A Year in the Forest

I got up and headed out into the forest early.  It is very hot and humid and I wanted to get the final trail segment cleared.  With it cleared I have one trail that basically goes around the perimeter of my property.  It covers about 1 mile of ground and over 100 feet of elevation change.  It would be considered a rugged trail.  This is the trail I hope to walk every day for the next year.  At the very least, I should be in better physical shape when the year is done. 

The first thing that greeted me when I entered the forest was the sound of walnuts falling to the ground.  The ground is fairly steep here falling into a little ravine between two ridges.  The bottom of the ravine is on bedrock.  It makes a nice walkway at this time of year since there is not enough ground water to make a flow.  There are several pools where frogs live and wildlife come to drink.  The thing I noticed today, however, is that ravine acts like a natural trough collecting the falling walnuts.  I found one depression that had ot have 100 walnuts in it.  While I was there I could hear more walnuts falling and see them rolling into this natural collection point.  I am sure the squirrels love this place.  I will come back in the next couple of days and bag up some of the walnuts for myself.

While Karen, my wife, and I were walking through the stream area we began looking for the paw-paw fruit.  The area is full of paw-paw trees.  Paw-Paw trees are understory trees fond of stream beds and have the largest native fruit of the continent.  Looking around we found them – 20 feet in the air!  I guess we will have to be here when they fall to collect any.  Coons, fox, opossum and other woodland creatures like paw-paw also and I am sure they are watching for the harvest too.

When I entered the forest this evening, I came upon a deer.  There is nothing quite like having a deer snort at you and run off.  This deer was not really afraid of me and stopped after its show of strength and turned around and looked at me.  We looked at each other for a few minutes and I started to slowly continue my entry into the forest.  At this point, the deer turned and ran down to the bottom of the stream bed.  When I started moving again it bounded down the stream bed and crashed off into the woods on the other side.  They are really noisy when they are running like that.

Finally when the deer had gotten out of ear shot I began to notice that it sounded like big rain drops falling.  I followed the noise until I was directly under it.  And it was raining alright, raining nut hulls.  Apparently the black walnut were ripe the the squirrels were busy de-hulling them.  I just stood there and watched and listened as the hulls rained down around me.  I have been in oak nut showers before but never a walnut shower.  It was rather interesting.  I looked around and noticed several piles of walnut hulls where the squirrels had apparently found a nut on the ground and hulled it there.

I usually just were sandals when I am out hiking but the last couple of days I have come back with my ankles on fire, so I wore a pair of socks this time.  It worked except where the socks didn’t cover.  Next time I will try bug spray.  I am not sure if its bugs biting or green brier scratching me that is causing the discomfort.  The woods are really dry – its been dry and hot lately.  I hope for rain soon to soften things up.

Sometimes it takes looking at something several times to really see it.  I have probably passed a cherry tree at the very entrance to the chanterelle trail 1000 times but today I finally saw it.  Maybe it was because it is filled with cherries!  Here is a picture of the start of the trail with our wild berry patch in the foreground.    Just to the right of the opening is the cherry tree.  And it is loaded.    As with all things like this the cherries are very sour and mostly pit but it is really loaded with cherries.  Last fall I cut back the trees in this region while clearing out some brush left from construction.  My guess is that we unknowingly pruned this tree and perhaps opened it up to the sunlight.  Whatever the reason we have a bumper crop of cherries.

Its been almost a week since the last significant rain and things are really getting dry.  Its also rather warm about 85 degrees.  The woods are quiet except for the buzz of insects.  Quiet that is until dark; right after dark the tree frogs start singing and the noise is amazing.  You can be setting in my house listening to the tv and open the back door and the noise outside drowns out the tv.  After about an hour the serenade quietens down and the noise level is what you would expect.  It is amazing how such little things can put out so mush noise.