A Year in the Forest

  It is cool and dry today.  The forest was unusually quiet, the crows were no where around for a change.  I did hear the stag deer snorting and stomping around in the forest letting everyone know that he was there.  The leaves are coming down more every day and can be seen in the picture at the start of this article.

I have two cats, a 2 or 3 year old big cat (she is my office cat) and a small old cat about 12 years old.  The big young cat never goes with me on walks, the small old cat does sometimes and did today.  She follows from a distance like she is stalking me and never comes up close.  Nothing much else to report.  I found a ripe paw-paw and ate it.  The mushrooms are all gone.

  The view down into the stream bed is getting clearer every day as the leaves fall and allow more light into the picture.  Two things caught my attention today.

Frist crows.  As I started my walk this morning I noticed first how quiet it was and then for some reason the birds started singing.  I enjoyed the diverse sounds of the bird songs for a few minutes and then the crows started cawing.  The other birds shut up at this point.  With the leaves coming down, I looked up and for the saw the flock of crows that were making all the noise – there were at least 30 crows.  And then I began to notice that they were the loudest when I was moving.  So I started experimenting.  When ever I stopped and didn’t move they quieted down.  Whenever I began to move again, their raucous noise began again.  When I got close to the house they quieted down.  Hmmmm.

Second PawPaws.  My path goes right down the middle of a large paw-paw patch.  I noted earlier how the animals stripped this patch of paw-paws early in the season.  Yesterday I found another patch, untouched by the wildlife because of the strong sweet smell and harvested a few.  That patch is stripped now.  Today I wandered off the path to look at a large root ball when I noticed the ground littered with paw-paws and looked up to see one lone paw-paw loaded with paw-paws.    So the wildlife got the majority of the paw-paws but left some of the later ripening ones.

  Here is the view today.  You can see the trees turning and the leaves on the ground.  It finally got a little cooler around here.  Yesterday I foolishly decided to wait a day to harvest a big batch of honey mushrooms.  I should have known that the woodland creatures would get them if I did and sure enough, what was 2 or 3 pounds of mushrooms was almost completely wiped out.  I got maybe 1/4 of a pound.  Oh well, I guess they needed them more than I.    I did smell a pawpaw again but was unable to locate it.  I saw a few squirrels but did not see the deer again.

The most interesting thing happened before I took my walk.  I was talking to my neighbor and he was telling me how a skunk got a yellow jacket nest for him also.  He related how the skunk used to live under his shed.  When I asked him how he got rid of it, he said that he had taken a piss around the shed every night for a couple of weeks and the skunk just left.  Now he only does it about once a week to keep it away.  Haw never heard of that.  But more interestingly, he told me how he had been at the back of his property, which backs up to my woods, one evening when he heard a low growl like a big cat purring and when he turned to look saw something in the underbrush going off.  This is the same woods I had heard the large cat growl in.  There are not supposed to be any large cats in our area and we have both been told we were crazy when we told other people about what we saw/heard.  I guess its nice to have it confirmed, now it makes me wonder what is in the woods.

  Here is the picture looking down into the stream bed as I have been showing the past few days.  You should start to notice how there are fewer leaves.  You can even see the sky in the background a little.  All the paths are noticeably covered with leaves now and there are more coming down all the time.

I fully expected all the mushrooms to be gone today but was surprised to see that not only were some new ones coming up but a log that had a few sprouting yesterday is covered today.    The picture only shows a small portion of the mushrooms.  I plan on harvesting a big batch tonight and having them for supper.

The squirrels are still very busy and I saw them on the ground again today.  I have not seen or heard a deer in a couple of days.

A few days ago I found the front leg of a deer.  Today I found part of the backbone of a deer, I assume the same one.  It was quite a ways away from the leg on the other side of a ravine.  I have looked and tried to follow my nose in vane searching for any other sign of the deer.  No Luck.  No smells. Nothing but the front leg and partial backbone.

Walking through the forest my nose did alert me to something, however.  I smelled something very sweet and looking around found a ripe pawpaw under some rose bushes.  Few things smell as sweet.  It seems the walnuts that have been falling the past week or so have finished.  I did not hear one fall today.  I did see several squirrels on the ground today.  They had been keeping themselves in the trees.

The leaves continue to fall and cover what were bare dirt paths that I use.  If I didn’t know where to go, it would be hard to follow the paths in some places.  There is not really much color, mostly yellows.

The only mushrooms, growing at the moment and not being immediately eaten are some honey mushrooms covering a large log.  I don’t expect them to last long.