Figure 1 – Black walnut, Fresh Pond Reservation by Lusitania Field, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Over the last few weeks at Fresh Pond the black walnut trees have been fruiting. These are wonderful green spheres, beautiful in their geometric simplicity, that make a major mess if you step on them. But they bring back memories of graduate school days in Ithaca. The Cornell Plantations, which is a university arboretum, has a grove of these trees and they harvest them every fall. But more significant is that they used to, I don’t know if they still do, serve the most tasty black walnut ice cream at the Cornell Dairy, made, of course, from university cows (Big Red Cows). Yummy! I want to race back and see if I can get some right now. This is the time of year hen the first flakes fly in Ithaca, NY.

The picture of Figure 1 I took of some yellowing leaves and some beautiful examples of the nut pods still clinging precariously to the tree. It turned out best in black and white and almost as a silhouette in reverse. That creates and abstract and dreamlike quality which fits my personal memories so well. Other readers, who were there, will have their own favorite flavors. Mine was black walnut.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 84 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/1000th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation