Slow down

The forest around me is already beginning to take on the look of mid-summer. That surprises me a little. For one thing, the season is only two weeks old. For another, this region has not yet had a 90-degree day this year (Note: I am not complaining about this at all. I’m just mentioning it because it’s highly unusual). So I wouldn’t have expected the woods to be taking on that vaguely dull shade of green, nor for the wild grains at the forest edges to have ripened to shades of brown just yet. But both those things are happening.

The forest has entered the time of year where growth and change slows down dramatically. It’s not really a static time—no time is in the natural world—but it feels pretty close to that. After the blinding speed of spring’s explosion, any slowdown is going to feel very slow, much slower than it actually is.

In any event, that point of slowdown, both the perception of it and the reality, is here. Ideally, I should be a little like the forest and slow down myself. In spring, a morning of not paying attention or a day lost to rain can mean I might not see something for another full year. Not now. Whatever it is will still be there tomorrow.

But the habit of running around is hard to break, at least for me. Sitting still? What’s that? Sometimes it feels as though sitting still for five minutes means 20 other things won’t get done. Eventually, usually, I am able to down shift my gears, occasionally. Hasn’t happened yet. I’m still working on it. Maybe a 90-degree day would help.

Inside, outside

Inside, looking out.

Inside, a cabin in the woods is still inside.

A view of the forest without is not the same as being in the forest.

All windows open, tantalized by birdsong.

Earthy aromas sneak inside like winter mice.

But even with all that, it is still 'inside.'

The distance four thin walls creates is vast.

Stormy Evening

Stormy evenings are the rule in this area during summer. During the day, the sky is sunny but after hours of heating, instability builds up. By dinnertime or the commute home, thunderstorms become the norm and are almost a daily occurrence.

Last evening was no exception, though the storms held off until nearly dusk. The sky had a threatening look from late afternoon on, growing ever more threatening through dinner and the early evening dog run. By 8:15, the sky looked like night, and at this time of the year, the sun should still be shining.

I grabbed the dogs and announced it was time for their final run of the day. The time was much earlier than their usual last trip outdoors. Dog, who is the smart one and who hates thunderstorms, understood my urgency, I think. At least he was eager and complied quickly. Baby Dog, who is not the smart one, fiddled around smelling dirt and chewing leaves as the thunder grew ever closer and the rain began. She was oblivious to the coming storm, or at least oblivious to the need to get back inside the cabin before the next bolt of lightning struck even closer than the last one.

Finally, exasperated with her fooling around, I yelled at her, "I’m going to give you a bath if you don’t hurry up!" Baby Dog hates water, won’t walk through puddles and seems to think her toes were not meant to ever be wet. The threat of a bath did it. She performed her duty, and we made it back inside—just as the next bolt of lightning knocked out power for the next hour. I’m going to have to remember that threat and hope it works on her the next time.

Summertime

Summertime is here this week. I can see it in the color of the green forest around me. In spring, the foliage starts as a bright, almost eye-popping green. But now, it’s settled in as a green that’s just a bit less dramatic. The dull green of August is still some time away, and today and for weeks yet to come the green will be the pretty, deep shade of summer.

Here, the weather has been far cooler than usual. Not a single day hit 90 in June, though one or two came close. I’m sure I’ll pay for that later in the season, but today I’m not complaining. If summers stayed in the 70-80 degree range, I wouldn’t mind them at all.

Perhaps because of the cooler temperatures, the season is different from other summers in other ways, too. Fireflies look less common to me. Oh, they are there, but the little twinklers are fewer than I recall. The wild raspberries that I so look forward to were few and far between, too. The ones I did find (and that were left over after allowing my camp kids to eat them) were certainly good and sweet, but only served to whet my appetite for more.

Each season has its slight differences from average. These are the ones I’ve noticed for this year. And that’s how it goes. One year is hotter, one cooler, one dry, the next wet. I believe that if any one weather pattern repeated itself for several years, some of these subtle differences would become the new normal. But usually it doesn’t work that way. At least it doesn’t work that way so that I can see.

Instead, the year-to-year weather differences highlight or suppress little pieces of the greenery that go into making a forest. The forest is still a forest, still an eastern deciduous forest, but little pieces change from year to year. I like seeing those tiny changes around the cabin. I know that next year or the next, some other little piece of the forest will have its day, while another will not.

Farmer lilies

Even if I would still be blogging 30 years from now, I can’t imagine that I will let a year pass without posting a photo of farmer lilies. When they are in full bloom, as they are here now, lilies are simply gorgeous.

One of the many things I like about them is the surprise of them. I may drive along a road for a few miles and the road edges are green with grass and assorted other things. Then all of a sudden I’ll round a small curve and there they are—an entire bank of farmer lilies. It’s rare to find just one or two of them. Twenty to 50 blooms are more common, tightly grouped together like members of an audience. Sometimes there are hundreds of blooms. I never know where they will show up but when they do it’s spectacular.

