Posts tagged #Spring

In The Rearview Mirror 2019 pt. 1

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Flashback Friday

Memories

First-quarter of 2019

    2020 and a new decade. How crazy is it that I have spent a decade in this country now? We have now lived in NYC for more than a year, which also feels crazy. But here is what happened that last year of the decade, 2019. I spent the first quarter of 2019 searching for a specific job. There are a lot of jobs in NYC, but unfortunately, I am picky. Dad was still visiting in January, he had come for Christmas 2018. In February nothing new really happened, I got some short term job opportunities that carried over into March and later April.

January

    We celebrated our first Christmas and New Year in NYC together with my dad who was visiting for almost a month. Back in the day when my brother did spend a year in the US for high school, we had all visited and also spent some time in New York, so it wasn’t my dad’s first trip here. The lack of snow was pretty obvious, and for us who used to have a lot of snow, it was pretty miserable. This was the first winter I didn’t do any cross country skiing since I moved to the US. My dad and I went to Brooklyn Bridge and walked around along the shoreline before we headed back to Manhattan. Another day the three of us went out to Cold Spring with Metro-North and walked through the old foundry. Today all that is left are the old brick houses and some leftover iron slag here and there. My dad and i also took advantage of the free admission to the 9/11 museum, which they have on Thursdays. I was actually surprised how much that visit affected me. It is definitely worth going there if you are ever in NYC. After my dad left W and I ventured out to Chinatown for an outing.

February

    We went to H-Mart, a Korean market that sells sushi-grade salmon and tuna so that we could make sushi. I went north to Van Cortland Park to meet another Swede who lives in NYC. Another day I went down towards the Battery Park to meet another Swedish friend. W and I went on many walks in Central Park, which has also become a favorite spot for us here in NYC. We got some light snow dustings, that did not last long. Another weekend we also went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We only spent a couple of hours, and probably only saw about 10% of the whole place. But, as NYC residents you can pay what you wish in admission, so it’s not too expensive to come back.

March

    In March I went out to Coney Island because I had an interview at the New York Aquarium. I also made another batch of my favorite no-knead bread. W and I ventured out to various neighborhoods and bars in March. By the end of March, you could definitely tell that Spring was on its way. Daffodils in Morningside Park and pretty flowers in Central Park. In March it also finally struck me that if I can make it in NYC, I can make it anywhere. March Went by so fast and before we knew it April had arrived.

Posted on January 3, 2020 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror and tagged rearviewmirror Spring rearviewmirror2019 2020 NYC Cold Spring Big City Life snow turtle flowers Central Park Dive Bars Bars Baking Life in NYC.

A Spring that Lasts Forever

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When I lived in Alaska springtime was so short that you missed it if you blinked, I wrote about that last week. In Madison I don’t remember spring being that spectacular, other than the Magnolia outside my work blooming. And maybe that was one of the reasons but I also think spring came very late to Madison and Wisconsin last year.

April 28th 2018, Wyalusing State Park, Wisconsin:

When we first got here to NYC I was actually quite surprised by all the trees and green space almost everywhere on Manhattan (I mean, not including Central Park of course). Madison also has a huge amount of green space, even more than NYC, and in Alaska you basically lived in the forest so. NYC Parks also has this collaboration with the community called Green Thumb as I mentioned earlier, and the community gardens are always so pretty. There are quite a lot of them around Harlem. We also have quite a few large parks nearby. Randall Island is an island in the East River, then we have Marcus Garvey Park and Morningside Park here in Harlem and around Columbia.

March 26th 2019, Morningside Park:

April 1st 2019, Washington Square Park:

April 3rd 2019, Central Park:

We went to Colorado last weekend and the cherries on the west side of Onassis reservoir had just started to bloom. Once I got back I was unsure how much would still be blooming, and to my surprise it still was. Yesterday we walked by the cherry trees on the west side of the reservoir again and those trees are on their way out. But there are a ton of other cherry trees (I think they are) still waiting to bloom, and on the east side of the reservoir there are trees blooming too.

April 3rd 2019, Central Park:

Another thing I am quite surprised about are all the apps and scripts and just about anything that has been created for users who are interested in NYC and everything you could possibly think of. For instance I found this guide from the Central Park Conservancy which guides you through all the spring blooming of Central Park. According to the guide there are Yoshino Cherry trees on the east side, and Kwanzan trees on the west side of the reservoir. But the ones on the west side look more like Okame Cherry trees. The west side cherries are more pink, if those are what I have been seeing, while the Yoshino are more white (at least if you stand on the west side looking across the reservoir and the east side cherry trees). You can also visit the bloom guide for the most popular flowers on their website, and you can also head to NYC parks where they list what trees and flowers have started to bloom.

