Prospect: A Year in the Park

Super Saturday

Last weekend saw folks donning capes to fly around the balmy Long Meadow...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and doffing jackets to relish the warm sunshine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three little girls took a cookie break beneath the benign gaze of James T. Stranahan, "father of Prospect Park." Their innocent enjoyment was just what he worked so hard for...although he would have been puzzled by their strange headgear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someone flopped in the shadow of the little shuttered guard booth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on the park's main drive, there was palpable delight whether on foot or on wheels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It didn't feel much like a week after New Year's Eve...and no one was sorry.

Project Greenlight

Go Spring! Heck, go Summer! The Lycra Dudes were out in force on the park drive, along with every other soul in Brooklyn lucky enough to be at liberty this morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Park Slope moms lay in a stroller circle and worked on getting back those pre-baby bodies. A Parks employee looked on, somewhat puzzled, it seemed.

I never did get back that body, but the one I've got just got a greenlight after an angiogram. That will put spring in your step! Walked today, a warm-up for biking; I couldn't care less what I look like in Lycra now that I know my left anterior descending artery is sleek and shapely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I walked the full circle of the park, resting on Nellie's Lawn. There's not a whole lot of shade yet, but the tiny leaves are screaming mobs of hungry chloroplasts, so in a few days, there should be plenty. Heard while sitting here: cardinal, dove, and either pheasant or grouse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imagine if these were extremely difficult to grow--what a status symbol it would be to have a lawn star-studded with dent-de-lions! Special consultants would be brought in to cultivate them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These smelled exquisitely sweet. What are they, again?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After this winter, which a blogger friend accurately termed a "death march," it almost felt like too much to handle. But not really. Go, everything!

 

 

 

Scooters, sprouters, shovelers

The March sun—still no match for the gusty wind, but strong enough to bounce off the giant helmets of well-protected Park Slope wheelwomen. These two were coasting along next to the hotly contested Prospect Park West bike lane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bare branches still rule, but green sprouts are poking up in many places.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And today, I finally saw an NMD (Non-Mallard Duck)! The lake looked like some kind of duck square dance was taking place; whirling eddies of handsome chestnut-sided guys were everywhere, causing the mallards and geese some puzzlement. The action was quite far from shore; a young photographer named Nicole was training her big telephoto on it, and was kind enough to e-mail me this shot.

 

 

 

Turns out they are Northern Shovelers, and according to the Cornell birding site, they must be migrating. They have long beaks with protuberances called lamellae, which they use to strain out small crustaceans and plant life. I don't know what had them so frenzied today, unless this is how they always behave, but they were so intent on "shoveling" in water that they hardly came up for air (or a photo). This shot (right), from Cornell, shows that cool beak. Apparently it's no big deal to spot these, but I was tickled.

Two more bits of Northern Shoveler trivia: They are monogamous, and the female poops on her eggs when flushed from her nest, "apparently to deter predators." Ah, motherhood.

Image: Marie Read

 

Saturday, with harrowing grace

As imperceptibly as grief

The summer lapsed away,—

Too imperceptible, at last,

To seem like perfidy.   

A quietness distilled,

As twilight long begun,

Or Nature, spending with herself

Sequestered afternoon.

The dusk drew earlier in,

The morning foreign shone,—

A courteous, yet harrowing grace,

As guest who would be gone.   

And thus, without a wing,

Or service of a keel,

Our summer made her light escape

Into the beautiful.

        —Emily Dickinson

Hit the dirt

The Flatbush Avenue side of Prospect Park is a swath of mystery. It has no formal entrances between Grand Army Plaza and Empire Boulevard (unless you count the paid entry to the Zoo), but plenty of broken fences and "desire lines"...which seem to encourage non-approved forms of entertainment.

 

Yesterday's discovery: a fairly extensive yet secretive track for BMX biking tucked just out of sight in the wooded berm. The construction is ambitious, consisting of packed dirt, fallen logs, and some metal spikes and bands to form jumps. I'm not sure if the limbs laid atop them are intended as camouflage or as an inherent feature of the track; my only exposure to dirt biking was in Colorado, where the town of Fort Collins had provided a fine facility for local youth like my cousins, the Twin Danger Boys.

Given the fortune spent by the park to rehabilitate the precious woodlands of Brooklyn's only forest, the soil compaction and erosion around the trees here is painful to contemplate.

One has to give the mysterious bikers credit for ingenuity and hard work. And good-humored daring, judging from this YouTube clip of a wipe-out ("He's over here crackin' the fuck up!"). Environmental damage, not so funny.

Crops of deepest winter

On a mild Saturday morning in mid-January, bikes blossom near the Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park.