They all turn to face the sun, basking in it, burning bright with the light. These are no hothouse flowers that must be coaxed and coddled. Farmer lilies are strong and hardy and in their own way every bit as showy as a rose.

They ask only for sun and a bit of moistness. Once they find a spot they like, they gladly spread and grow more numerous by the year. I can’t imagine that I will ever grow tired of them. To me, growing tired of farmer lilies would be akin to growing tired of life and beauty. I can't see that happening, not now and not in 30 years, or in 100.

Morning Gold(finch)

It’s no secret that eastern goldfinch love thistle. I’ve found that the easiest way to photograph them is simply to find a decent patch of thistle. The birds ignore my car as I drive slowly towards the spot. I try to get the camera ready before I get too close. Then I open the window and photograph the birds from inside the car. Usually I don’t turn the motor off, as sometimes that scares them.

This morning, I found an adult male and what is apparently a sub-adult male at my chosen thistle patch. The younger bird has the bright yellow of the adult but is missing the black cap. Goldfinch tend not to be particularly shy. If you’ve fed them at your household bird feeders, you’ll know that the birds show up and stay until they eat their fill, unlike the bouncier chickadees or titmice who pick up a single seed and flit away, only to return again and again, each time taking a single seed and then going someplace else to eat it.

Another year, another ironweed

This morning I find the purple ironweed bush at the bottom of my lane is in full bloom. Around here, people usually call it wild butterfly bush. What I was also glad to see is that the bush was covered with bees. I’ve been hearing that colony collapse disorder is worse than ever this year. As Roundtop is nearly surrounded by orchards that depend on bees to pollinate the fruit, that news is particularly worrisome.

Knowing that I’d previously blogged about ironweed, I went back into my archives and discovered I posted about them on June 24, 2008 and June 27, 2007. That’s pretty consistent, isn’t it?

Who knew that blogging tags would make it so easy to keep track of when things happen in the natural year? I know I sure didn’t realize that for a while, but now I regularly check the tags and archive. Usually birds and plants are pretty consistent, but I can’t say that I expected to find a blog post about ironweed on the same day a year ago.

To me, the ironweed bush(es) looks extra flowery this year. Perhaps this is another plant that has appreciated all the rain of the last two months. The second photo shows how many blooms I found this morning. Ironweed is another plant that many people consider a weed. I just don't get that.

Even snapping turtles are muddy

It’s snapping turtle time! Again. Last evening I found this one blocking the path of my car as I headed back up to the cabin. It’s possible it’s the same one I saw last June. This one seemed a bit bigger but not that much. It was certainly as nasty as its reputation, though eventually I could at least drive by.

After I took the photo, I went back to the blog archives to see when I last did a post on snapping turtles. It was June 9 and June 4 and in roughly the same area. This one is covered in mud, not surprising given the amount of rain that’s fallen here lately. Or perhaps it was simply digging to lay its eggs. In any event it was headed back towards the pond where I think it lives.

This morning, the woods is finally starting to dry out a bit, a welcome relief after days and weeks of rain and overcast skies. In May, it rained here on 22 days out of 31. June has been a bit better, raining on just 13 days out of 22 so far. Of course, most of the non-raining days were overcast, and June has been quite a bit cooler than average. Until today, when the heat wave starts.

In other words, the weather has been anything but normal, and in this area people are pretty much universally whining about it. People complain about the too-much rain and no sun on gardens, on their inability to mow lawns, sit outside or grill dinner. Everyone has a complaint. I won’t add mine today. Let’s just say I could on for a while and leave it at that. For the moment, I’m just glad the sun is out. I’ll be whining about the heat by tomorrow, I expect.

How we saw the fox

This past week and for nearly every week until the end of July, I will be spending my Thursdays walking in the woods with a too-large bunch of varying kids to hopefully help them connect with nature. Heaven knows, if the first batch is any indication, they need it. This past Thursday we saw lots of .25 inch tree frogs, regular frogs, assorted toads, a few water snakes, lots of butterflies and an assortment of bugs, most of which I couldn’t identify. We also got to taste a few wild raspberries and suck the honey out of honeysuckle.

The kids are enthusiastic enough, as long as they can see something they deem exciting. Hearing birds is not exciting, in their minds, no matter how uncommon the species. Finding a teeny, tiny bright green bug that I have no idea what it was qualifies as sort-of exciting, at least to the kid finding it. Eating almost ripe raspberries was a pretty big deal, as was the honey suckle. Catching and holding a frog or a toad is a huge deal. If they couldn’t see it or touch it, they weren’t interested. And boy, we’d better see or tough something almost every few minutes or they were soon bored. Fortunately, seeing the fox was pretty exciting, even to teenagers.

