Thoreau

Walden West ~ December

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Walden West ~ November

My decision to visit the place I dubbed ‘Walden West’ each month in 2022 may be the first New Year’s resolution I’ve actually kept. In the beginning, I had few expectations and no plan; I only intended to visit on a monthly basis, recording whatever seemed interesting.

I certainly didn’t expect to find such variety in such a small spot; over the months, I learned far more than I could have imagined. From the names of unfamiliar plants to the intricacies of spider web construction, it seemed there was no end to the discoveries.

There were surprises, too. By early summer, the water in the vernal pool had evaporated. While I assumed it would fill again by fall or winter, it’s still quite dry. Thanks to recent rains, the hard earth has turned spongy and much plant life remains green, but as we make the turn into spring, the absence of water is perplexing. Clearly, additional visits to check the water level will be in order.

The biggest surprise of all was the sadness I felt as I approached the end of the project. I never expected to become attached to the spot, and yet I had: so much so that I briefly considered continuing the project for another year. In the end, I decided against that, but I did find myself appreciating in a new way some words from Joan Didion’s collection of essays titled The White Album:

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image.

Here, then, are a few images from a place I claimed for myself over the course of a year: not re-making it, but appreciating it in a new way. 

While the pool remains dry, there is evidence of water here. If you compare this photo, taken in December, with the November photo above, you can see that the large log has been moved some distance. Not only that, all of the loose limbs and twigs shown in the second photo have been piled together. Perhaps the force of water running through the area during last month’s flooding rains was responsible.

Walden West ~ December
Branches swept along by water

The large log, whose patterns I explored in a previous month, had been rolled over, and decorated with a leaf.

Having sighted a raccoon in November, it made sense that fur would be added to the feathers occasionally found among the leaves.

As I wandered the area, changes wrought by falling temperatures, less light, and the natural progressions of the seasons became apparent. The pretty poison ivy triplet I’d admired in November had shriveled and become less attractive.

November poison ivy
The same poison ivy in December

Both the Climbing Hempvine and the cattail it climbed for so many weeks turned from bloom to seed, completing their cycle for the year.

Climbing Hempvine and cattail in August
The same hempvine and cattail in December

Poison ivy, still colorful in last February, declined quickly as fall approached, perhaps because of the droughty conditions.

Last year’s poison ivy, lingering in February
December’s poison ivy, nearly gone

None of the Yaupon or Possumhaw trees produced prolifically this year, but by December only a few berries lingered: thanks, perhaps, to hungry birds or other creatures.

November Possumhaw
The same branch in December

This small collection of Silverleaf Nightshade fruits had disappeared: perhaps at the hand of land managers who had done some trimming in the area.

Silverleaf Nightshade fruits in November

Where similar fruits remained, they had begun to shrivel and dry. Rarely eaten, they often can be found even as new flowers begin to form on the next year’s plants.

A December decline for the Nightshades

A short distance from Walden West, the ascendance of winter became even more obvious. Leafless trees, sere grasses, and silence marked a world grown fallow.

But here and there, buried life emerged. Wild onions lay scattered on the ground, the result of foraging by feral hogs or other creatures.

A trailing vine, perhaps the non-native Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) crossed through fallen leaves.

Possibly Japanese honeysuckle

And during my last, New Year’s Day visit to Walden West, a cluster of Violet Wood Sorrel bloomed near the edge of the path leading to the clearing.

No doubt Thoreau was right when he wrote, “No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of spring.” But if the pretty wood sorrels weren’t the first sign of spring, they surely were a sign: a fitting reminder that, even as my human project ended, Nature’s projects continue on.

Violet woodsorrel ~ Oxalis violacea

Comments always are welcome.
For an overview of my Walden West year, please click here.

Walden West ~ November

~ shoreacres ~ 63 Comments

By mid-to-late November, Walden West remained dry, and the butterflies that provided so much delight during October’s visit were gone: vanished as completely as the spiders that  preceded them in leave-taking. In their wake, a few flowers lingered, as well as a pretty mushroom that signaled our recent rains.

Blue Mistflower can spread aggressively, and large colonies of the plant exist within the San Bernard refuge; perhaps those plants had sent their seed to the edge of Walden West.  Closely related to white-flowered bonesets (Eupatorium spp.), mistflower can be distinguished by its colorful flowers, relatively short stature, and broad, heavily veined leaves. Like bonesets, its flowerheads contain only disk florets.

Blue mistflower ~ Conoclinium coelestinum

With eleven species of aster listed for our coastal counties, and even more for Texas as a whole, identification can pose a challenge. These belong to the genus Symphyotrichum, and probably are dumosum: the pretty ‘rice button,’ or bushy aster.

