Mushrooms on the beech

Surface of newly fallen dead beech log
(click for detail)

Sycamores and seasons

The light of autumn is still only changing subtly, but even now the leaves of the sycamore are turning from green to khaki. Soon they will cover the forest floor beneath their parent tree, piling up to create a deep, durable winter blanket. I'm not sure why, but I have always had an affinity to large, old sycamore trees. I look forward to winter when they slough off large, thin, brown patches and their remaining white trunks stand out like ivory towers in the forest. Ghost trees in the forest.

Tilt of the planet

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the dark summer forest lightens as our planet circles about the sun and slowly begins to tilt the other way to bring a change of season. Exhausted summer leaves drop and begin to accumulate, brown and dry upon the forest floor. Walking seems easier in the airy forest.

Here and there among the leaves above and below spots of color no longer green capture my gaze. More and more sunflecks pierce the thinning canopy, shining slow-moving spotlights upon a forest floor that for weeks and weeks has been mostly dark.Cottonwood leaves are dull and faded green up in the trees. Occasionally a rusty red sassafras leaf adds a brighter note on the floor. And in places you'll see tulip poplar leaves as yellow as any school bus or child's rain slicker.

It is becoming impossible not to think of autumn days ahead.

Corvidae and the fog

Blue Jays and Crows both fill the morning with their raspy calls. Clearly they are cousins. You can hear it in their voice.

Even as the corvid cousins help the coffee wake me to fuller consciousness, a dripping fog fills the yard flowing fluid down the hollow. For the moment the blue sky and the rising sun are obscured. It even seems to lightly rain as fog condenses and drips from the cool air.

There is a hint, a promise, of autumn in the air. Like a blanket, the morning fog and familiar corvids wrap the house in a sense of calm and well-being.

Beechdrops

I noticed a large population of Beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana) growing beneath an old beech tree on our trail today. At first glance they look like a dried herb gone to seed. If you look closely, however, you'll discover that the Beechdrop is actually in full bloom right now. Very curious plant.

Come to the woods

John Muir in 1907

"Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods. Here grow the wallflower and the violet. The squirrel will come and sit upon your knee, the logcock* will wake you in the morning. Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill. Of all the upness accessible to mortals, there is no upness comparable to the mountains." -- John Muir

*Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus)

Wilderness is at our doorstep

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown,
for going out, I found, was really going in." -- John Muir

I have come to the conclusion that I am a wandering homebody. A woodland wayfarer at heart, I love nothing more than hearth and home with my family. John Muir once described breaking away from the city and literally running into the mountains as if running for his very life. I hear the call of wild places, too. But I also know that days and years away from home is not for me. Fortunately, wilderness is at our doorstep.

Being often in wild places is vital to my sanity. I know that I am healthier when I can often get outside and feel the sun and the wind and the rain. I also know that wilderness is not limited to majestic far away lakes and mountains. One doesn't need to live next to a national park to walk daily in wild places. Getting away from the constant lights and noise of the city is good, but in a pinch anywhere outside will do, whether it be a city park, a nearby woods, or a forgotten hedgerow. The birds that visit my feeder are just as wild as those who live deep in the forest. The moss growing in a corner of the yard is home to a myriad of creatures that would take a lifetime to know, if only I would take the time to see.

The beauties of nature are not somewhere else, but all around us. All we must do is walk out the door and see. Go ahead! Walk out the door and experience the wonder. Nature is not far off. Wilderness is at our doorstep.

Life of a dead tree

Last night Joshua asked me about some curious growths he had seen on a log at our trailhead. Fairly sure I knew which things he meant, I told him it was some kind of fungus. He said that he had opened one and it had a small grub inside. This piqued my curiosity because it sounded as though maybe the rough, dry spheres were actually insect galls. Even though I was ready for bed, I asked him to go show me. I wanted to be sure we were talking about the same thing.

Our dog, Sadie, at the trailhead last October

Our trailhead marks the starting point of a short trail loop through our small hollow. The trail goes back into the hollow following the typically dry streambed at the bottom of the valley and then goes up a steep hill on the western ridge and follows the ridge back northward to the starting point. The trailhead is at the corner of our side yard and is marked with a grouping of several cut logs standing on end like a cluster of stumps.

Joshua and I grabbed flashlights and walked out to the trailhead in the dark. When we got there, our light revealed a very busy place. Although I had noticed a few fungi beginning to grow on the logs, this is a spot that normally gets little attention. The logs merely form a decorative yet rustic entry into the woods. Under closer inspection it was clear that there is much more going on here.

The first thing we noticed was a harvestman (aka, daddy longlegs) that seemed to be eating the remnants of the sphere Joshua had opened earlier. Whatever the grub was doing there, we decided the sphere had to be some type of fungi. Our light revealed a few ants scurrying about also, no doubt also picking up a meal wherever they could. There were also beetles, more harvestmen, a millipede, a snail, and centipede, all busily going about their business.

There are no fewer than a half dozen species of fungi on the logs: the curious, roundish gray-brown lumps Joshua had asked about; small shelf-fungi; a yellow, jelly-looking mess commonly called witches butter; small little nondescript stalked mushroooms; and more than a couple random fairly shapeless scaly white fungi growing across the surface. A good teacher could have an entire mycology class field trip right here at the trailhead.

Moss is also beginning to grow on the sides of the logs now. I expect this to continue more and more as the fungi break down the wood, offering more fertile "soil" for the moss. It's amazing how different these logs are from when I rolled them into place and sat them on end a year ago. At the time, they were little more than large cylinders of wood, but now they seem full of life, full of promise, even as they decompose.

