Mushrooms and Onions Posts and Poles

Out today at 3:30 through NW entrance, past the NW pond. Beautiful January day,  clear blue skies and soft winds at 50 F. The Woods were quiet and dry after several days of buffeting wind. I expected more debris, maybe some large trees to be down but there were none. On the NW pond and the Eastern pond there was however, a light golden skim. The first bit of the juniper pollen season.

A fortnight past we had a several day cold spell with a delightful inch of snow at the end. The day after I went for a walk in the Woods and enjoyed seeing the tracks of the squirrels, deer and mice and the occasional rabbit. The rain before had come long and slow and gentle.. good for soaking, much needed.

It had been dry before that.

Today a nice snack of oyster mushroom harvested off a cottonwood and spring onions by the Elm Bridge.

Walking west on the E-W Trail and north on the Hackberry Alley trail I passed by the old wooden fence posts, split by Oliver out of locust (?) maybe 80-90 years ago and the sturdy steel posts placed by Carpenter in 1955, marks of people who knew and used the Woods in an earlier time.. and loved what it was for them.

After strong winds with the storm, a large side trunk of one of the largest green ash trees in the Woods (#46, 81 cm DBH)  fell across the Main SW trail bending to the ground and pinning an elm tree. I brought the saw and worked an hour to free the elm and clear the branch, then sat and rested. I thought how amazing the weight of that heavy branch 2-3 ft in diameter, live green wood but with a hidden rotting wound at its base that allowed the wind to rip it down from 30 feet up in the crown. The enormous weight that the big trees support.. multiplied by the leverage of the big branches reaching out away from the axis of the main supporting trunk.

Evening of New Years Day Tree Silhouettes

At 6 PM, with evening darkness coming on, I set out for a brief walk into the Woods via the NW Ponds. Past the big cottonwood, I paused and looked back to the west. The silhouettes of the trees were intriguing. Small and medium-sized elms, ash, sugar berry, box elder, willow, persimmon, coffee tree, pecan, mulberry, oak, cottonwood and walnut - a chaotic jumble of trunks and branches.. the interaction of genetic differences in species and individual form, with competition from neighbors and chance events, one tree falls against another, wounding or warping. How to interpret the puzzle? The architectural needs for strength setting bole diameter, branch angle and branch length. The exposure to wind shear, but also access to sunlight have their effect. Henry S. Horn at Princeton wrote about the 'Adaptive Geometry of Trees'. Halle, Oldeman and Tomlinson added their architectural analysis of tree form. To see and to understand tree form is another  way
'..with an eye made quiet by the power
of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.'