles Lake. We were there for my niece’s outdoor wedding at Frog Pond.  Skaneateles is one of the eleven Finger Lakes in central New York State.   These glacier-created lakes are long and skinny, deep, and cold.  Sixteen miles in length and ranging from 148 feet to 315 feet deep, Skaneateles Lake is considered the cleanest, most pristine lake in the state. It is also the source of Syracuse’s water supply. 

Skaneateles Lake with pier

The Finger Lakes run north to south, and from east to west their names are: Otisco, Skaneateles, Owasco, Cayuga, Seneca, Keuka, Canandaigua, Honeoye, Canadice, Hemlock, and Conesus.  The larger lakes, Skaneateles, Owasco, Cayuga, and Seneca, are the better known ones.

Lakeside at the yacht club (owascoyachtclub.com)

I grew up in Auburn located at the northern end of Owasco Lake.   My childhood summers were filled with picnics and swimming outings at Owasco Yacht Club, a family club on the lake’s eastern shore.   Spring fed, the lake was often still cold in early July.  My mother never went into the water until after July 4th.

Ithaca, home to Cornell University is at the southern end of Cayuga Lake.  The campus is famous for steep gorges. Waterfalls are also numerous in this area with Buttermilk Falls and dramatic Taughannock Falls whose water plunges 215 feet.

Taughannock Falls (fairy burger.com)

Seneca Lake, 35 miles long, is the largest of the Finger Lakes and the deepest at 630 feet.  It moderates upstate New York’s temperate climate and is home to the largest number of wineries in this region. It is reported that once a century Seneca Lake freezes over.  The last time was in 1912, and some folks claimed they skated 35 miles from Geneva at the northern tip to Watkins Glen at the southern end.  

The town of Seneca Falls on Seneca’s northern shore was the site of the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention.  Today you can visit the Women’s Rights National Historical Park and the National Women’s Hall of Fame here.  

This area of New York is rich in history, and beautiful to behold with much to explore.  Best to visit in the summer, however, as even late May, witness last weekend, can be chilly!

GHOST FOREST

On one of our last days in Manhattan, we ambled into Madison Square Park and were greeted by sculptor Maya Lin’s latest outdoor work.  Called Ghost Forest, it’s a stand of forty-nine white cedar trees looming upward, but minus any leaves.  The trees are from a dead area in the New Jersey pine barrens.  It’s a haunting site, yet at the same time inviting.  Lone individuals and couples with toddlers made themselves comfortable on the ground midst the trees.  These trees will be in place into November.

Family enjoying Ghost Forest

Ghost Forest builds on Lin’s earlier climate change projects. One, called What is Missing, presents sounds of nature and animals that are endangered or have disappeared.  Missing exists both online and in several locations  The first site is a giant megaphone, The Listening Cone, installed at the California Academy of Sciences in 2009.  A treat for the Chief Penguin and me was getting to know Maya Lin a bit and visiting her in her Manhattan studio. 

TRAVEL PARTICULARS

In Skaneateles:

  • For historic charm, stay at the Sherwood Inn (1807) opposite the lake.
  • For a casual lunch or dinner, dine at Bluewater Grill overlooking the water.
  • For continental dinner fare, make a reservation for a table on the porch at Sherwood.
  • For a hearty lunch on a rainy day, indulge in a Reuben in Sherwood’s tavern, or hop a bar stool at Lakehouse Pub for local beer, quesadillas, or that regional favorite, beef kummelweck.
Lunchtime regulars at Lakehouse Pub
  • For some good Mexican food for lunch or dinner (no reservations), show up early at the Elephant and the Dove.
  • On the outskirts of town and walkable (sidewalk all the way), book at the popular Rosalie’s Cucina for generous portions of Italian meatballs, fried chicken and braciole.
  • Lastly, by car, dine at Auburn’s most sophisticated eatery, Moro’s Table.  Dishes include mussels, scallops, and sushi, along with beef sirloin, short ribs, salmon, and sea bass.
Smiles all around at the wedding reception

Note: Unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Image of Sarasota Bay skyline

Tidy Tidbits: Mostly Nature

JWF Leave a comment

AN INCREDIBLE LIFE, A HUGE LOSS

RBG hung on for a very long time through multiple bouts of cancer.  What a trouper she was and what a magnificent justice and advocate for equal rights!  Such an impressive woman.  Thank you, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for your powerful intellect, your undiminished passion, and for all you achieved.  You will be missed.  

The Chief Penguin and I had the distinct privilege and pleasure of hearing Justice Ginsburg speak in Aspen a few years ago, and it was both:  a privilege and a pleasure.

A RESTORATIVE

Tree trunk at Selby

Selby Gardens in Sarasota is a favorite place of ours and we often take family and visiting friends there.  Since Covid, we had not returned for a long while, but today made a brief visit.  I wanted to see the glass art on display and was very ready for a change of scene.  

Purple glass vase
Artist is Duncan McClellan
Yellow green large vase etched in brown
Green Farm by Duncan McClellan

We arrived about ten minutes before opening and joined three other masked couples ahead of us in line.  The experience was wonderful.  Very few people, lots of plants in bloom (can’t recall ever coming in September), and I saw the glass on the exhibit’s last day.  

Shallow glass bowls on the pond

It was overcast with a light breeze and not at all hot.  We meandered through the conservatory and then outside among the plants, claiming a bench to take in this view of the bay.  I left feeling relaxed and rejuvenated.  For a time, life seemed normal.

Looking out at Sarasota Bay toward Lido Key
Sarasota Bay from Selby Gardens

NATURE ON SCREEN

Islands of Wonder:  Madagascar (PBS)

This is part of a series on unique islands around the world.  The listing caught my eye because the Chief Penguin and I spent three weeks in Madagascar in 2009 when we worked at the California Academy of Sciences.  The Academy had several research projects underway there, and our fellow travelers were the chief botany curator, a trustee, their wives, and a local guide.  We flew in and out of the capital city airport in Antananarivo, informally known as “Tana,” and then traveled by van to rainforests, desert, and mountains.  

Madagascar, east of mainland Africa, is the oldest island on earth.   Due to its isolated location, it has an astounding number of species found only there. Perhaps best known are the many varieties of lemurs, and they feature extensively in this visually stunning show.  From ring-tailed ones to dancing sifakas, one learns how lemurs have adapted to challenging habitats.  Add to that unusual lizards, strange birds, and the cute, hedgehog-like tenrec.  

Madagascar’s topography is also awe-inspiring from its dense rainforests on the east to the spiny desert in the west to the needle-sharp limestone Tsingy mountains.  For anyone interested in nature and biodiversity, this is a fascinating introduction to a very special place!

Note: Photos by JWFarrington. Header photo is the bay and Sarasota skyline.