A fern mossDeer lichen in the sunshine and New York scalewort on the log in the shadow. A small fern found along the north side of Saint Andrew’s Forest Farm. They were abundant throughout the forest and along the wet weather gullies.
We took a quick trip over and found more mosses, lichen and worts. No mushrooms today. It’s just too cold. We trailbrazed some through the dense trees. We cut back vines. We repositioned the trail cam to catch images of the red fox family. We also dreamed about building log cabins, more trails and meditation spots in the forest. We stayed in the north central area and passed by the culvert with the shoe lasts.
We strengthened the internal structure of the shed some more by adding hurricane clips and other strong ties. Next time, we will insulate and put up interior walls.
The tiny black cup fungi, Urnula craterium, hiding among the pine needles and lichen caught our eye when we looked twice!
Cup lichenGreater whipwort, Bazzania trilobata Cladonia peziziformis, turban cup lichenSnakewort, Conocephalum salebrosumBrachythecium rivulare or Waterside feather moss Dicranum scoparium, Broom forkmoss Leucobryum glaucum, pincushion moss
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.
When we camp, we can use this for fire until we dig our fire pit.
We thought we’d found a new type of moss but it is also a Haircap moss. Lichen and moss are the stars of the show in the forest right now.These turban cup lichen are so fun. How have we never noticed them before?Ok, last one for today. Top of the cap of Laccaria. Beautiful reddish brown and emerging in a warm snap during a particularly cold winter near pines and poplars. A spring that is active after rains. We noticed a bit of a larger hole inside of this. Water pooling just above the wet weather spring with the small hole. The larger spring that has trickled throughout the driest weather conditions. The inside of the shed. Finally ready for insulating.
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.
Found next to driveway up top growing from under a stump. Hypholoma lateritium, brick cap.
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.
Hygroscopic earthstar, Astraeus hygrometricus, found in clearing up top very near the North Trail head.
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.
Genus Goodyera, downy rattlesnake plaintain orchid. The most common native orchid in North America. It was once used historically as a medicinal plant by Native Americans for curing numerous ailments. The roots were made into a tea for treating lung inflammation/breathing pain and for snakebites: none of this is currently recommended. Although the plant does have beautiful blooms.
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.
A brief video of a small waterfall. Just 15 seconds.
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).
Another video with a clearer view of the small waterfall . About 31 seconds Another even smaller waterfall with a small cave to the right side.The cave was filled with water. We will try to get better pictures. 46 seconds We found a culvert which appears to run under an old road in our northeast central area of the farm. This culvert has several dozen of what appears to be a hinged shoe lasts with a hole on top that a pole could go through. Made out of plastic. We can’t figure out why they are there. The culvert with these plastic shoe lasts described above. We hope to figure this out.
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 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.
Laccaria growing up top in clearing and along the driveway.
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.
Tremella mesenterica, yellow brain or golden jelly fungus are a few common names. It is most frequently found on dead but attached and on recently fallen branches, especially of angiosperms, as a parasite of wood decay fungi in the genus Peniophora. The gelatinous, orange-yellow fruit body of the fungus, which can grow up to 7.5 cm (3.0 in) in diameter.
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.
Evidence of a large woodpecker looking for insects. We hear a pileated woodpecker often and were visited by this large creature back in the early fall. Fallen bark. I wonder what insects the woodpecker found. Apioperdon pyriforme, or commonly called the pear-shaped puff mushroom, a saprobic fungus present throughout much of the world. Emerging in autumn, this puffball is common and abundant on decaying logs of both deciduous and coniferous wood. It is considered a choice edible when still immature and the inner flesh is white.Mycena capillaripes, pink edge bonnet, is a saprobic mushroom found growing in pine forests. We saw it everywhere there were pine trees. Thousands of them. They are tiny.
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.
In order to begin to minimize the spread of the black knot fungus, we are going to be mindful of how we manage the infected branches. When possible, remove them, burn them or cover them from wind and rain to inhibit growth of the fungus. As we closed the gate to leave, a squall came blowing through bringing wind, rain, ice and sleet. Our truck and Saint Andrew’s Road as well as Howardsville Turnpike were covered in ice. The weather forecast did not predict this.
The rainy days have been nice for the waterway at the bottom of the slope.
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.
A video of the waterway at the bottom of the hill.
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.
Mycena. Found where pine needles are laying in the ground.
We went out to the farm to have a look about, check the new trail cam and see if the red-shouldered hawk was still there. We also checked in with the shed. It was still dry. We walked down Beech Trail and saw no sign at all of the hawk we’d found dead there on Christmas Eve. We decided an animal probably carried it away. We continued our walk and met South Trail. We found a few beautiful mushrooms. Jelly wood ears and Purplepore bracket fungus.
Top of the Purplepore bracket fungus
We walked down to the water way and saw clear water and pretty mosses, ferns and lichen. We saw the single purple leaf of Cranefly orchids all over. Clusters and singles. We thought we saw strawberries off South Trail.
Turning the trail camera on. 😀
We walked up North Trail and stopped to check the new camera. We forgot to turn it on! Next time we go out we will see if there’s been any animal activity. Back in the clearing, we looked for mushrooms and made plans for trees and our building. Chris walked towards the truck and I was near the shed and a hawk with similar coloring came flying from Beech Trail where the hawk was found on Christmas Eve. It landed in the trees and called out. Piercing, loud, mournful and beautiful, the hawk called to us and then swooped out of the tree and flew towards us and off.
Accidental pocket video of the sounds of the hawk and our reactions. 😄 It calls out 7 times. We believe it was mourning the dead hawk and knew we were mourning the loss as well. As it flew away, it swooped near us.
We were impressed by this hawk’s presence and attempt to communicate. We will always remember this encounter.
Little birds flitting about in the trees while we worked on the shed. Wood ear fungiWood ear fungi found at SAFF on East Trail near waterway
Laccaria found along the driveway. Edible mushrooms that arrive in cooler weather.
We went out to Saint Andrew’s Forest Farm on Christmas Eve to take a walk in the woods and look for mushrooms. So far, since the heavy rains, we have seen mushrooms up top along the driveway and in the mostly pine forest near the road. These Laccaria are growing in clusters near the gate and along the driveway in the clearing.
We wanted to also check the new trail cam to see if we’d gotten any images of an animal living in the den yet we had technical difficulties but will try again in a few days.
Deceased Red-Shouldered hawk in woods. No obvious external wounds.
We found a dead hawk in the woods along Beech Trail. For native Americans, the dead hawk symbolizes courage, resilience, determination, a new beginning, good luck and freedom from the past. Also, prosperity, breaking of limitations and clarity. We were sorry to find it and hoped it had lived a long, full and beautiful life. We emailed the Monacan tribe to ask if they would like to come and collect the feathers. Hawk feathers are sacred and used in ceremonies.
Saint Andrew’s Forest Farm 