Trenchwork

We had northern lights last night. Somehow it seems early in the season; we usually see them in the winter and not on balmy nights of 10C. I’d have taken a pic, but it’s impossible without a proper camera setup, and there wasn’t enough contrast. They were pale, shifting shadows, musical echoes of something half-heard and not quite remembered.

And this morning we had snow. Well, not really snow. Geiterams is a wild flower that grows more or less everywhere in this part of the country, but particularly on cleared land rather than wild moor. It grows tall, and has sharp purple (or deep pink) flowers branching off a single stem. In full bloom, those flowers crest all the way to the top of the stem, the upper blooms opening last and the bottom blooms fading first. It’s prolific, and I’m probably one of the few who truly like it, which can probably be credited entirely to the fact that I’m not Norwegian. Most Norwegians seem to consider it in the same way those of us from the South consider kudzu. In the early stages of bloom, it looks like this:

Pretty, isn’t it? Imagine picturesque mountain roads flanked with it, fallow fields full of it, ponds, lakes, and rivers edged by it.

At the end of the summer, the plants go to seed, and one begins to understand the native distaste for it. It’s difficult to get a good picture of it at this stage unless you catch it early in the process and on a perfectly still day. I was not so fortunate. Nevertheless . . .

Imagine a 5-foot tall dandelion with an 18-inch seed cluster. Enlarge those seed pods to about three times their normal size, and then reduce their weight by roughly half. Add a corresponding fragility which creates a sort of “stickiness” so that it hangs on everything and anything. Done? Good. Now add a breeze. You don’t need much; a nice, summery wafting will do the trick.

If you added the breeze while you were standing downwind, you now bear a strong resemblance to someone who’s been tarred and feathered—without the tar. If you were upwind, you saw a stream of seed pods being carried effortlessly on the slightest current and looking very much like . . . well, snow. Remember that beautifully pink field? Picture it now; a blizzard of white seeds blowing across the road, hanging on trees, grasses, people, houses. Having trouble seeing the cobwebs on the house? Not any longer. You’ll be able to see them clearly until the real snows come and their wet weight wash off the worst.