I understand from people who study such things that the biomass of a log on the forest floor is actually several times higher than the biomass ever attained by the living tree. The living portion of a tree is pretty much limited to the leaves and an outer ring of tissue in the woody portions. The live part of a tree trunk is a long, tall cylinder supported by no-longer-living wood within. Once the bole of a tree falls to the ground, the dead wood immediately becomes both structure and nutrition for a myriad of other life-forms for years to come. In a very real sense, a dead tree is more alive than the living tree ever was.

A window into the woods

Light and shadow play among the branches in the woods behind our house. 50 feet outside our kitchen window is another window. This second window is a natural opening through the trees that allows my eyes to venture into the woods. In winter I can see further, but in the full-leaf darkness of summer my eyes wander only 75 or 100 feet before they are stopped by the overwhelming green gridlock of leaves.

I find that anytime I glance out the back window, my eyes are invariably drawn into the forest. This is a world of light and shadow, a world of dappled light on leaf, a world dominated by the horizontal lines of dark boles, a woods lovely, dark, and deep. This is a world that is always changing, ever the same, always compelling, ever beckoning.

Trail dreaming

Trail dreaming

As much as I enjoy my daily walks in our little hollow, I also hear the call of distant hills and I find that I'm itching to go backpacking again. The urge has been slowly creeping up on me, but now it has taken over. No  doubt I'll be spending an inordinate amount of time thinking and planning, weighing my gear, pouring over maps, and dreaming of trails ahead.

Most of our Scout outings over the last year were canoe trips. This was so that we would be prepared for our trek in canoe country. Paddling a canoe is fun, but it's been more than a year since I've walked a long trail. For me, walking is the essence of simplicity in nature. A year off is definitely too long of a hiking hiatus for me. I need to make time for some solo wilderness wandering this fall.

Me at Martha's Pretty Point on the trail to Virgin Falls in Tennessee

Lightweight camp at Big Laurel Falls

Complete kit, 20 lbs.

Catching wonder

“When laughing children chase after fireflies,

they are not pursuing beetles but catching wonder.

When wonder matures, it peels back experience to seek deeper layers of marvel below. This is science’s highest purpose.”

— David Haskell, The Forest Unseen

Look closely at the world around you. Take the time to get outside. Allow space in your life for wonder. Turn off the computer if you have to.

Increasing wonder

"Wonder increases as speed decreases." 

-- David Haskell, lecturing at Owl's Hill Nature Center, July 22, 2012.

This is exactly what I have been noticing during my time in the woods. I have been walking more slowing, stopping more frequently, and looking more closely. As result, the forest is regularly filling me with a sense of awe.

Gone reading

This week I have been busy reading and thinking through David Haskell's delightful book, The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature. The book was born out of a year spent watching a one-square-meter section of the forest floor not far from his classroom at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Combining focused observation with poetic description and scientific details, Haskell tells the stories of the ecology and natural history of old-growth forest on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee.

I am so excited about this book! Haskell's style and focus is exactly the kind of thing I'm trying to do with my time in our woods. Even better was that just a couple of days after I discovered the book, I was able to hear Dr. Haskell speak as a guest author at Owl's Hill Nature Sanctuary. I expect to give a complete review and praise in a future post, so stay tuned. In the mean time, you may want to check out Haskell's own blog, which he calls Ramble.

Vanishing turkeys

Turkeys in the side yard,
heads bobbing as they walk
into the woods
and vanish.

Quiet contemplation

On a quiet and peaceful morning, freshly brewed coffee in hand, I walk silently up the hill behind the house. Counting my blessings of family and circumstance, calm serenity surrounds my walk. In moccasins I can feel the details of the soft trail: a stick here, a sweet gum ball there, moist earth releasing the earthy smells of mushroom and mineral.

I am walking to log bench beneath a large beech up on the ridge. The bench was formed just the other day when a large branch broke out of the beech in a storm. I thought of moving it aside to clear the trail when I first discovered it had fallen, but something urged me to resist the urge and I let it remain where it had come to rest. With a fortuitous crook downward where it crossed the trail, the limb was easy enough to step over and it just seemed right to leave it. This morning as I wandered away from the house, it struck me that this log would be a convenient place to sit and think.

A steady stream of thoughts flow through my mind. Hannah's 19th birthday was yesterday, and I am still thinking what a blessing and manifestation of God's grace she is to our family. In the house below, all is quiet. I think that very few men are as blessed as I am. I have an amazing wife and two wonderful children. Beyond that, we get to live here, in the woods of an unnamed hollow in the hills of Tennessee. We don't have much, but we have more than everything we need.

Today is the 97th anniversary of the Order of the Arrow, a service and honor society in the Boy Scouts of America. I am thinking what a blessing it is to be involved in such a great and noble cause. Cheerful service to others is one of the hallmarks of Scouting, and it feels good to be a part of it.

Too soon my coffee cup is empty and I need to get dinner on the stove. Along with a few vegetables from the garden, we're having pinto beans and rice tonight. It may be a simple meal, but just the thought of it makes me feel warm and cared for.

The air is comfortable now, but it is warming quickly and it will feel too hot and too humid before noon. As I walk back down the trail, I stop to look again at a small owl feather that I noticed on the way out. The striped brown and white feather is beautiful and delicate. It is a sign of other creatures who appreciate these forests. I think to carry the feather home where I can prolong my enjoyment and share it, but I stop and leave it alone. Its beauty here in this moment is enough, a witness and testimony to simple pleasures and graces.