How we saw the fox was pretty impressive, even to me, who sees and hears the local foxes regularly. Here’s how it happened. I was trying to convince the kids that when you’re walking in the woods, even on a trail, it’s important to regularly look behind you, especially when you come to a trail intersection, because things look different from the opposite direction. We’d just come to a T in the woods road and turned left. After walking another 15-20 feet, I made the kids stop and look behind them. They’d all just stopped and (amazingly) were all looking towards where the now-obscured trail intersection was when a fox trotted across the trail about 50 yards up the road. They all got to see it, which was pretty amazing since trying to herd teenagers and get them to do the same thing at the same time wasn’t something I managed most of the time. But that time it all worked out, and everyone saw the fox, and they thought it was pretty cool. I didn't get a photo, though--happened too fax

The weather has been extreme here on Roundtop and across much of the rest of the country, too. The sky is still unsettled and stormy-looking. Apparently, I’m soon to move from extreme rain and storms to extra hot. I’m not sure that’s going to be an improvement, though a day or so of warm and dry weather would be appreciated in my rainy forest right now.

A coming storm

Does today’s photo suggest anything to you? Let me give you a hint. It’s about the weather.

The leaves in this morning’s photo are turned inside out or upside down or however you wish to describe it. In any event, you are mostly looking at the underside of the leaves. Where I’m from, this is a sign of rain. Maybe it’s a sign of rain where you are from too or perhaps this is one of those signs that is only well-known in my region. I can’t answer that one.

I’ve heard various explanations for why this happens. I’ve heard that updrafts ahead of a rain cause it. I’ve heard the underside of leaves are more porous to gulp moisture out of the air. I have a slightly different theory of my own that I’ll get to in a bit.

First, the porous explanation: I have no idea. It sounds a little off to me. Unless the weight of the leaves is different from the top side to the bottom, I can’t figure out how this would work.

Second, the updraft theory. This says that right before a rain you get a change in wind direction or updrafts that moves the leaves this way. This one sounds sort of okay to me, except that I often see this phenomenon hours before the rain hits and not just moments or minutes before rain.

Here’s my own theory. It’s the addition of extra moisture in the air. On dry days when you have a breeze, the leaves and twigs just bend and flow with the breeze. But when the air is moist, the air is also heavier with that moisture and this affects how the leaves blow. This explains why you will sometimes see upside-down leaves even a day or so ahead of the rain, if the moisture is in the air ahead of the upcoming storm.

News from Roundtop: I will be offline for a few days to hike with kids from Adventure Camp and introduce them to a little nature study. See you next week (and maybe before but don’t count on it).

East wind

An east wind blows across Roundtop this morning. Easterly is the least common of the wind directions here on the mountain, and it always brings moisture from the Atlantic. The ocean is several hours away to drive the distance, but even that’s not enough to overcome how far moisture from the ocean can travel.


It isn’t raining here yet, though it’s likely that it will before the day is over. The morning breeze is both cool and damp, making a temperature in the mid-50’s feel cooler than it really is. The distance to the ocean is too far, apparently, to actually smell salty air but not too far for the air to have the ocean’s chill to it.


The cabin is still warm and cozy from several days in the 70’s, and the easterly chill won’t insinuate itself inside for at least another few days. By then, the easterly breeze will likely be gone again.

Visitors to the cabin

I never intended to enthrall moths this weekend. It was only after I turned off my bedroom lamp on Saturday evening that I realized I hadn’t turned off the porch light. But I was already sleepy and didn’t feel like waking up enough to get up and go turn it off. So I didn’t.

I was surprised when I got up on Sunday to discover the side of the cabin covered with a nice selection of moths. So I went and got the camera.

The moth in this morning’s photo is a silkworm moth, I believe, a cecropia species. I think it’s the Columbian silkworm, but don’t hold me to that one. The moth’s wings aren’t open and never were when I was around, so I can’t tell exactly how they would look while open. It’s a big moth, at least 4-5 inches across.

The other moths I saw were even more problematic in their identities. I was sure I’d be able to identify one from its unusual way of holding its wings but that hasn’t been the case. The other moths were all smaller and even more difficult—at least for me. One was completely white but most of the other 8-10 moths were various shades of beige and brown, usually in a camouflaged-type pattern that would make the moth invisible on the bark of a tree.

The most-reported way of keeping moths around until morning is to drug them with alcohol and something sweet, often reported as rum and sugar or molasses. But leaving the light on all night seems to work just as well, as long as you get up fairly early in the morning.

Fiery Hangbird (aka Baltimore Oriole)

This pretty boy appeared quite close to me as I was picking up my mail yesterday. I’d seen a Baltimore oriole in the same spot a week or so ago, also while I was picking up my mail, but that bird disappeared before I could haul out my camera. This time the bird was cooperative and didn’t flyaway for long enough for me to grab a quick shot or two.

