woods

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.

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.

Puzzling Pieces

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In January, fallen leaves and dying vines make it easier to follow deer trails into the woods. Yesterday, along one of those trails, I found a rotting tree covered with this oddly attractive substance. Hard and smooth to the touch, the strange bits reminded me of scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I assumed the substance was either lichen or fungus: determining which was the next step.

As it turned out, that next step was relatively easy. Alexey Sergeev, a researcher whose interests are focused on such things as quantum-mechanical perturbation theory and who currently works at Tulane University, also spent time at Texas A&M in College Station. During those years, he photographed hundreds of Texas plants, as well as a good number of fungi, mosses, algae, and lichens, providing the date, location, and scientific name of each.

A search of his site using the phrase ‘fungus on oak’ found a match to my photo almost immediately, in the eighth row on the page. Ceramic parchment fungus — Xylobolus frustulatus — generally forms on the dry, well-decayed wood of oaks: precisely where I found it. Known as a crust fungus, X. frustulatus received its common name because it often looks like whitish tile fragments put together with black grout. Known as a saprobe, the ceramic parchment fungus survives by decomposing dead or decaying organic material and using it as food.

Another site, Fungus Fact Friday, provided a few more interesting details, including a way to determine the age of the fungus:

Each ’tile’ (or ‘frustule’ to mycologists) is shaped like an irregular polygon, has a smooth, white top, has sides that are black or dark brown, and has a wood-like consistency. The upper surface is irregularly lumpy but smooth and bears an uncanny resemblance to ceramic in both texture and color. It is from this surface that the spores are released. As the mushroom ages, this surface becomes pale pinkish to pale orangish with mature spores and then slowly turns brown.

Reading that, I couldn’t help thinking that, with age, this fungus appears less like a ceramic tile and more like a Scrabble tile. In either case, its appearance is fascinating.

 

Comments always are welcome..