A Year in the Forest

      You can see a little of the progression of the falling leaves in the pictures from the last three days.  It has been unusually warm and dry here.  It seems as if the leaves falling are getting more pronounced every day.  Not much new happening.  The birds, squirrels and chipmunks are very active, much more active than during the summer months, I guess preparing for winter.  I have only seen the deer once in the last three days.

  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.

I got to go out in the woods in the morning today.  It is cooler and this morning a little quieter.  The air is moist and the ground is dry.  The leaves are coming down more all the time and all the paths are now covered with leaves.  For some reason, the leaf colors don’t seem as bright this year, probably the hot dry weather.  I took a little time and went off my beaten path today and was rewarded by the change. 

First I found enough oyster mushrooms to make a good batch to cook.  Second, I followed my nose and found another paw-paw patch with ripe paw-paws all over the ground.  I gathered about 20 good fruits and left that many more that had some blemish on them (usually something took a bit or two out of them).  There are few things as sweet smelling as paw-paws.  They make things like honey-suckle and corn pale by comparison.  Super sweet smell.

The log which had 2 or 3 pounds of mushrooms a couple of days ago was completely cleaned out today.

  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.