Author: JLfromNH

A Book Review

I recently finished reading a non-fiction book titled The Memory Code by Lynne Kelly. She begins her work with an observation about traditional non-literate cultures. While preparing to do research for a natural history book about animal behavior and indigenous stories, she became aware of the vast amount of memorized information possessed by native Australians. Their capacity to recall detailed knowledge about local animals including not just their identification but their behavior, favored living areas, and value to the local humans far dwarfed any knowledge she was able to get out of a book. Coupled with plant lore, the lay of the land, locations of vital watering holes, beliefs, customs, even genealogies, it was clear indigenous Australians must have some way of recalling and preserving this information without the advantage of books.

What they use are songlines, sung narratives tied to physical locations, weaving back and forth across the landscape, with rituals being performed at specific locations using dancing and singing to encode the information associated with that area and make it more memorable. Dr Kelly noted that the songlines were used in a fashion similar to that of the memory palaces used by ancient Greek orators to memorize their speeches.

This in turn led her to wonder if other early cultures also used similar methods to preserve oral wisdom. Could the ancient ruins of Stonehenge, the Carnac Megaliths, the Nasca Lines or even the giant stone heads on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) actually be complex memory spaces used by the peoples who built them? Her subsequent book The Memory Code explores this possibility, carefully examining the archeological evidence of the various sites. Her work is by far the most lucid explanation of why these impressive sites exist and why Neolithic people spent so much time and effort constructing them.

Forget space aliens or refugees from non-existent Atlantis, the reality behind these impressive works is much more mundane and yet at the same time more marvelous. The idea that early people were unsophisticated savages is blown out of the water by the revelation that they in fact possessed a rich body of knowledge which they had built up over thousands maybe even tens of thousands of years. Megalithic monuments like Stonehenge were raised as a way to organize this vast body of wisdom and create memory spaces to preserve this knowledge with as much fidelity as possible.

The ruins of Gobekli Tepe, thought by some to be the world’s first temple, date back to 11,000 years ago. Its elegant design with numerous carvings show that people of the time were already well practiced at creating memory spaces. Dr. Kelly speculates that Gobekli was built as the first large scale memory space. But it is more likely there were earlier ones, either not yet identified or perhaps plowed under by the last incursion of glaciers.

Dr. Kelly points out that many people holding onto their traditions still used memory spaces well within historical times and in some instances even today. The Songlines of the Australians, kivas used by Pueblo people, lukasa memory boards used by the Luba people in central Africa, and the Inkan khipu used by the Inkan Empire all show how widespread the practice is, even in the face of the literacy we take for granted.

Singing and dancing were critical ingredients in the creation of many memory spaces. Recent archeological work at British and European megaliths show signs of large ditches where Dr. Kelly speculates that ceremonies were conducted, taking advantage of the unusual acoustics the ditch would create. Music is as old as the human species itself and possibly even older. Some tantalizing evidence seems to suggest it served as a social glue that bonded human groups together, and ensured their survival even during the hardest times.

Coupled with the need to preserve knowledge, music and dancing became literally hard-wired into our brains. Is it any wonder teenagers insist on listening to music while they do homework? Is it really any surprise our brains are so vulnerable to earworms?

    The Memory Code is well worth a read on a snowy winter evening for delving into these mysteries and coming away with a heightened respect for our far from simple ancestors.

    More Turkey?

    A week after Thanksgiving, it’s pretty certain everyone is more than satiated with every possible dish one can think of to make use of leftover turkey meat with. Since I didn’t have company visit this year, the leftovers were the result of a pair of turkey thighs, rather than the whole bird, making it easier to polish them off.

    A few days after the holiday kickoff, a small flock of wild turkeys came strolling up my driveway and into the small patch of woods in back of the house. Wild turkeys are surprisingly large, leaving prints behind very reminiscent of dinosaur tracks.

    Given that the height of the Thanksgiving feast involves a native American bird, one can’t help wondering why it is called a turkey instead of whatever the First Nation peoples called them. It turns out that invading Europeans tended to name anything they came across after something they were already familiar with in their homeland. One good example is corn. The word corn originally applied to wheat or any other cereal grains. Maize by the way is not really a name from any of the First Nations but has its origins in Spanish. Each local ethnic group had their own name for this staple of life.

    As for the turkey, this name was actually applied to a different bird, the guinea fowl. Originally from Africa, it was brought to Europe via the Ottoman Empire (which included the present day Turkey) and was referred to as turkey cocks or hens (depending on gender) because of that. Since the bird from North America superficially resembled the guinea fowl, it came to be referred to as a turkey as well. Because it had a better flavor than the guinea fowl, the American ‘turkey’ supplanted it on many tables and eventually became the centerpiece for our current Thanksgiving celebration.

