Boardwalking

There’s nothing like the sound of boards under your feet while taking a stroll.  Your footsteps make enough noise to add a rhythm to your excursion while not being so loud as to interfere with being able to hear the subtle sounds of nature.  And, most importantly, you don’t have to worry about getting sand or small gravel in your shoes.

There are many boardwalks and wooden bridges in Nova Scotia, meandering through wetlands, creating paths to beaches through sand dunes and along the shoreline.  Weathered boardwalks offer smooth walking surfaces in soft grey colors.  They unobstrusively blend into their surroundings better than pavement or even gravel, and their ramps offer closer access to wild areas for folks in wheelchairs and parents pushing strollers.

At Rainbow Haven beach, the raised boardwalks provide shelter and convenient hiding places for foxes wishing to keep a low profile.  Coffee drinkers too, as evidenced by the paper Tim’s cup balanced on the rafters.

A thin layer of frost can make the boardwalk slippery in colder weather.  Though it’s sparkly in the sunshine, the combination of fine salt spray and freezing temperatures create a surface that can be surprisingly slick.

The boardwalk in Eastern Passage is popular with folks of all ages seeking exercise in a natural setting.  It can get quite crowded on warm summer afternoons and evenings.

At Rainbow Haven park, a crow rests at dawn on the lookout at the end of the widest walkway.  

This boardwalk is sure to see thousands of feet trample its boards this summer on their way to and from the beach.

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Wood’s Many Stages

The living room window is covered with a curtain of green vines at this time of year.  I feel like I am looking out into the world from the shelter of a forest cover of green.  The layers of Boston Ivy leaves insulate the house from the outdoor heat during these summer months. Later in the autumn, they’ll turn a brilliant red.

To humans, the green wood element refreshes the spirit in springtime and provides food in the summer and fall.   It represents growth and life, attracting and nurturing living creatures within its environment.

If I keep a green bough in my heart,
the singing bird will come.
~ Chinese proverb

This montage of images from our scavenger hunt shows how beautiful wood is in all its stages of growth and decay: from young seedling or shoot, to leaf and fruit laden bush or tree, to aged tree stump and driftwood found along the seashore.  It can be pliable but also sturdy.  The wood element thrives with water, is harmed by metal, destroyed by fire and draws its strength from the earth.

Montage images were taken from the Midsummer’s Scavenger Hunt.

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Think Pink

Forget pink cotton candy, bubble gum, Elvis and Mary Kay’s pink cadillacs, pink slips and the Pink Panther.  Forget the color’s association with baby girls and all things feminine…  lipstick, nail polish and party dresses.  Just… think pink.

Pink, often called rose,  is considered one of the calmest colors to look at.  Its delicate blush is attractive, non-threatening and uplifting.  To look at the world through rose colored glasses is to see everything in a positive light.

You may already know that Picasso had a blue period of painting, characterized by sombre arrangements of melancholic, seemingly disconnected individuals.  But did you know that his blue style was superceded by a rose period?  It expressed a changed life of personal happiness for Picasso, marked by closer relationships with others.

In nature, flowers like peonies, clematis and wild roses paint garden and roadside scenes with joyful jots of pink and rose.  The rising and setting sun may also blush the sky and landscape with a rosy glow.  Perhaps a walk at dawn or sunset may be just the remedy for a sad disposition.  If you’re really feeling blue, it might be helpful to gaze into a pink flower for a few minutes and breathe in its color.  It certainly wouldn’t hurt.  Just keep an eye out for the bees!

Frequently the wood are pink —
Frequently are brown.
Frequently the hills undress
Behind my native town.
Oft a head is crested
I was wont to see —
And as oft a cranny
Where it used to be —
And the Earth — they tell me —
On its Axis turned!
Wonderful Rotation!
By but twelve performed!

~ Emily Dickinson

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Nature’s Elemental Palette

Five elements are thought to exist in Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese practice of interpreting environments.  These are:  earth, water, fire, metal and wood.  Colors are also believed to represent these elements.  In the image above, a blazing red leaf gives the impression of fire. Its fire quality is emphasized even more by its triangular shape which is reminiscent of the tongue of a flame.

Brown garden stones, shown supporting one another above, represent the earth element, a symbol for wisdom.  Along with browns, yellows and oranges also allude to the nurturing earth.  Square shapes emphasize this element even further.  

The wood element, which symbolizes growth, is ubiquitous in a forest landscape where it is revealed in a variety of greens.  Yet, even near the ocean or in the city, green growth is not difficult to find.  The branch shape in the green floral stems above, found along a salt marsh, underlines the wood element in this image even further.

White, grey, silver and gold reveal the metal element in nature.  Positively, this element can communicate strength and solidity.  Negatively, it can suggest sadness, as in the image above, of an overcast and rainy day at the beach.

Water can be represented in a landscape by a pond or stream, but also by the presence of cool, dark blues as shown in the Blue Flag Iris at left.  A bed of black tulips planted in the shape of a meander would be especially representational of the water element.

Like nature, color can be both simple and complex.  It never ceases to amaze or arouse wonder in those who seek to understand it better.

This post is written to provide further insight into the relationship between the elements and color in nature, as first introduced in my earlier post about a Midsummer’s Scavenger Hunt.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.
~ Georgia O’Keefe

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Make a Wood Pile

For small wildlife, nothing could be cozier this winter than snuggling down beneath a nice, messy wood pile, especially one that’s begun to rot.  I have several of these piles in my yard.  I know they’re well used.  Sometimes, after a fresh snow, I see little tracks to and from the piles.  It warms my heart to know that small creatures feel safe and cozy in my little neck of the woods.

Centipedes and beetles love wood piles.  They also love to eat slugs and slug eggs, which is good news to gardeners.  Toads and salamanders will hibernate beneath moist wood piles while voles and shrews will appreciate the drier ones.

Creating a wood pile is all too easy.  You gather up a few sticks and branches, perhaps stack a few logs, and place them in a spot that is off the beaten path.  Then you leave it alone.  The hardest part is accepting the fact that your yard is going to have to look a bit messy in order to be attractive to wildlife.

 

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