A Year in the Forest

Back to my evening walk.  It is really dry here now.  Today was the first time in several weeks that there were not enough mushrooms too pick for a meal.  The ones that were there have been eaten by the animals.  About the only animal I saw this evening was a deer who came busting through the woods and stopped abruptly when it saw me.  The squirrels are still busy with the nuts. 

I have been noticing somethning the last couple of weeks.  Something is tearing into the old stumps and logs.  I at first thought it was the woodpeckers, but with the amount of damage done it would take several hundred working round the clock to do it.  I suspect coons or possums or skunks tearing into them to get bugs.  There is one stump that has been almost destroyed the last week.

There was a heavy dew this morning, so heavy that it sounded like it was raining at times in the woods.  The dew also made the nuts heavy, because they were falling with regularity also, both hickory and walnut.  As I said yesterday the forest seems much more alive in the morning, there is more noise and activity.  Fall is making itself much more evident.  The underbrush is dying back and the trails are much easier to keep open.  The animals have found the newest crop of honey mushrooms, some plots are entirely gone.  There is a russula mushroom that has been fruiting for two weeks, but I have not found one untouched specimen yet.  Usually by the time it peaks through the leaves, it is already eaten on.  Its like the animals are storing up for the winter like the squirrels and the nuts.  Yesterday I saw a ink cap mushroom come up for the first time and today it was already a black slimy mess – wow what a short lifespan.

I picked what will probably be my last meal of Stump puffball mushrooms and what was left of the honey mushrooms – I am going to miss my several time a week mushroom meals when winter gets here.

I had the opportunity to take my walk in the morning today.  Morning in the forest is different than afternoon and evening.  The forest seemed much more alive.  I saw deer, squirrels, chipmunks and several different birds.  The noise level was greatly increased.  Nights are getting cooler and as a result the dew was heavy this morning.  The glistening water added a magical touch.  Some different mushrooms are starting to come up.  I never realized how segmented their fruiting is.  One week one kind will be fruiting in  abundance and the next week it is replaced by another.

I went into the forest later than normal about 7:15 pm as dusk was beginning to fall.  I knew I did not have much time before dark and so hurried the trek.  I stopped briefly to pick a couple honey mushrooms to take back home and try my luck with them.  Just as I had descended down to the stream bed I heard something behind me uphill in the forest.  I turned just in time to see something bounding in the woods.  The bounding stopped with a loud catlike growl and some other noises.   I guess it got whatever it was attacking.  It got my attention.  The growl was more like the growl of a cougar than a bobcat.  We have bobcats around here not much larger than a large house cat but this sounded bigger.  There are reports every year of a large cat like creature in the area, some from people I know.  But they have never been confirmed.  I kept an eye on my back side as I went through the creek area.  As I was coming up out of the bottom area, I heard something in the woods below.  I have spent many hours in the woods and never heard anything like that before.

I realized today that the Honey Mushrooms I noticed at the base of the Beech trees were a different variety: Armillaria gallica.  I suspected this since they were growing in different locations than the other ones.  This particular variety can be very harmfull to trees.  Luckily it is confined mostly to a north facing slope with lots of Beech.

For some reason the woodpeckers were very busy today – I heard at least 5 different ones.  Since I have had Stump Puffballs every night with dinner this week I decided to not get any today – but they are still there in abundance.  The hickory nuts must be optimal right now.  There is one section of my path that goes under a big Shag-Bark hickory that is almost covered with nut shells.  They are on the ground, on logs, on everything.  One fell as I was walking past and I half expected to be mobbed by squirrels.  I can find Black Walnuts on the ground all the time but rarely find anything but empty hickory shells.  Its obvious what the squirrels prefer.