At the Greenmarket, there are still plenty of apples and kale, but the best stuff seems to have come up from the cellar:

 

Exotic mushrooms, priced accordingly.

 

A topaz treasury of maple syrup (the real kind). These bottles are as lovely as perfume bottles.

I'm too lazy and last-minute a cook to mess with soaking dried beans, but I'd love to make a kindergarten collage out of these ones. 

And of course, it's the Time of the Roots. The celeriac reminds us of an Ood. I bought one once (a celery root, not an Ood); it was delicious, like a celery-scented potato, but required an awful lot of hacking, paring and other discipline. I've never bought "horse radishes," though.

We bought kale, but that wasn't enough green for us; next up, Where We Found Green.

GREENMARKET DOGS OF THE WEEK

The little roast-shaped girl is Lia; the big soulful guy is Chester. If you know any chihuahuas, you know who is the boss in this duo.

Unsullied

Look at the entry below, and then imagine how much work (and care) went into restoring the Long Meadow to pristine green by Wednesday afternoon. Cross-country runners from local high schools were able to stretch and sprint on the endless grass. Here's a big thank-you to everyone, staff or parks volunteer, who undid the damage wrought by the "Heatwave" crowd.

This weekend, wouldn't it be loverly if folks decided to leave it this way? We can dream, as does this bunny, who hangs out near the Litchfield Villa.

TWIPP (THIS WEEKEND IN PROSPECT PARK)

Friday night, the swamp-boogie accordionist Buckwheat Zydeco comes to the Prospect Park bandshell. There's a bike race (Round 5 of the "Cadence Cup," think steely-legged Lycra dudes) if you're up by 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, God forbid. On Saturday at 11 a.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., the Imagination Playground will host "Daydream," a version of "Midsummer Night's Dream" with puppets and tutu-clad construction workers (Shakespeare would probably approve). Bollywood icon Kailash Kher is at the bandshell on Saturday at 7:30, and on Sunday at 3:30 they're harvesting flax at the Lefferts Homestead. To paraphrase Cindy Adams, only in Prospect Park, kids.

The independents

A Fourth-of-July visit to the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket brings intriguing encounters with a host of independent-minded types. For instance, the fellow who rode this Danish-made Bullitt cargo bicycle across several European countries before heading to Prospect Park. He insisted it was a cinch to ride with one's stuff stowed down in front.

At the Long Island winery tasting table, the lovely Ann Marie Borghese was handing out samples of an apple-scented rosé produced at Borghese Vineyard out in Cutchogue. Yes, her husband is related to the cosmetics royalty, and yes, she used to be a model.

And at the cooking demo table, chef Jacques Gautier, owner of Palo Santo in Park Slope, was slurping an unctuous homemade mayo onto freshly mandoline-sliced zucchini studded with sliced garlic scapes; it made a nice appetizer spooned onto rounds of fresh baguette. "Couldn't you also use a vinaigrette?" asked a health-conscious observer. "Yes," he replied patiently while adding more mayo, "but it wouldn't be as delicious."

I didn't make it back to the park until about 10 p.m., on the way home from "First Night" at the Brooklyn Museum. Crowds were pouring out of the barbecue area near Parkside and Ocean Avenues, dragging an astounding array of cooking and picnicking gear into waiting cabs, vans, cars, and shopping carts for a weary and satiated trip home.

You give me heart

Yesterday, one branch offered slim hope under cold, dismal skies.

This morning, a warming sun danced on the lake, and everything started getting all frisky.

This tiny lady forged ahead with her walker/shopping cart at a caterpillar's pace, as the Lycra bikin' dudes streaked past, pumped from their rip down the West Drive hill. I said good morning, and she admired the weather, in a resonant, Russian-inflected voice. Feeling a bit ashamed of my morning's interior monologue (which had centered on whining to myself about my arthritis and my prospects for an eventual hip replacement), I told her she was my inspiration for the day. She flashed a big smile: "I give you heart, yes?"

Yes.

Staggeringly beautiful

This afternoon's wet snow clung, at least for awhile, to everything, creating just about the most gorgeous "winter wonderland" thing I've ever seen in the city. Walking around near the park's West Drive, I was stunned to realize that everything was exactly as beautiful as everything else. You didn't have to look for a "great angle," or avert your eyes from anything, to be overwhelmed with loveliness. I actually longed to find a dead rat, because it would have been so elegant, peaceful and snow-cloaked, each whisker outlined in white, and then I could have really proven my point.

The path was a mystical white tunnel.

 

Cyclists seemed magical. So did fence posts.

 

Dead leaves were like jewels.

So were living ones.

Tree bark, also gorgeous.

      

Back out on the sidewalk, who knew it was wife-beater T-shirt weather?