The Grey Barn

Last week I ran into John Jensen, the site manager. He told me there were some maps of the reserve on the walls of the Workshop—a building that I’ve been calling the Grey Barn. 

John told me the building was originally used for horses that were sick—or that had to be quarantined on arrival from the US. An addition was added for a coffee room for people who boarded their horses when Jokers Hill was a horse farm. When the university took over the property they converted this addition to a classroom, and now (the current classroom is in the Research Barn) it’s where people gather after one of the activities (like the Trees in Winter walk) for hot chocolate or tea, and a chance to talk. And so it is also known as both the Old Classroom and the Hospitality Barn.

The small wooden building has a wall of windows on its south side. On my walks past I'd noticed hibiscus blooming behind those windows, adding a bright note to grey days.

I loved the way the glass worked like both window and mirror, so I could see the
flowers inside overlaid on the trees outside. 

The hibiscus are John's—he has them in pots outside in good weather, and moves them inside the grey barn in the winter. It’s like having his own greenhouse, he said, with a grin.  

Here’s the description of the barn from an inventory of the site's buildings:

Built in 1950’s, frame construction with clapboard siding. Workshop area includes two automobile service repair stalls, tool room and utility room (houses electrical service for all houses and barns west of Dufferin Street). Old Classroom is located in a later addition, and includes men’s and women’s public bathrooms. Footprint, 260 sq-meters.

I went to explore the Grey Barn on one of the brightest and coldest days I’ve seen here this winter. Walking into it was like walking into a greenhouse-- warmth from the sun poured through the windows and the air smelled of growing things. Looking out the windows through a curtain of plants to the snowy hillside was a study in contrasts.

On the far side of the plants from the window stands a lovely long table of distressed boards where I can imagine working, soaking up the sun if its sunny, watching that hillside as the light and weather shift. 

At the far end of the table is a bookshelf that must belong to a reader with a one-track mind...

but it will undoubtedly be useful to me who never did study biology. On the wall as well as the maps are some charts and posters. My favourite image is the caterpillar of the white admiral butterfly-- it looks like something from Dune. Except it's white. On another day I'll photograph that. 

More on collaboration

Awhile ago I asked Art Weis, the Director here, if he knew of examples of collaboration in the plant world, between plants, say, or perhaps between a plant and some other creature. His immediate response was no … but then he paused and thought and said something about mutualism …  a term I have to explore. 

But in the meantime I’ve been reading Forests of Ash by Tom Griffiths, an environmental history of the mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests in the Australian state of Victoria. The book is excellent, readable and intelligent; it explores the shifting understandings of the forest as well as the forest itself. 

E. regnans is the tallest hardwood in the world, a magnificent tree. This image from Wikipedia will give you an idea of its size:

But to get back to collaboration, in Griffiths's book I came across a description (by entomologist Ross Field) of the complex relationships among a butterfly, two kinds of trees, and a species of ant. The butterfly is the Silky Hairstreak (Pseudalmenus chlorinda zephyrus) that breeds and feeds on various wattles (acacias). It looks like this (another Wikipedia image):

            “This small, beautiful butterfly with delicate tails, lays its eggs on wattle stems, but only on those that have [colonies of small black ants, Anonychomyrma biconvexa] nearby. Usually these ants are attending sap-sucking bugs, milking them of honey dew. The ants soon focus their attention on the young butterfly caterpillars that hatch from the eggs. The ants swarm over the larvae, tending posterior glands that exude protein-rich sugars.

[The ant looks like this: http://eol.org/pages/474085/overview]

            “The ants tend the caterpillars throughout their growth, usually from November to January [remember, this is Australia and summer time]. When mature, the caterpillars seek shelter to pupate. This begins with an extraordinary journey. Down the wattle tree the mature caterpillars travel, following the trail of ants, and up and under the bark of an adjoining eucalytus tree, more often than not a mountain ash. Here the caterpillars pupate, often clustered together, spending the next eight to ten months securely adhering to the trunk of the tree, and receiving occasional visits from the ants.

            “Such an amazing symbiotic relationship between ants and butterfly is thought to provide the caterpillars with some protection from marauding predators such as spiders and bugs and parasitic flies and wasps. … [The ants] do not need the butterfly to survive [but]… the Hairstreak cannot exist without attendant colonies of this one species of ant.”      (Forests of Ash, p. [112])

Because I’m interested in the metaphorical uses and reach of words I find myself thinking of this relationship among butterfly, ants, and trees as a kind of collaboration. I suspect—but don’t know—that most scientists would not accept the word as accurate, applied here.

Speaking of trees...

