We were delighted to find all of these mosses, lichens and liverworts. They are so alive and colorful in the forest while everything else has gone drab for winter. We are going to walk around the north side of the farm and look for more types as soon as we get back out there.
We moved our big table and two benches as well as firebox grate to the farm and will be happy for this if we ever sit down to relax. lol.
So far we have seen a large deer missing half his antlers walking by the waterway at night and a black dog with a white face strolling through at night as well since we moved the trail cam to the waterway. We saw the black dog and hoped we caught a glimpse of the bear. Not yet! We moved the trail cam to try to catch some images of the red fox family.
We continue to cut down and clear out black cherry trees and tulip poplars that are diseased and dying. Since it’s been cold this winter, we are burning them in our fireplace. It’s been nice.
Later this week, we plan to take a table and a couple of benches out to the farm to have a place to sit other than the truck. 😀
We are also looking to begin to put together a fire pit in the middle of our main clearing. A big tree stump sits there and we will dig in and put rocks inside. It will be nice to stay warm when we camp.
We went out today and found these interesting moss and lichen. We also found mushrooms and walked along the bottom flood plain. The water had washed away the leaves and we could see the rich soil. It was warm in the mid seventies and smelled like spring.
We cut down several diseased black cherry trees and loaded it all into the truck and brought it home to burn.
We drove over to Buckingham County yesterday afternoon after spending our first full week away because the weather was very very cold. A few of those days did not reach much above freezing. We didn’t expect to find mushrooms because of the low temperatures but we were pleasantly surprised.
We also found a number of puff ball mushrooms down at the bottom of the slope in the floodplain. They were everywhere. We also found Calostoma lutescens up top. The ground was moist everywhere. The waterway was trickling along, though the levels were down from last week.
The shed was dry and is still waiting for us to complete our indoor projects. We are waiting on a new tool that is overdue.
We cut down a dead tulip poplar and collected every piece of black cherry with black knot fungus we saw and loaded this into the truck to take home to burn.
We got a new trail cam in December which we placed about 5 feet off North Trail just 10 feet away from the clearing. We kept it there for a few weeks. We had trouble viewing the videos collected and were relieved to see it does work. These three were recorded in late December and early January. Today we moved the trail cam down by the waterway at the bottom of the slope. We will check it next week.
The shed stayed dry and we continued fire blocking today.
It was a blustery and sunny 42 degrees Fahrenheit day in Buckingham County for our walk around the farm. We came over to measure and mark some boards for cutting back at home with the table saw. We are still working on fire blocking the shed and we checked the new trail cam. We finally got some images and video. We are very pleased. So far, a large gray tabby cat, a squirrel and what could be a possum have been captured by the new trail camera. We will download this later tonight and add footage to a post.
We began our walk up top by the driveway where we saw mushrooms. A few Russula and Laccaria. They were old and had frozen and thawed several times at least. Nevertheless, we stared at them and wanted to know more. We also found some as yet unidentified little brown mushrooms by the large loblollies in the clearing up top. There were hundreds of them. They ranged from quarter size to silver dollar size and were gilled, brown spored and slimy on the cap. The sliminess may be from the freezing weather overnight. They smelled faintly of mushroom and had no taste with a spit test.
Unknown little brown mushrooms (LBMs). These are notoriously hard to identify. At some point, we may resort to microscopy to determine their specific Genus. They are growing around several loblolly pines directly from the forest floor under the pine needle litter and leaves.
As we walked through the forest, we were searching for more invasive paulownia trees to mark and eventually clear them from the forest with their aggressive growth and reseeding. We have 2 large paulownia in the big clearing and 4 medium sized paulownia in the small clearing up top that we call the amphitheater. So far, this is what we’ve found. In spring, they will be even easier to spot. We will remove these as soon as possible and continue to keep a lookout for more.
On a positive note, we did find the downy rattlesnake plaintain orchid pictured above. We found this along our Fern Trail and saw it in multiple spots around the farm. It was noticeably fuzzy and striking with its leaf pattern. The vibrant leaves are enjoying the cold, wet weather we’ve had. We can’t wait to see them bloom in July and August. We will be on the lookout for white inflorescence densely packed along the top portion of the bloom spike (terminal raceme).
We walked all the way around the farm and were happy to come across the culvert and hinged shoe lasts again as we’d looked for it for months. This time we were able to determine where the culvert ended as well as find a dozen more hinged shoe lasts. We are very curious about this mystery.
The days are getting longer. It was still light as we drove home. We feel grateful to have the forest and have enjoyed every season so far.
