Fungi Along the Forest Trails

Goose Snag

Today’s image is from a recent hike at Ridley Creek State Park. This “goose snag” caught our eye from way up the trail, and was too cool not to share. Perhaps we should name her “Snaggle Goose.”

There is more to share from the park: coming up next I’ll share pictures of winter hardwoods, fungi, and lovely evergreen holly.

Winter Woodshed

This winter we built a woodshed under the pine trees at our cottage in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Our design includes two segments of 8 feet square each: one for wood, and the other for the splitter.

When practical, we like to find opportunities to cut trees and split our own firewood from the rounds. This year we purchased our wood from the local Bradley Tree Experts as usual, and now we have someplace dry to keep it (rather than tarping the wood on the driveway).

The great thing about using wood heat for your home is that it warms you several times over. You warm yourself up stoking the fire. You warm yourself up every time you haul in a load of wood. You warm yourself up sawing, rolling, loading, unloading, splitting, hauling, and stacking wood. Managing the fire is part of how I keep active in the winter with the garden sleeping under snow.

Inside the fire is cozy, and with the cost of oil these days it’s actually a more affordable way to heat the home.

Outside, my guess is that the squirrels have all put down payments on the prime real estate, and are having an excellent weekend moving in to the coziest corners of the shed. I’ve already discovered walnuts in the stack!

More from the Washington Woods

I’m not certain of the identity of the plant in the foreground… but it certainly is lovely! If you have any suggestions, do let us know. Despite its appearance in this image, it is not a rhododendron. Those leaves are soft, not waxy and rigid. (Some suggestions include cascara, but the jury’s still out on that one.)

The Forests of Chateau Mumu

Each of our two vacation resting places had their own unique forest character. If you think there are a lot of pictures in today's post, you can imagine how many I had to leave out!

Chateau Mumu, our first stop, was nestled in among a stand of young deciduous trees, dominated by what I believe to be either Chestnut trees, Chestnut oak trees, or possibly Chinkapin oaks – or perhaps both, or something else entirely! They stood out to me because I had not previously seen trees with these big, wonderful, toothed leaves. Further investigation will be needed for certain identification, especially since I'm still stumped by many oaks. File the tooth-leaved trees under mystery.

Other oaks, Sugar maples (Acer saccharum), Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) and the odd evergreen also grew in the woods. I was particularly surprised by what appeared to be three young Douglas firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii), the likes of which I have not seen in almost a year (where once they dominated my landscape in Washington). I can’t imagine what Douglas fir might be doing in the Poconos, and I didn't see any of their cones around, so I’ll leave these up as mystery evergreens, to be identified at a later date.

The forest floor at Chateau Mumu may have been even more exciting than the rest of the woods. Great piles of fallen leaves scattered amid rain-soaked mosses and Pennsylvania stones made for fun investigations by the puppies, and plenty of fodder for my camera.

As always, suggestions for identification of the mystery trees is welcomed and encouraged. Next week I’ll give you a full review of the places we stayed, and of course, many more pictures from our adventures in the surrounding forests and parks!

Autumn Woods

Pictured here are the woods surrounding the first place we stayed while visiting the Poconos.

Each time I sit down to write you a nice, long, picture-filled post about our stay, I get sidetracked with one of my many projects!

This morning, I was engaged with the first of the Feature Artist Interviews over at Brainripples. Today’s feature artist is Ester Wilson – she’s worth missing a day or two of trees!

More to follow.