upskirting the shrooms, lost in reflections, the tenacity of birch

We've been back in Vermont for what, eight months and change now? And not til today did my friend G. and I get out into the woods together. 

Shelf mushrooms on a downed log, looking first the one way...

...and then t'other.

I'd left the Mighty Lumix in Kevin's car...or at least I hope that's where it is, since I can't find it... so I had only the phone with me and lo, it gets stubborn and refuses to focus on what I think is important.

THE FIRST OPENING BEECH LEAF OF THE SEASON! 

...or, as the phone observes, G's derriere as she forges ahead on the trail.

Likewise, it was hopeless to get a shot of the underside of these spring ephemerals...

...though I had fun trying. Heaven help me, I didn't even get enough info to key this out later. It might be a hepatica. Dunno. 

More shrooms on a log...

 

...and the undersides...

These are some woods, apparently formerly farmed as evidenced by stone walls hither and yon, that G's neighbors own. They are kind enough to maintain a network of trails, which we sometimes kept to and sometimes didn't.

G. found us a vernal pool. We got lost in the reflections for a while.

Last but not least, a downed yellow birch, gigantic root ball exposed, but it sent up shoots all along its length that appear to be flourishing.

Tis raining. My sweet boy is in London on a bidness trip and the hour of FaceTime approacheth. Hurry home, angel... hurry home. Spring awakens all around us.

photos of angels, birch seeds, hemlock cones

It was a gorgeous day, in both a thoroughly enjoyable yet disorientingly disturbing way.
We begin with Miss Lady, in a rare moment of sitting still enough for a portrait.

The light blobs: I’m sure there is a scientific reason for the phenomenon that occurs when I shoot into the sun, but can we all agree that they’re Maggie’s angels?

The obsession with yellow birch seeds continues. Here we see that the trident-shaped thingies are attached to the heart-shaped seeds. But what I love about this is the two aren’t joined together the way I thought they were. I thought the heart shapes would sit directly on top of the tridents. Apparently not. All I can see is that this is a section of a catkin that’s falling apart. I need to find a catkin that hasn’t completely blown up. Probably too late for this year.
Have I mentioned that the beaver pond’s main dam is gone? They’ve built another, closer to the road. Here’s the currently-drained part.

Not shown: the feral bathtub that lives at the edge of the pond, plotting revenge against whoever dumped it into the burn pile.
As promised, hemlock cones.

(Blurry, sorry.)

And upside-down, for the view. These are tiny. (Relative to your Typical Pine Cone.) Easily less than an inch long.


Forsythia blooming on December 3rd. See what I mean about the gorgeous weather? It’s confusing everyone. Now is the time to shut down and get some rest for the year – not pump out flowers. Go to sleep, sweet forsythia! It’s bedtime!
Speaking of bedtime, ‘tis mine. Good night!

and now for something completely different.

In honor of International Monty Python Day – tomorrow – we’re going someplace new today. Up into the woods.

last year’s beech leaves.  not too many of these left.

A decaying stump serves as a nursery for moss and canada mayflower

sweet little canada mayflower!

I spent a lot of time with maples.

I found myself puzzling over how to tell the difference between red and sugar maple, when it’s past bud season (the buds are a no-brainer to tell apart) but leaves are not necessarily easily at hand either (because the trees are too tall and no branches are accessible.) In the following few pictures…

…I tried to figure out if the two distinctly different guys above are the same species, with the younger one (less furrowed) at right, or just Awfully Close Neighbors.

Maybe the trunk will provide a clue. To me, the bark is the same from one side to another, so I think they’re differently aged stump sprouts. When you chop down a tree – certain species, in particular – sometimes you’ll get a bunch of sprouts growing out of it that do well enough to turn into pretty big trees themselves.

So I think this is a stump sprout. The one on the right is older – you can tell by the more-furrowed bark.

farther up the tree, one trunk has split a second time. From left, we have the youngest, the middle, and the oldest, all accessing the same root system. Or so I speculate.

And now, for white birch.

Birch I

Birch II

(note: correct orientation is actually the other way – I just think it’s prettier in this direction)

 

Birch III

baby fern.

baby fern and jack-in-the-pulpit

Another decaying stump…this whole back part of the property has been logged, obviously, as everything in this state has been logged at one (or four or five) points along the way.

