A Year in the Forest

We finally got a little rain here, only about 1/10 of an inch but something.  As could be expected, it made the mushrooms pop up also.  I found one I have been watching out for the Deadly Destroying Angel.  If you pick mushrooms to eat like me then you need to be aware of this mushroom.

I have mentioned several times the Beech aphids.  Something is very efficient in eating them.  Almost everyday I find a limb that was covered the day before that is now completely free of aphids.  I cannot imagine that they would just leave enmass like that.  The leaves are starting to turn and fall from the trees.  There are an abundance of bright red and yellow falling leaves right now.  To look at the forest as a whole it is not showing much color yet.

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.

The big patch of Jack O Lantern mushrooms is getting even bigger and new patches are sprouting up all over the place.  Too bad they are poisonous and nothing will eat them.  It doesn’t appear that even bugs have much to do with them.  The Oyster mushrooms, however, are a different story.  They only get about the size of a quarter now and are promptly eaten by some wildlife.  I suspect either raccoons or deer.

Despite recent rain showers it is really dry around here.  Last week Karen and I were concerned about the wildlife and set out some buckets of water.  The buckets set there untouched for a few days, not anymore.  The wildlife have found them – yesterday one 5 gallon bucket had all but about a gallon gone.  I filled it up yesterday evening and this morning it is only about 1/2 full.  Something has a mighty thirst.

I encountered something I have never seen before.  I found a big nest of yellow jacket wasps in the ground and did not have enough bug spray to take care of them.  I saw at least 200 wasps around this nest.  Things happened and I did not get the chance to go back and take care of the nest for a few days and when I did go back, to my surprise something had beaten me to it.  There was nothing but a big hole in the ground. The nest had been dug up and all the wasps were gone.  I was not aware of anything doing this.  I wonder what dug up and ate the wasps.  Was it a raccoon, fox, opossum?  I don’t know.  (EDIT) I did a litle research and found the most likely animal to eat the wasps was a badger.  We don’t have badgers around here.  The next most likely is a skunk – we have skunks.  After skunks its racoons – we have racoons.  Still don’t know what it was but I am thankful.

For the past three years I have noticed something in the woods that has caused my to wonder.  Around the base of many of the Beech trees there will be an occasional black spot.   I just assumed it was some sort of fungal rot that was effecting the Beeches.  While wandering through the forest today I finally figured it out.  On many of the Beech trees at this time of year there will be a limb that is completely covered with white aphids.   For some reason, as I idly passed by one such limb I noticed that underneath this limb was a black spot. 

Finally I put it all together.  It was aphid poop!  The black spot was aphid poop.  I began to look around and sure enough where ever there was a black spot, directly above it was a limb covered in aphids.   And of course the opposite was also true.  Under every limb covered with aphids was a black spot.  Aphid poop, who would have thought?

My initial object of study this trip was the woodland ferns that are throughout the woods.  They occur sparadoically throughout the woods but are concentrated in the stream bed area.  My intiial survey shows that there are primarily two types of ferns in these woods.  Neither one prefers one habitat over the other.  In other words they are both found throughout the woods from the ridgetop to the stream bottom.  One type has simple fronds and grows closer to the ground.  Its color is a rich dark green with a hint of blue.  I think it is a Christmas fern.  The larger ones grow about 24 inches high.    The other type of fern has deeply segmented frilly fronds.  I think it is a Lady Fern.  It grows taller, about 36inches high, and is a little more prolific.  Its color is more of a pale green.    As I mentioned though they both grow in the same places.  Here is a picture with both varieties side by side.  I imagine there are some other varieties around and I will keep my eyes open for them. 

This begins my log of a year in the forest.

Today is a dry late summer day.  The mushrooms that have been so plentiful the last few weeks are almost all gone – I hope it will rain some more so they will come back.  I begin my trek through the woods by taking what I call the chanterelle trail.  It is just off this trail that I have found chanterelle mushrooms on occasion.  I look hopefully toward the area but don’t spot the choice mushrooms.  Further down the trail I stop to take some more pictures of the stump covered with shelf mushrooms Trametes elegans.  Next to  the stump I spot some juvenile chanterelle mushrooms that are starting to dry up.  I take them and crush them up and spread them throughout the area hoping to make the chanterelles more abundant.

While I am pausing at the stump I notice the faint buzzing, we have noticed the past week or so.  The faint buzzing in this part of the forest and the sighting of a few honey bees makes me hopeful that there is a bee hive somewhere around here.  I haven’t found it yet but haven’t looked much either.  A task for another day.

I continue on round the upper trail – I haven’t been on it much lately and I need to bring my clippers to cut back the green brier which so loves to fill any part of the forest that has a little bit of light.  All of the trails are deer trails and it seems the deer like it when I cut back the green briers.  The trails are always used more when I clear them.   The west slope does not offer much of interest.  When I get to the north trail I take the pathway down into the main stream bed.  Its a zigzag trail cutting down the steep slope.  The stream bed is dry now.  It always amazes me how dark it is down here.  More than once I have found myself down here and thought night was falling only to come back up out of the stream bed to the sun light.  I make my way to the big beech log I have been harvesting oyster mushrooms from the past week.  It looks like this will be the last or next to last harvest.  The slugs are starting to eat the remaining mushrooms and the ones left are harder to get to.  I harvest about 2 pounds of mushrooms, planning of drying most of them for later.  These mushrooms have been a real treat this year, we have harvested about 10 pounds of oyster mushrooms.  I gave away about 3 pounds this weekend and we have eaten the rest.  Lets see the going rate is $4.00 for 1/2 ounce of dried oyster mushrooms.  Drying them takes away about 2/3 the weight.  That would mean we have, conservatively, consumed and given away about $425.00 of mushrooms.  Man I am rich.

Have to get back up the trail, the wife will be home soon.  The trail out is a brutal old logging trail straight up a steep slope.  It seems the horseflys always wait here to pester me as I come up it.  I am covered with sweat and they love to drink it and bite me in the process.  After stopping twice to swat em and drive em off me I make it to the top.  Now all I have to do is clean the latest mushroom harvest and put them in the dryer.