A Day Out of Time

This afternoon at 4 PM I went to the Woods to witness the strange day. 75F this afternoon (85F tomorrow) in the first half of February. The warmth in the Woods was like a startled waking at midnight to a blast of bright sun. It did not feel right. The Woods are still locked down.. tree buds are not opening, no creatures are moving from their burrows. Yet the warmth felt like a day in early April. There was one nymphalid butterfly flying away from the SW Gate as I entered.. maybe a half dozen small moths flying elsewhere across the Woods. I wonder what will be the fate of animals adapted to shutting down in the winter, pupating, burrowing, stopping development. If they wake and begin to move too soon, they will find nothing to eat and may be caught out in the winter weather that is returning in 3 days.
The leaf litter on the forest floor is now no longer new. It has decomposed under snow and been exposed to desiccation and decay for 3-4 months. Here and there around the woods snaking serpentine paths of armadillos or other creatures in the litter, are left as signs of their foraging on forest floor life, snails, isopods, beetles, millipeds, fungi. Interesting to see where the foragers go, in slightly deeper litter, near decomposing logs, near larger logs, not so much on the raised upper slopes with thin litter. The experts foragers know where to find life.
On Monday there will be significant rain. It has been a dry winter. The Eastern Wash still has some water to the Elm Bridge. It will flood into the southern Woods on Monday afternoon as the rain, that is not spring, falls on the soil and litter that should be in the middle of winter. Katie said it feels like the apocalypse.

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.'

Green Bumelia and Winter Snow Beginning

At 3:30 with a stiff NNW wind bringing the first dry flakes of light snow, I went to the Woods. The SW gate and southern boundary trail I thought would let me find shelter from the wind. Just into the Woods past the three big bur oaks, I was struck by the green leaves of the Sideroxylon chittamwood standing there. They sometimes keep their green well past the other species. Tomorrow this will have a bole and branches with all its green bedecked with white. All along the southern edge of the woods the wind was coursing through the open stand.
I walked out to the large excavation on the southern edge of the woods where two giant excavators had dug a crater 20 feet deep, exposing the large municipal pipe line buried there. The crews had spread gravel more or less along the route of the old grassy road bed from the east and shoved up a new small mountain of dirt at the SE corner of the delta. Smashed a few large willows at the edge of the delta.
I walked north from there into the heart and shelter of the center of the Woods. Cold! 18 F and windy and growing colder each quarter of an hour as the front moves in.
The sensible northern species are ready.. the walnut, elm, oak, hickory, persimmon, locust, sugarberry, cottonwoods, box elder, the red bud, ash, mulberry, even the big pecan, have shed their leaves, protected their growing buds with thick scales and filled the vital meristems with sugary cryo-protectant chemicals. Ready to take the cold, and it is coming. But still green (although not looking happy) are the Ligustrum privet, Elaeagnus autumn olive, and Euonymus vine. The succulent green mistletoe seems perky and unperturbed. Its leaves were not drooping or darkening. The animals in the Woods were preparing too. Two larger herds of deer were foraging on the last bit of green before it turns white. The yearlings may not have seen snow before and I wondered if it was a sight that made them skittish, a little worried, or wanting to stay close with the others. I sang to them and the older larger does stopped and looked at me curiously for a moment before moving off. The chickadees, cardinals and other small passerines were actively flitting about.. also trying to stock up on their last good meal and find the best shelter before the cold night coming.
Snow starting to blow in a little more thickly and I recalled the lines of Robert Frost 

"Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow."

North Rim Trail, Early and Late Trees and Leaves

Returned to the Woods' North Rim Trail on this Thanksgiving morning for the first time this year. Cool morning 45F. Saw two groups of three large deer each running away south.  The trail segments are in reasonable shape, if somewhat overgrown from lack of use.. No massive blockage or saw required. The north portion of the Woods is the wilder part, less visited and more homes for animals of the woods. Many burrows in active use. I used my cedar walking stick as a scythe to cut old asters and a short clippers to clear greenbrier.
Most (97%) of canopy leaves are down now. But a curious thing, some individual trees and some branches still hold their leaves. Why? Is there an advantage to holding leaves a bit later? What are the species, apart from Sideroxylon Chittamwood,  that are likely to do this? What are the trees that put out their leaves before everyone else? It continues to be very dry..

Crinkly Woods

Took a walk out to the Woods via the SW Gate last two days. Today late in the afternoon. The newly fallen bur oak leaves by the south gate make a loud, crunching sound.. like walking in a bowl of corn chips. Further east and north where pecan dominate, the fallen leaves are more of a silvery, high pitched sound. The leaves around the big cottonwood make a different dry paper sound.
  The big (fifth largest) cottonwood #39, diameter 122 cm or 4 feet is on its way out. The massive single stem rises 40 feet in a graceful arc to the northeast. A huge old branch, forks off there and rises more vertically to become the top. The highest branches may be 65 feet up. All around the base at ground level are big hard conks of a polypore eating away at the supporting xylem and heartwood of the stem. That huge weight held up high for the many decades of its life will come crashing down on the world below it when the fungus has eaten too much of the support. Looking at the crown, the tree looks healthy; but it is doomed by the fungus at its base.
  Today there were two deer southeast of the Delta. The buck snorted and ran with white tail flag flying. I sang to it and it stopped, partly hidden by trees between us. It watched me as if curious.Yesterday there were five (mostly younger) deer in one group.
  The Delta is a solid green carpet of 2 inch tall annuals, Stellaria chickweed, Glechoma ground ivy, Allium spring onions, Viola violets, some Galium cleavers, some Apiaceious(?) abundant delicate annual with leaves like a Geranium Erigeron but a smell like parsnip, some false dandelions, some grass (Festuca?). The little rain we've had in the past couple of months, a quarter inch a few weeks ago, has started the spring growth and the unnaturally warm days and nights have kept them growing.
  Leaving the Woods at sunset this evening, and looking west through the forest, I was struck by the view, revealing the density, placement and various forms of all the stems of the trees as they separately seek the canopy and bend to escape each other. This is not visible in the summer months. Leaves obscure this view. It is clear at sunset in the dim light when the stems are mostly in silhouette. There is a new perspective here, offering new knowledge of the spacing and the lives of the tree community.

Fall Return to the Woods

Out to the Woods twice this week. Today with Darin and Rebecca to explore leaf litter research possibilities. Lots of leaves down now, maybe 80%. Most canopy leaves still up high on old grandfather cottonwood. A few mosquitoes on tree loop as I replaced/ refreshed tree tags. Pool at Island Crossing is partly refilled. Water pooled in the wash is dark with organics. With the saw, I cleared the slowly sinking arch of the broken elm and vine tangle blocking the NW trail by the big Viburnum. Cleared the fallen elms blocking the west end of the Two Friends Trail. Quarter inch rain a few days ago, left a nice autumnal acid smell in the air, decomposition starting again. Found some salmon pink slime mold recently crawled up on elm log.  Near largest western cottonwood, big leaning pecan has broken at base, crashed down and smashed or scarred several other trees. South 30 m from big cottonwood, leaning old elm has scar bleeding flux that is attractive to two Polistes wasps, a Vespula yellowjacket and several species of flies. No predation going on, although flies are a bit skittish about quick movements of Polistes.
No deer seen but some buck soil scrapes are showing up along tree loop. Gambusia roiling the surface of the NW pond.. shallow and small but still enough to sustain. The Gambusia will have eliminated most invertebrate larvae including odonates. One more substantial tree to clear from trail leading down the hill below the south end of the Tree Loop. Spider webs mostly gone from trails. Woods are busy with abundant robins at 5 PM before the time change this weekend.