    This past year must have been a good one for wild turkeys as their numbers (based on the size of the flocks I have seen) really jumped. The current turkeys are not really native to New Hampshire. The original turkeys we had disappeared from the state 150 years ago because of habitat destruction and overhunting. Reintroduced in the 1970’s using birds from the Mid Atlantic states their population quickly boomed, helped along by an increasingly mild climate as well as a supply of well stocked bird feeders. Now they are a common sight throughout New Hampshire.

    I always get a chuckle when I see wild turkeys. There’s just something so goofy looking about them. But while turkeys have a reputation for being stupid, that’s more likely true of the over-bred domestic varieties. The wild turkey is sharp-eyed and canny, necessary traits for surviving in the forest, where they are often on the menu of hungry foxes, coyotes and other critters.

    The mothers carefully shepherd their offspring about. In early summer the chicks resemble fuzzy little footballs. By midsummer they have grown and feathered out enough so they can briefly get air-born for about five seconds or so when they flap their wings. Because factory farm turkeys are so heavily bred for size, many can barely walk much less fly, so it can be surprising to discover that wild turkeys can not only fly but do so very well.

    By summers end, they are nearly full grown and can often be seen along with their mothers teaming up with other turkey hens, forming sizable flocks. The males seem to congregate in their own flocks as I have often seen groups of turkeys consisting almost entirely of males.

    There’s an old belief that Benjamin Franklin wanted the wild turkey rather than the bald eagle to be the national bird. This is actually a culture myth. It seems Mr. Franklin didn’t feel the eagle was the best representative of American character. In fact he thought the eagle was a bit of a coward and believed the turkey was more courageous than the bald eagle. But there is no indication he wanted the turkey to be the national bird.

    In any case, the turkey today is a welcome addition to the local wildlife and I hope will continue to stroll by my house from time to time to give me a good chuckle.

    How the year flies by

    It’s hard to believe but we are on the doorstep to November with the time change (fall back) just a weekend away. It seems the older I get, the faster time seems to slip past. At the beginning of this last winter, we got hit with a cold spell in January that rivaled the ones I remember from a kid. Twenty below zero (Fahrenheit) at night and barely reaching zero during the day. Cold enough to make the car battery seize up and the fuel line to the furnace ice over requiring the services of a plumbing firm to thaw things out.

    Wind storms came and went, finally taking out a dead pine near Big Rock.

    Thankfully spring arrived, a bit drier than usual but pretty much on time.

    Memorial Day came and went, the weather cooperating enough to allow the usual Memorial Day parade starting at the local firehouse just down the road from where I live and continuing up downtown Main Street.

    The holiday is a signal for serious gardening to commence so I made my usual planting in my raised beds of a few vegetables with what I hoped was suitable protection against the usual offenders (deer and woodchucks).

    Alas, the local woodchuck (a female) produced a hungry litter that proved small enough to squeeze through the fencing to feast on the growing wax beans. I belatedly reinforced the fencing and was able to coax the surviving plants to produce a few beans for the dinner table.

    Summer proved meltingly hot this year with humidity levels appropriate more for the tropics than Northern New England. Rain came in fierce torrents at widely scattered intervals, making it hard to keep the raised beds moist. In spite of the unstable weather conditions, I was pleased to see more bees than I had seen last year. Also a pair of wood thrushes collected nesting material from the back yard and took up residence in the woods, the male’s sweet gurgling song floating through the trees, something I hadn’t heard in quite some time.

    Finally something else I haven’t seen in well over a decade, monarch butterflies came migrating through in late August. It’s easy to read encouraging omens in this, that somehow Mother Nature is still managing to hang on in spite of all the damage careless humans seem determined to cause. But we are not out of the woods by any means and need to continue our efforts to support Her. I am down by one composter but have adjusted by snipping weeds rather than yanking them up, adding to the mulch in the gardens. Weather permitting, leaves will be raked up and after filling up the remaining composter will be scattered beneath the trees, allowing nutrients to return to the soil to support the next generation of bees, wood thrushes, monarch butterflies and, yes, baby woodchucks and hungry deer.

    Tools of an artist

    As a kid one of my great enthusiasms was drawing. Crayons, markers, watercolors and pens streamed through my fingers as I doodled, cartooned and sketched countless reams of paper. Somewhere along the line though, that pastime faded away to the occasional doodle on paper margins. I’m not sure why that happened but the preoccupations of adulthood likely got in the way. However as I have gotten older, my interest in drawing has rekindled.

    The tools available to an artist boggle the imagination. My go-to place for quality supplies is the Blick art supply web site. Their free catalog is an inch thick tomb displaying tons of brushes, pastels, oil, watercolors, pencils, charcoals, air brushes, paper pads and numerous other goodies to inspire the budding Rembrandt or Michelangelo wannabee. I could spend all day just thumbing through it and ogling the supplies but of course the whole point of having the catalog is to order something and then start creating.