Around Columbia Cherry trees and Magnolias are in full bloom or at least reaching full bloom. I am used to Magnolia having a full bloom for a few days before it starts to taper off. But that all also depends on temperature and rain of course.

Posted on April 14, 2019 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Life in New York and tagged 2019 Central Park New York Garden Spring Flowering Break Up leaf-out Life in NYC.

Springtime and the case of Phenological Mismatch

March 30th, 2019. Central Park

March 30th, 2019. Central Park

Signs of Spring

Budburst and Leafout

When I lived in Alaska the timing of spring was maybe more apparent compared to what it is here, in New York City. Fairbanks, AK, usually has some snow cover that lasts from October to April, sometimes even May. There are two main factors that drive a plant species budburst and leafout, temperature and light. In Fairbanks you get the right amount of light pretty early (late February-early March), so most of the time the plants are sitting around waiting for the ideal temperature. Once the warmer weather comes along and the plants accumulate enough warmth you will see budburst and leafout. The warmer temperature acts as a cue for the plant, and triggers physiological changes that starts the budburst. Leafout is so apparent around Fairbanks that you can see a change in color of the deciduous trees between morning and afternoon. You can leave town for a week during end of winter and come back to summer. I have posted the video below before, and it shows how fast spring comes and evolve in Fairbanks. It really is remarkable to see spring happen this fast, and I haven’t seen it anywhere else.

May 26th, 2013 Alaska:

April 26th, 2014 Alaska:

May 3rd, 2014. Alaska:

April 25th, 2015. Alaska:

2017 we went back to Alaska and skied in Denali on April 1st, it was an extraordinary warm spring there then, something that keeps repeating itself again, and again, and yet again. Of course it makes you extremely happy after a long dark winter, but at the same time it definitely makes you worried. Worried not only about the danger to local communities that a warm spring brings (open water instead of ice covered streams along common travel routes), but also the ecological consequences, and the possibility for a phenological mismatch to occur.

April 1st, 2017. Alaska:

Currently Alaska is experienced the highest increase in temperature world wide, and it is projected to increase into the future as well. In a state where light usually is not a problem, a shift in temperature in the early spring can be devastating for certain species. Scientists often talk about the term phenological mismatch. When two or more life cycles, of certain species that generally overlap, all of a sudden don’t overlap any longer, this results in a phenological mismatch. What this means, is that certain species are dependent on other species, let it be insects that are crucial for certain bird species once they arrive or native bird species that depend on the insects for their hatchlings. Or insects that hatch on time to get their life-cycle timed with certain flowering plants. If one or the other is delayed or sped up, and synchrony is disrupted, it can be detrimental for certain species. We know that changes in the lower level of the ecosystem chain, can have huge effect on the upper level. Just last week Alaska broke the record of the earliest warmest day when it hit 70 degree F.

Flowering Magnolia in Madison 2018:

This past weekend we walked through Central Park and got a first look at spring here. The Magnolia is already blooming, in Madison that didn’t happen until mid-April and in Alaska snow is usually still on the ground right now as I mentioned earlier. But, then again, it’s all a matter or temperature once the sunlight is sufficient. This was also one of the first times I really felt like a New Yorker. The feeling that I am not just here for the weekend, the week, this month or the next 6 months. I never know how to identify myself after I move to a new city, especially now when I have been in the US for so long. If people ask me where I am from, should I say Madison, Fairbanks, New York or Stockholm. Who am I really, and why do we always identify ourselves with the origin of our lives? I guess in one sense we are all shaped by our origins, but at one point we will have lived longer somewhere else other than our birth place, and who are we then? There is a quote that I really like, from a Salomon running movie about Anna Frost, about home that really identifies how I feel about Home. I don’t know where the quote originated from, or if it’s a mix of several quotes put together.

“Maybe your country is only a place you make up in your mind, something you dream about and think about. Maybe it’s not a place on the map at all, but just a story full of people you meet and places you visited. Maybe Home is just a collection of memories and our roots, based on nostalgia”

Central Park March 30th, 2019:

What are the signs of spring where you are, and did spring come early?

Posted on April 1, 2019 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Science, Life in New York and tagged 2019 Spring Science leaf-out Budburst Central Park Alaska Nature Wisconsin Life in NYC.