The green earth

by Doctor Science

Well, today has certainly sucked. I'm not going to write about the Boston Marathon bombing specifically, though if you Bostonites use the comments to check in we'd all appreciate it.

Spring is proceeding apace here in central NJ, with visible changes every day. Driving with Sprog the Elder today, I said that this particular color of grass:

Photo taken on April 13 in Eugene, OR, by LarryNJill. I looked at many, many pictures of spring grass, and this is the *exact* shade I'm talking about.

always reminds me of a description of Lothlórien, in The Fellowship of the Ring:

grass as green as Springtime in the Elder Days.

It's not just green, it's almost glowing, with a greenish-yellow undertone.

The odd thing is that although seeing grass of this color makes me swell with happiness inside, I absolutely abhor man-made attempts to mimic this color. For instance, the horror that is golf pants:

The perp here is CaPantzzi, but it could have been anyone.

Why do they do this?!? What is it about golf that makes normally staid men go mad, mad I tell you?

Sprog pointed out that most of the problem is that natural spring colors are variegated, not just one solid shade. Cherry blossoms aren't a single color, sakura pink, they're a mixture of subtle shades:

Cherry blossoms at Yoshinoyama, one of Japan's premiere cherry blossom locations. Source.

Only diverse, unpredictable reality will do.

"... Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?"

The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day! [The Two Towers]

Comments

[debbie]

I remember years ago seeing an incredible sunset in New Hampshire. I rushed home to try to recreate it in an oil painting and only ended up with piles of drab colors. I couldn't even come close to duplicating the colors. Now I know not to, to just enjoy the colors I'm privileged to witness.

There is still something about all the colors of spring. Driving home yesterday along a street lined with white and pink flowering trees whose branches fully shielding the sky, I felt like I was up in the clouds.

[Laura Koerbeer]

Yes, I've noticed that---the colors of nature sometimes look awesome in nature, but the same colors would look tacky and garish eslewhere.

It's weird that "earth tones" refer to dull colors when so often the colors of this earth are brilliant. i suppose it depends on how you define "earth": dirt, or natural in genneral?

Anyway one of my eyeball-stunning experiences with the garish but lovely colors of the earth happened on the DempsterHigway in Yukon gterritory. There'a a placde where the raod climbs out of the river valley, up on to the edge of a plateau.

ANd the view is beyond awesome: layers of colors in a landscape abstracted by distance. That vivid green is the forground color along with fields of fireweed, in shades of violet. Then a dark vibrant bluegreen in the distance shading into ultramarine and white. Slashes of orange in the muskeg, and slashes of lime along the river (willows). A cold blue Eden.

I took pictures but of course the sanps shots diminished thereal thing.

[russell]

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower / Drives my green age

sez Dylan Thomas.

Spring kicks in not quite a month late around here. The grass hasn't really woken up yet, but the early bulbs are well along, the pear and the lilac and the larch are showing leaf buds, and everything is generally moist and muddy, just like spring should be.

Also, nothing says "spring" like mending rock walls and breaking out the good old winch and chain to pull a stump or two. Ibuprophen is my friend.

We seem to think we're the crown of creation. The world humors us and goes on about its business.

Happy spring to all from chilly New England.

[cleek]

spring is fully sprung here. bloomed and leafed and the green has closed in all around. the pines have coated every surface in what looks like fine fresh corn meal.

i planted a pink dogwood in a small clearing behind our house because nothing says "Spring!" like a spray of dogwood blossoms. next year, if it survives.

[byomtov]

nothing says "spring" like mending rock walls..

Obvious, but I can't resist. Why mend the walls?

My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

sez our own New England guy.

[Lelala]

WOW, the japanese location looks great :-)
Is there a hires-version of this image?
Gorgeous.

[russell]

Obvious, but I can't resist. Why mend the walls?

LOL. Yes, Frost will want to know why, and it's a good question.

In my case the "walls" are about 6" (inches) high and exist to keep gravel from the driveway out of my wife's perennial beds, and to keep the mulch in.

So, yeah, "walls", but it's kind of like the "stonehenge" thing in Spinal Tap.

The stump was from a quince. The birds loved it, but my wife got tired of being stabbed repeatedly by its big sharp thorns every time she worked anywhere nearby.

[hairshirthedonist]

Darn. There goes my pastoral image of russell tending to his flock of sheep.

[russell]

we have sheep, just really really little ones.

[Sanity Inspector]

As for green grass, I put down a layer of fescue seed on my lawn several weeks ago. But as I was going, I saw that the spinner on my broadcaster wasn't turning, and the seed was just plopping out in a stream. I tried to rake the seeds around, but nevertheless I now have a narrow fairy path of bright green fescue seedlings, snaking around the yard.

[Hartmut]

I am more of an autumn person and was always fascinated about the autumn colours appearing in what looks like a coordinated move, sometimes in a matter of hours (or so it seems). Just another reason to go to Norway in the fall/late summer.
Btw, my favorite painter of nature is Ivan Shishkin. I am simply unable to grasp how he was able to not just produce one but many forest/tree pictures that rival anything that could be done even with a high quality photo camera.
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/ivan-shishkin/mode/all-paintings

[bobbyp]

Golf is a game designed to enrage its participants.

As for the green...at my old stomping grounds, we had http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/billperry/billperry1202/billperry120200010/12234175-yellow-green-wheat-fields-roads-and-farms-from-steptoe-butte-at-palouse-washington-state-pacific-nor.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.123rf.com/photo_12234175_yellow-green-wheat-fields-roads-and-farms-from-steptoe-butte-at-palouse-washington-state-pacific-nor.html&h=783&w=1200&sz=186&tbnid=oK4HUpXg6-XY-M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=138&zoom=1&usg=__MtW1ruSB7a-XG2VoGXMMjkDyNaY=&docid=53wMlj9sua1sKM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=K1JvUciXJ4aviAKu5IHYCQ&ved=0CDMQ9QEwAQ&dur=469> miles and miles of it in late spring.

[Doctor Science]

Lelala:

It's possible that it was cropped from this one, though I'm not sure.

bobbyp:

Wow, that is a LOT of green. Gorgeous.

[sapient]

Nice, Hartmut. Thank you. Didn't know Shishkin.

[geographylady]

this reminded me of a book I used to read my kids - kittens want green paint cuz everything they like is green: green as cats' eyes, green as grass, by streams of water green as glass.
The Color Kittens