Maggie's Farm

A reader sent in this photo of an Eastern American Toad (Bufo Americanus) in the garden this past weekend. Everybody enjoys stumbling upon these goofy critters, which tend to be active at night (when the sun will not dry them out) or during rain. If find it remarkable how often they can be found far from any pools or ponds in which to breed. They travel.

I remember rainy days in Cape Cod when the baby toads had completed their magical transformation from tadpole to tiny (1/2") toads in August in such numbers that you could hardly find a place to put your foot, like Red Efts on cloudy days in the Berkshires.

The only thing I know that likes to eat them is the Hognose Snake, and I've never seen one of them.

Scientificalistical experts have proven (the debate is over) that if you touch a toad, you will get warts, but if you are a girl, and kiss one, it will turn into a Handsome Prince (but you will get warts all over your face).

We have tons of Eastern Toads here. Like all critters, it cheers me to see them.

Back by popular demand!

This funny but handsome hodge-podge of a place is called Morning Glory, now undergoing long-delayed major renovation and necessary graffiti:

 I like this simple look very much. It could use a garden, though. Or maybe not.

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We linked Vanderleun's Frame Up photo essay yesterday, but I thought it was worth further highlighting - or framing, as it were. Especially because my photography teacher friend thought that his idea was cool, and plans to use it in her classes. A few random thoughts and a quote:

- Vanderleun is apparently a big Hopkins fan, as am I. Hopkins was a student of the medieval metaphysician Duns Scotus, from whom he seems to have come up with his notions of "inscape" and "instress." While Hopkins never defined these terms, he attempted to realize the immanent presence of God in his poetry with rhythm and imagery (eg, here.)

- Are photographers simply artists with ADD? I am (obviously) no photographer. I specialize in minimally-composed, poorly-lit, half-focused snapshots with a camera I don't know how to use, which are more intended to document a thing than anything else. In my youth, I drew and painted but I never developed those interests. I have always had too many interests - a dilettante in the perjorative sense of the word. However, I know that when you paint a thing you enter fully into it, of necessity, with brain, soul and hand. Same as playing a song with piano or guitar.

- Framing has, indeed, a magical effect. It has always been a wonder to me how putting a frame on a canvas transforms it. Or how a wall, fence or hedge gives structure and architecture to a garden. Or how framing a fact with context does the same. Or how putting a quote in a "quote box" inclines one to read it. Are frames our tools or are they our protection from TMI, or even from the terrors of the infinite and of chaos? Or both? I'm in over my head now. One day, long ago, I took a B&W random photo of an old dock piling with a spike in it and some weeds next to it, on the West Side of Manhattan. It was one of the 20 photos I've taken in my life that came out well. Produced it in the darkroom myself. I put it in a $1.99 black frame and it looked like art. It's long lost, though.

- In a comment on Vanderleun's piece, the internet metaphysician and master neologist Gagdad Bob has this to say:

This is an extremely provocative subject. The other day I posted about the importance of boundaries in the creation of meaning. In the absence of a frame there is no art or science. But who knew that simply providing one allows one to appreciate the superabundance of beauty that is always pouring forth from virgin nature?

In fact, you may remember the young videographer in American Beauty, who was able to perceive beauty by virtue of framing it with the camera, whether is was a paper bag blowing in the wind or a dead animal by the side of the road.

I often go mountain biking in my area, and just by virtue of taking along a camera and framing the shots (even if I don't even take a picture), a different level of beauty suddenly emerges. You start to see things from a "God's eye view," for what is creation but a finite limitation on infinite possibility, i.e., the imposition of boundary conditions on the infinite?

One could say the same thing of the formal structure of a poem, or of the structural narrative of a great novel that elevates the mundane to a higher plane, or the stage in theatre, which is also a kind of frame.

Bottom line: in the conduct of your life, choose your frame very carefully. It makes all the difference. On one level the frame is an artifice, but on another level it is the doorway into the infinite and eternal.

I guess it goes without saying that I see theology as a frame though which we may see, know, and experience all sorts of things (i.e., truth and beauty) that will go unnoticed in the absence of the frame.

Image is from Vanderleun's piece.

There is nothing simple about understanding tides, because so many local factors - latitude, wind, currents, contour of the shore - come into play in addition to the sun and moon. Up here in New England, you generally need to check a tide table before planning any water-related activities - swimming, boating, clamming, and fishing.

For example, on Cape Cod spring tides can entail an 8-10' tidal change, leaving boats sitting on mud flats at low tide. On the ocean beaches, you want to frolic at low tide, not at high tide when the currents and undertow are strong and you cannot find a footing (I didn't mention all of the Harbor Seals on the ocean beaches this year. Cool. You can paddle right around those big fellas. I think that they think that we are a different seal species.). On the harbor and bay beaches, you cannot walk far enough out to find water deep enough to swim in at low water, although the dogs love to splash in those shallow mudflats.

As you move towards the equator, tidal changes become less important. Do you know why? (Here's why)

Spring tides are the extreme variations in tidal change. Neap tides are the minimal variations. They each occur roughly every two weeks. It's all about how the moon and sun line up to pull the water in the semidiurnal tidal cycle. Wiki has a good summary.

Here's my photo of Wellfleet oystermen tending their precious oyster plots during a spring tide low water last week in Wellfleet. They take their pick-ups out onto the mud flats, and hope they don't get stuck as the tide comes in. At half-tide, you can swim and sail there.

No boat's gonna row: Low tide in the Wellfleet marina:

Writing can confront you with odd things, like realizing that you aren't 100% certain how to spell "twelfth" when you start typing it. Lots of consonants for one small word. You can cheat and type 12th.

The Glorious Twelfth is the August opening of grouse season in the UK, mainly in Scotland. That would be the Scottish Grouse - Red and Black - legendary game birds. Driven fast-flying grouse - doubt I could hit a single one. Some day, I will try. They can reach 60 mph.

Unlike the US, in the UK you can find game on restaurant menus - and on the same day, if lucky. In the US, we found it necessary to make that illegal - market hunters were driving wild critters to extinction. Public lands, no gamekeepers.

Our grouse babies aren't even full-grown yet, and our grouse season doesn't begin until October. Brits and Scots would hate our North American grouse hunting. It entails walking endlessly, without cocktails, through alder tangles that can feel like jail cells, and with only a few shots per day. And no loaders, no drivers.

Image: Scottish Red Grouse, in the heather on the moors.

A witty friend once said that the most fashionable thing to have parked in your driveway is a green dumpster.

Well, I've had that for the last two weeks, but the mess and the cost and the dirt and the dust and the inconvenience of the demolition and slow reconstruction of the master bath isn't fun anymore. Carpenters, plumbers, electricians, painters, tile guys, new fixtures and vent fans... Turns out the leak had spread further than initially thought, so the entire bath had to be gutted. If you are interested, we did decide on a honed limestone floor instead of marble. Not just cost: it's a warmer, more homey look.

And now I see why we had that mysterious, very occasional leak in the downstairs coat closet: the shower stall had a leak too. Homeowner's insurance, I have learned, doesn't cover chronic leaks, just the acute ones. I had both.

Indeed, water and houses do not mix. Outhouses weren't such a bad idea, and outdoor showers are the best idea ever. I am inclined to cut back on a bit of my previous grand plans, not only because of the cost but because of the disruption of normal life routine. I can't find anything after having moved out of the master bath and halfway out of the bedroom.

My only question: Where's FEMA?

Bush obviously doesn't give a damn about my problems.

Photo:  Some nice limestone floor tile.

I like to walk. I used to love to run, but now I prefer walking. During hunting season, I like to walk in the woods and fields with a shotgun, but the rest of the time I like to walk armed with a camera.

Here's one of the few inns in town:

Here's what I think is a classic 18th Century colonial - rare on the Cape - with the typical later additions on the back:

And here it is - a true antique Cape, uncorrupted by dormers:

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With advice for singles:

Fiddler crabs check out at least 100 potential mates before making a decision. While we acknowledge that figuring out how to get along with difficult people is a big part of marriage, how can it hurt to search carefully - even though it's guaranteed that you will end up with a flawed human - or crab? Science Daily

I didn't realize we have three species on the East coast. I guess I am mainly familiar with the ubiquitous and delightful Atlantic Marsh Fiddler of the Cape Cod salt marshes and tidal flats. It always cheers me up to see them.

These cute mud-eating crabs with their little holes all over the high tidal mudflats are all bark and no bite, have gills but breathe air, do not make good bait, and live in colonies in which they seem to spend most of their time threatening eachother.

Cape Cod may have had a little bit of topsoil long ago, but now the Outer Cape (aka the Lower Cape - north of Chatham) is pretty much all sand (which is why the Indians needed to throw a herring into each hill of corn), and the dominant tree is the Pitch Pine. Where it's subject to wind, it doesn't get much higher than a 6' scrub form.

Here's the path to our not-too-secret wild Blackberry patch, where it's not unusual to see a cheerful Eastern Box Turtle, to hear Bob Whites calling during the day, and Whip-Poor-Wills calling in the evening. Shrubs on front left,