We went out to Saint Andrew’s Forest Farm today to check on the water levels after the storms which delivered more than two inches of rain. We walked down North Trail to the bottom and across following the waterway. The water was flowing and trickling down from everywhere. The leaves were cleared from the wet weather gullies.
We walked up along the south property line and up around the wet weather gully on that side. Up top again, we looked around for any dead trees standing and, once found, we cut it down. It took a bit to get it to fall as it was hung up in multiple smaller and too-close trees. It was paulownia which is invasive so we will make sure it doesn’t grow back. We are clearing and making room for the native trees. Right now, we are choosing and encouraging healthy pines, cedars, fir, ash, paw paw, hornbeam, sugar hackberry, beech, oak and other natives. Paulownias and Ailanthus are the two invasive trees we’ve seen so far, and their days are numbered. We also spotted mimosa, another invasive, growing up top so will be looking for them too in the spring. We’ve seen them right where we just took down the pawlonia today. Although tulip poplar and maples are native they are also running rampant on SAFF and are mostly tiny, sickly and/or undeveloped multiples coming from a single stump that was cut back. We will not encourage their growth either.
We cut the paulownia up and put it in the truck for firewood. Paulownia spreads and takes over in disturbed forests. We want to get this tree off SAFF. However, the wood is fire resistant, half the weight of other woods, has a higher ‘r value’ for improved insulation, dries in days and doesn’t warp, crack or split. We’ve used a few thin limbs from the pawlonia as walking sticks since the spring and they are wonderful to wield and hold. Lightweight and sturdy. We are brainstorming ways to use the rest of the pawlonia we have. It may be good to use as a layer in our next construction project to increase insulation. We have at least three or four more larger trees but maybe more as we were surprised to find the one we cut down today. A website about the paulownia tree: https://treepeopleofwallawalla.com/trees/the-worlds-most-valuable-tree/#:~:text=A%20single%2012%2Dfoot%20log,twice%20that%20of%20other%20lumber.
https://mgnv.org/plants/invasive-plants/princess-tree/
We checked on the shed. It stayed water tight through the heavy downpour. We continue to be happy deer hunting season is over. The forest has been fun to walk around in the winter. It will be easier to navigate in the spring and summer with our continuing path development. We could see the difference in the forest just after clearing the pawlonia and its too-near neighbors. We can’t wait to see the transition into spring.
We went over to Saint Andrew’s Forest Farm to check on everything after the storms and to collect firewood from the forest floor. We also got some of our fire blocking completed for the shed and checked our new trail cam. Everything looked great. The shed is almost ready to insulate. We are planning to overhang the roof to give us lots of porch space.
We were surprised by the mushrooms. Since it’s been so cold, we thought we would not have many but we saw them everywhere. Hundreds of small Mycena as well as Laccaria. We haven’t foraged any of the Laccaria. Because of the cold temperatures, their texture is slimy so we have let them stay put on the forest floor.
We are happy to report deer hunting season has ended. Our neighbor Don stopped by to say hello as we were clearing out a fallen crag by the roadside. We also cleared more black cherry trees with black knot fungus and removed the pieces in order to keep the spores from spreading.
It was cold and windy. The ground was moist from all of the rain, snow and ice. We did not make it down to the waterway but hope to visit again soon.
We went out to the farm to do more reinforcement of the shed with 2 by 4s and to also take a walk. We started walking east where we saw the young bear. No sign of him today. We followed the wet weather gully east and then south until we reached the North Trail. We used loppers and laid our stick trees down beside the trail. We heard crows and hawks as we walked. We recognized a large loblolly and knew we were nearing North Trail.
We found this tree with holes bored into the tree trunk and the bark on the ground and think maybe the pileated woodpecker was looking for a meal of insects.
We did not check the new trail camera. We will remember to do it next time we’re out to Saint Andrew’s Forest Farm.
As we walked through the forest, we heard the crows and the hawk calling often. It was a warmer day and it smelled of fresh earth and moisture even up top in the clearing.
We looked through the woods and found multiple individual Laccaria up near the front gate. These are edible although we’ve not foraged any as of yet. Animals or insects have been eating them as quickly as they grow.
We can see through the forest better now that it’s winter. We can see the contours of the landscape since the trees have lost their leaves. While we walk through, we plan and think about how to improve the health of the forest. Lately we have been noting the black cherry trees which have succumbed to black knot fungus. We read that this needs to be cut out and if it’s the whole tree, it cannot be saved. We are planning how to get these trees down and removed from the area. Rain, wind and cool weather assist the spores of the black knot fungus. Black knot fungus impacts cherry and plum trees. Until we have managed this, we will not plant trees susceptible to this fungus.
Saint Andrew’s Forest Farm 