OH! An ash sapling. Already leafed out. The big trees haven’t leafed out yet. It’s like they’re taking turns with the maples, letting the maples go first.

An ash bud when it’s on a sapling. So cute.

Remember the fern I thought was maidenhair but I was totally wrong? [Except that later, I realized I was right? It is maidenhair fern.] Here’s what it looks like these days.

imagine the trauma that resulted in this. such a survivor.

Just Good Friends. An ash and a yellow birch.

And now, for a finale, back to beech.

I wonder what function the hair serves. As packing material separating the folds in the leaves when they’re still super-tiny and compressed?

the big picture and the small picture

I had a marathon conversation with my best friend today – I call her my wife, which gets confusing, since this blog is named “musings from dave” and there’s no Dave in sight and I’m a girl married to a guy named Kevin. (New here? Here’s who Dave is.) ANYHOW. Long conversation. With the camera in hand. This is what happened while we were having ourselves a good soul spring cleaning.

“I’m in jail!”

Oh, no I’m not.

(Actually, this is part of what we were talking about. How to get the screen out of the way. The human dilemma: we get to choose our own perceptions, which means, rats, we’re responsible for ourselves. You know, you can be the bug, you can be the windshield, something like that.)

Let’s be naughty and go out on the roof.

You get a lovely view from the point of no return. Or so Terry Pratchett says.

Ho hum. Back to ground level we go…

For the record: On May 7, 2010, the last of the magnolia blossoms was about to drop. This year, they’re just starting to open, still, after a couple of days hanging out like this:

I guess they’re savoring the sun. I should start a betting pool on when we get x (say, 50?) percent of them wide open. Any takers?

The aliens lilac flowers are coming along nicely. They appreciate the sun – it was rainy for two days before today.

OK, we’re entering the Woodland Mystery now.

‘Tis guarded by the venerable yellow birch, here seen with some of its retinue of admirers. Seriously, there’s a whole pile of wildflowers at the base of this tree, most of which appear on this blog somewhere or other.

The butternut (white walnut, Juglans cinerea) that skulks at the side of that birch. Is it just me, or do you see the main leaf in the middle having a conversation with the leaf on the right? “Well, I never!” Oh wow – see how much this has opened up just since yesterday?

Also in the retinue a the base of the yellow birch: I used to think this was a sessile-leaf bellwort before it it big enough for me to see the wee little buds forming in the axils with the leaves. Whoops! This makes it look like Solomon Seal (actual, not false), but it’s so tiny… (maybe three inches tall.) I guess a big plant has to start off tiny at some point, right? I guess I’m having a learning experience here.

Into the leaf litter and sea of vinca we go. I tried HARD to get a shot of a spent birch catkin that shows that the little bits are arranged in a spiral down the length of the catkin, but I just couldn’t capture it. So you’ll just have to believe me. It’s something I didn’t notice until I started playing with one that had fallen. It makes sense from a design point of view – it’s like a tightly coiled spring, a way to get a lot of materiel organized for rapid deployment.

Pretty sure this is starflower, so…where’s the flower? (There “should” be a stalk coming out of the center where the leaves meet…) (Maybe they’re like Canada mayflower and take two years to come to full throttle?)

Pachysandra, making inroads from its headquarters at the base of the magnolia, into the vinca-dominated woodland mystery. I almost didn’t take this picture, but I’m glad I did, because you can see the bases of the flower bits swelling up, compared to when I first saw them.

A shy vinca.

Charlie comes along for the ride. That bright green to the far right is the pachysandra’s base of operations.

In the meantime, on the west side of the house, the snail ferns plot their next move. Another spiral. Nature’s awfully sneaky.

We have a sea of vinca over there, as well. Hooray!

This is how a beech responds when you cut it down. A hell of stump sprouts. This will take several years of disciplined cutting back to starve out, I think. I know that sounds mean! But this tree was too close to the addition’s footprint – its branches would have overhung the roof. So down it came.

Oh hey, that’s where I stopped. Hope you’re having a lovely day, wherever you are!