Rice Button Aster ~ Symphyotrichum dumosum

If rains come, can fungi be far behind? Despite a lack of standing water, the soft and sometimes muddy ground gave rise to this pretty pleated mushroom.

Possibly a brittlestem mushroom ~ a member of the Coprinaceae

Despite the delicate lavenders and whites displayed by fungi and flowers, Walden West’s November displayed a subtle golden glow: an unexpected wash of autumn color.

Poison ivy ~ Toxicodendron radicans
Goldenrod ~ Solidago altissima,with paper wasp
Hairy cowpea ~ Vigna luteola, with friend

By November, fruits were as common as flowers. The pretty Silverleaf Nightshade, a member of the same family as tomatoes (Solanaceae) produces fruits that resemble cherry tomatoes in shape, if not in color.

Silverleaf nightshade fruit

The berries of Possumhaw, a native holly, shine against the golden glow of Winged Elm leaves. Possumhaw is deciduous, and the loss of its leaves in autumn makes the berry-and-stem combination even more striking.

Possumhaw ~ Ilex decidua

A golden-leaved Honey Locust (Gleditsia spp.) caught my attention, but left me puzzled. Every characteristic of the tree, from leaves to bark, seemed typical of Honey Locusts, but the tree lacked thorns: a feature of the tree often described as “particularly nasty.”

In time, I learned that a natural hybrid between Gleditsia triacanthos and G. aquatica exists. First recorded in Brazoria County bottomlands in 1892, the tree was introduced to cultivation in 1900; the BONAP map shows the limits of its distribution. While its foliage is similar to G. triacanthos, the Honey Locust known as Gleditsia x Texana has no thorns.

Last February, I found a single leaf of a Winged Elm clinging to its branch.

This November, the full glory of the Winged Elms was impressive. Their golden leaves, draped with Spanish moss and glittering in the sunlight, seemed a fitting end to this penultimate visit to Walden West.

 

In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and head-lands.
If we go beyond our usual course, we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round, do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature.
                              Walden: or a Life in the Woods ~ Henry David Thoreau

Comments always are welcome.

A Song for Springing Forward

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I bought a cheap watch from the crazy man
Floating down Canal;
It doesn’t use numbers or moving hands,
It always just says Now.
Now you may be thinking that I was had,
But this watch is never wrong.
And if I have trouble, the warranty said
Breathe in, breathe out, move on.
And it rained, it was nothing really new.
And it blew, we’ve seen all that before.
And it poured, the Earth began to strain;
Pontchartrain leaking through the door, tides at war.
If a hurricane doesn’t leave you dead
It will make you strong;
Don’t try to explain it, just nod your head —
Breathe in, breathe out, move on.
And it rained, nothing really new.
And it blew, seen all that before.
And it poured, the Earth began to strain;
Pontchartrain buried the Ninth Ward to the second floor.
According to my watch, the time is now;
Past is dead and gone.
Don’t try to shake it, just nod your head —
Breathe in, breathe out, move on,
Don’t try to explain it, just bow your head —
Breathe in, breathe out, move on.
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.
Henry David Thoreau

Comments always are welcome.

Walden West ~ January 1

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On January 1, as I returned to the small, wet depression I’d dubbed Walden West, I’d made some assumptions about what I would find on a cool, dim New Year’s Day. I fully expected seed pods and fallen leaves, bare branches, and a mixture of yaupon and palmetto, but in only a few hours I discovered a far richer and more varied world: a world splashed with color and teeming with life.

The first clue that I wouldn’t be alone came as I crossed a boardwalk on my way to the less-traveled path that leads to the pond. An iridescent fly with the amusing name of Secondary Screwworm (Cochliomyia macellaria) was lolling about, ready for a photo session. While the larvae feed on carrion and decomposing tissue, they only enter existing wounds: a practice which gave rise to the ‘secondary’ in their name.

(Click any image for more details; I imagined this one’s eyes held together by a zipper.)

At the edge of a clearing beyond the boardwalk, a few eastern annual Saltmarsh Asters (Symphyotrichum subulatum) still bloomed, while patches of Crow Poison (Nothoscordum bivalve) hosted hoverflies, ants, and at least one metallic sweat bee.

One of our earliest-blooming spring wildflowers, Crow Poison can put on quite a show even in early winter when conditions are right.

Moving more deeply into the woods, I found innumerable trees sporting lichen covered trunks. Judging by color alone, the blue-green example shown here might be a powdery medallion lichen, or a lobed cotton lichen. For that matter, it could be salted shell lichen; I really haven’t a clue.