At the end of this month I'll go on a guided nature walk at KSR, to learn about identifying trees in the winter. I'm really looking forward to it -- and perhaps then I'll learn if my red oak is one tree or more. 

Here's a link to the notice about the walk, with a lovely photograph: https://ksr.utoronto.ca/Winter_2013

Participation is limited and there are no spaces left, but if you're interested in events at KSR there is a listserv you can join-- I tried to do it through the online link on their website, but couldn't navigate the University's forms so simply emailed and asked to be added to it. 

The Red Oak

My favourite tree at KSR is an oak that my friend Norma identified as a red oak (Quercus rubra) for its pointed leaves. It stands beside the road that leads to the ponds and the gazebo, just behind a split-rail fence. It has three trunks … or is it in fact three trees? I don’t know if it was planted or simply took root there.

I first noticed the tree late last fall, and recognized it as an oak because it still had small clumps of brown leaves clinging to it. Other trees were completely bare. Its shape was lovely, so I photographed it, from both sides.

Those remaining leaves made a good rustling sound as the wind passed over them and I liked the way its branches seemed to reach out, some of them joining the split rail fence to frame the field and pond and gazebo. 

I’ve done a little web trolling for information about the red oak. It grows from Lake Superior eastward across northern and central Ontario—and on through Quebec to Nova Scotia, as well as in the northeastern US. But its numbers have been diminishing and I haven’t found an explanation for that decrease, although the lack of fire may be a factor in its not regenerating naturally.

I’ve learned that red oak and pine have co-existed with varying dominance over very long periods of time, but found nothing about the relationship between them or the reasons for their growing in association. And I wonder if this co-existence is some form of collaboration. I also found out that red oaks bear large acorns that take two years to develop—and that they produce bumper crops of acorns about every four years with only small numbers in between. These acorns are an important food for deer, squirrels, foxes, mice, bears, ruffed grouse, wood ducks, and others.

I’ve come to watch for the KSR red oak, waiting for it to appear as I go round a curve and up a slight rise in the road. Because it stands as a solitary tree (unless it is three trees) its complete shape is visible. The oak’s branches seem to hold both the light and the sky behind it. I’m taking photos of it in different lights and weather—and I think I’ll hunt up some books on the red oak to see what more is known about it.

Addendum

On the hoarding at the Mars Building, University Avenue and College, Toronto: 

Connect 

       Collaborate

             Compete 

... 

A note on collaboration

I’ve been thinking about collaboration. Writing, the actual putting of words on the page, is for the most part a solitary activity—and one reason I’ve welcomed the chance to be involved with KSR is the opportunity it offers me for solitude. I like the space being by myself creates, I like wandering and looking and thinking without having to talk as I go. My reading and writing can proceed at their own pace when I have time and space to feel my way along an idea or a sentence.

But behind this solitary thinking and writing are other people. My writing draws on what I’ve read, questions I’ve asked that someone has responded to, ideas I’ve heard expressed, and once I have a finished version of something I look around for people to read it. I want, first, readers whom I trust to consider the writing rather than my ego: is it actually finished? what are its weaknesses? where does it not make itself clear? At this stage the work of writing becomes, ideally, collaborative and through the collaboration the work is clarified and strengthened. In my experience the best editing is a collaborative process during which the poem or essay grows closer and closer to saying fully what it wants to say.

I’ve been learning something about how science is practiced and how scientists are educated. Earlier this year I had lunch with zoologist Steve Tobe and some of the students from his lab.* One of them was a young woman from a very small town in mainland China. When someone asked her if she felt isolated or lonely being in a large western city and having to live in another language, she replied no, because she had her companions, the other students in the lab. They constitute a community who not only work together but also play together and help each other out. She added that she thought it was often difficult for the Chinese students who came here to study history or politics, because they didn’t make close connections with their fellow students in the same way, through collaborating on an on-going project.  

My own training was in the humanities at a time when the first person was never used in a university essay, but that had more to do with ideas of objectivity and final truths than any humility. When I look back it seems the ego was central and competition the rule. You were supposed to get your ideas expressed well and claim ownership of them before someone else beat you to it. I don’t know if education in science then proceeded with the same sense of collaboration it seems to have now—or for that matter if my sense that collaboration is intrinsic to the practice of science is accurate. I look forward to discussing this with people involved at KSR and I’ll be exploring ideas and forms of collaboration from time to time in this blog. 

*If you're curious about Prof. Tobe (his research subjects are cockroaches and he looks like Einstein) here are some links: 

http://labs.csb.utoronto.ca/tobe/

http://labs.csb.utoronto.ca/tobe/diploptera.shtml

http://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=FP5ciL4AAAAJ&hl=en

Solstice Walk

Some things don't need to be described or explained -- just seen... 

The Research Barn