    The simplest drawing tool, as well as the best to start with, is the pencil. Drawing pencils come in two forms, graphite and charcoal. Graphite pencils are the ones we are most familiar with, especially in the form of the number two pencil. Artist pencils come in a range of grades based on their hardness, with the softest pencils graded B to pencils with harder graphite cores labeled H. The number two pencil everyone is familiar with falls in the midrange (HB). Which grade of pencil to use depends on your preference. I tend to settle on 2B and 2H when doing quick sketches. Graphite pencils can range from the hardest (9H) to very soft (9B) but you will discover you won’t use the full range. Once you have sketched a bit, you will find your favorites and stick with those. Art supply stores do sell pencils individually, so you can purchase the grade you prefer and not wind up with a pile of pencils you will rarely use if you buy them by the set.

    One drawback to graphite pencils has to do with shine. Because graphite is a mineral, it will reflect light from a surface you may intend to be very dark. If you are looking to create dark values in your drawing, charcoal pencils are better. Charcoal pencils come in varying grades of hardness as do graphite pencils. Made from either grape vines or willow sticks burnt in an kiln without air, their organic composition allows them to absorb light so you don’t get the annoying sheen that you do with graphite.

    For eager beaver do-it-yourselfers, you can create your own willow charcoal sticks but being somewhat indolent, I prefer buying them ready made for use. One drawback to using charcoal is the fact that it smudges very easily. A fixative spray can lay down a layer of protection as long as you don’t mind the smell or the slight change in appearance it can cause to your artwork. The decision of whether to spray or not to spray is a controversial topic among artists, with everyone having their own opinion. If you are not interested in long term storage, a cheap hairspray will do the job though the paper may yellow over time.

    As for what brand of graphite or charcoal pencils to use, you can buy them quite cheaply at Walmart for quick sketching practice in the beginning. As your technique improves you can find better quality pencils online at a variety of sources. None of them are really budget busters and the quality is roughly the same with all of them. You will no doubt settle on a personal favorite and have at it.

    Happy drawing!

    Plant Galls

    On investigating plants throughout the summer, it is not unusual to come across a bizarre looking growth on a plant, many times looking much like a tumor or a wart. These are galls and they are produced by a variety of parasitic organisms such as viruses, fungi, mites and insect grubs.

    Galls come in an astonishing assortment of shapes, colors and sizes, depending on which organism created them and which plant is being parasitized. Gardeners may bemoan the appearance of these funky growths. But for the most part, they don’t really harm the plant unless it is already sickly or is heavily laden with galls, they only render it a bit unsightly to look at.

    The invading organism releases a substance which irritates the surrounding plant cells which begin forming a microhabitat for the parasite to live in. Insect galls will often have nutritious starches and other materials which may insure that the grub remains in one spot and doesn’t entirely devour its host.

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    The above picture shows a small clump of galls on a wild grape vine in my back yard. They are likely the product of grape midges that hatch from eggs laid by the mother inside the stem of the vine which then forms the gall. There are a variety of grape midges each with its own life cycle. The vine itself appears uninjured and as long as the damage remains minimal, I will leave it be.

    This particular gall was found on a non spiny member of the thistle family (not sure of identity). The gall extends several inches along the stem, swelling it but not apparently interfering with the growth of the weed as it managed to produce flowers. Until I can firmly identify which plant it is, the identity of the gall maker will be uncertain.

    This odd bulbous growth found on a jewelweed plant is also a gall. It is formed by the larva of the jewelweed gall midge. The egg producing the larva is planted by the mother into a forming flower bud which then creates this odd structure looking much like a Christmas ornament. Once it has matured enough, it will chew its way out, drop to the ground and winter over.

    Galls can take many whimsical shapes, some looking so much like part of the plant that if you aren’t familiar with the species, you might not realize you are looking at a plant gall. One is the willow pinecone gall which resembles its namesake. It looks quite ordinary until you recall willow trees don’t have pine cones. Oak apple galls often look so much like apples, you could be forgiven for thinking it was an actual fruit. But a closer look reveals its true nature, an oddly structured home for the little grub inside.

    It’s easy to pitch a hissy fit when you see these strange formations on prized plants in your garden. But for the most part they are harmless. Many of these larva and mites hide inside the plant to avoid predators such as birds and other insects who would gladly chow down on them if the opportunity presented itself. What looks like a nuisance to you is actually lunch to somebody else. If you really have to, just pinch off the leaf or odd growth and remember it’s merely another startling reminder of some of the astonishing adaptations to be found in Nature.