But this website, filled with lichen photos and more amusing lichen names than I could have imagined — yellow cobblestone, sunken button, golden moonglow, pebbled pixie cup — will be helpful in future attempts to identify fungi of all sorts.

It is, of course, seed season, and an abundance of Clematis pitcheri seed pods dangled, spider-like, from red-berried Yaupon trees (Ilex vomitoria): a reminder to watch in spring for the deep blue, urn-shaped flowers that produced them.

In some places, Seaside Goldenrod continues to produce a few blooms, but other species, like this Tall Goldenrod (Solidago altissima), have bid a final farewell to summer.

Other farewells are more colorful. Gardeners no doubt are familiar with leaf spots like these, which can be caused by bacteria as well as by fungi. Bacterial infections often form a yellow ‘halo’ around infected areas; fungal diseases more typically produce spores within the leaf spot, aiding identification.

Just above this leaf, another bit of color hung swaying in the breeze. An Orchard Orb Weaver (Leucauge venusta) had positioned itself beneath its horizontal web, presumably awaiting the arrival of prey. Its name certainly suits: Leucauge comes from Greek roots that mean ‘with a bright gleam,’ while the specific epithet venusta means ‘charming,’ or ‘attractive.’

Deep in the dim, damp shade, more fungi appeared. At first, I assumed this smooth, round ‘something’ to be a puffball. Then, I realized larger examples nearby had taken on the appearance of rising bread. I’ve yet to find a similar photo online, so identification will have to wait.  

Despite my inability to identify this six-inch wide mushroom, I found its serrated edge interesting, and the symmetry of its gills especially attractive.

As I worked my way back to the edge of the grove, a few more flowers appeared, like this perfectly named Hairypod Cowpea (Vigna luteola). Coaxed into additional bloom by sunlight and warmth, it already was producing seed.

Nearby, I thought I’d found a mutated hoverfly with four wings, until I took a closer look and realized two hoverflies had chosen to dally on a petal of Whitemouth Dayflower (Commelina erecta ).

Looking at the photos, I noticed for the first time the small bulb-like appendages extending from the hoverflies’ bodies. They’re known as halteres: a second pair of wings reduced to flexible, vibrating, club-shaped rods. They function like miniscule gyroscopes, constantly feeding information to the insect about its position and providing for the instant, precise flight adjustment that allows hoverflies to hover or quickly change direction.

As a final treat, I found this Four-spotted Aphid Fly (Dioprosopa clavata) visiting a late-blooming Texas Vervain (Verbena halei). The only Dioprosopa species in North America, this member of the Syrphidae lays its eggs on vegetation near aphid colonies. Newly hatched larvae feed on the aphids, making this hoverfly an important biological control agent in citrus growing areas where Brown Citrus Aphids are common.

It’s sometimes confused with a wasp because of its narrow ‘waist,’ but its two wings and the presence of halteres confirm it as a true fly.

Given what January already has offered, I’m eager to see what February will bring at ‘Walden West.’

“The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer.”
Walden ~ Henry David Thoreau

 

Comments always are welcome.

A New Year, a New Pond, and New Possibilities

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My New Year’s Day destination

Whether this water-filled depression truly is a pond, I can’t say. It may be akin to a vernal pool, filling and drying as conditions change. Whatever its nature, I’ve passed the spot for years without being aware of its existence, until autumn helped to open the view and a pathway to its edge became visible.

Of course I named it immediately, and if the name ‘Walden West’ seems too obvious, it felt appropriate. I’ve never seen a New England pond, let alone Walden itself, but certain characteristics of this watery depression and the woods surrounding it — isolated, self-contained, unpublicized — suggested it as the basis for a year-long project dedicated to documenting the nature of a single place and its seasonal changes.

Vibrant poison ivy at the water’s edge

When I discovered the spot last Sunday, frustration limited my explorations somewhat. I’d been distracted, and set off for the day without putting a card in my camera — a fact I discovered only after attempting to capture the view shown in the photo at the top of the page. Two hours from home and an hour away from being able to purchase another card, it seemed that photos of my new spot would have to wait.

Then, I remembered my camera phone, and Sunshine came to the rescue. Once I’d learned to keep my fingers away from the lens and queried the search engine a dozen or so times, all was well.

Lichen (possibly Usnea spp.) on a fallen limb

Today, I’ll be returning to my ‘new’ pond; it seems a perfect destination for a new year. With a card already in my camera and an open path awaiting, new discoveries are inevitable: a truth that Thoreau, that other Walden-lover, knew so well.

“It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct.
It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

 

Comments always are welcome.