I took several other shots but the bird moved so quickly up and down that fence rail that I usually only captured its hind end in the photo. The bird would be sitting atop the rail, I’d snap a photo but before the shutter clicked the bird was hanging along the edge of the rail and I didn’t have much to show for it. Finally, the bird sat still long enough for me to snap it sitting still before it flew off. It was only later when I zoomed in a bit on the photo that I realized what Mr. Oriole had been doing bobbing up and down that fence. See the bug in its mouth? Apparently, it was finding delicious little wormy things in that split rail fence.

If you’ve been birding as long as I have, you’ve lived through several name changes for a good many species. I first learned this bird as Baltimore oriole, then its name was changed to northern oriole and now it’s back to Baltimore oriole again. The bird also has several non-official names, including both hangbird and fiery hangbird. The fiery hangbird really fits, and this bird’s antics made me realize just how well that name fits.

Happy Friday!

Enough soup already!

The soupy weather is back. Today’s photo was taken in my driveway the morning. My area had some very severe weather yesterday, though fortunately none of it was directly over my cabin. Today, more severe weather is forecast. I hope my luck holds, and the worst of it misses me again.

The forest is starting to creep over the driveway, looming over it a little further all the time, inch by inch. Leaves flutter along the edge of the car as I drive in or out. The jungle is trying to take back the man-made driveway, but until the weather dries a bit I won’t be able to battle back.

The western and southern U.S. both have temperate rainforests, and given how my area looks right now, it got me to wondering just how close my own area might be to qualifying for that status. And wouldn’t you know, even the definitions don’t agree. For example, Australia defines a temperate rainforest as one where the closed canopy of trees excludes at least 70% of the sky. Trust me, I pass this one. Also, the forest must be composed of mainly of tree species that can regenerate under shade and natural openings. I have that one too. However, I don’t live in Australia.

Here in North America, a temperate rain forest is defined as one where the mean annual temperature is between 39 and 54 degrees F. Mean temperature in my area is 53 degrees in Harrisburg, so I qualify for that one. Here on the mountain the mean temperatures is several degrees cooler, and the area around the cabin falls around the 49-50 degree mark

In North America a temperate rainforest is also supposed to get 1400 mm of rain per year. This amounts to about 55 inches. That’s where I miss the mark in most years. I get something over 40 inches on average, usually around 45 inches. Using this criteria a few very small areas of PA would still qualify as temperate rainforests. A bit of Monroe County and somewhere around the border of Westmoreland and Somerset counties fit that restriction. The rest of the state does not. I never hear of those areas being called temperate rainforests, so perhaps they’re ashamed.

I suppose I could just declare myself a protectorate or a territory of Australia, but there’s probably paperwork involved with that, so I don’t think I’ll bother. And frankly, as rainy as May and June have been, I’m kind of glad I don’t qualify as a temperate rain forest. I don’t want to think about what another 10 inches of rain would mean around here.

What will I do for an encore when the day starts like this?

It took four thunderstorms and a bout of hail, but the weather is much improved this morning. The temperature is about 10 degrees cooler, and the atmosphere has gone from soupy to every-day run-of-the-mill hazy.

As a result, both Dog and I were in the mood for a decent walk this morning. The sky was still reddish at sunrise, which may not bode well for the weather later in the day, but for now it is nice. We headed down the lane, and near the bottom of the hill I was suddenly almost over-powered by a scent so wonderful, so strong and exotic that it’s hard to believe I wasn’t in some wonderful tropical jungle. What was it? Why, today’s photo tells the tale. It’s honeysuckle, of course.

Now honeysuckle is a perfectly fine name, but even it doesn’t do justice to the scent that emanates from this plant. It’s the only floral scent that one-ups a rose, in my opinion. And it’s a wild plant, not some hot house, imported sissy that faints outside of perfectly controlled conditions. How’s that for amazing?

Now for the science purists in the audience, I should report a bit of the techie stuff associated with the plant, so here it is. Worldwide, so far more than 180 species of honeysuckle are found, with more than 100 of those species native to China. North America and Europe can only boast about 20 species of the plant. Most have berries that are described as mildly poisonous, which seems an odd phrasing to me because any kind of poisonous isn’t something I would ever associate with the word "mild."

I could have stood there all day, getting high or at least well-blissed on that scent. The particular bush that enraptured me today is good-sized and well-covered with blooms, but I still wouldn’t have expected the scent to linger for some 50 feet beyond the plant but it did. That alone is amazing. Who needs some distant tropical jungle when the honeysuckle is in bloom? Not me, that’s for sure.

Soup's On!

Hazy, humid and hot. Those three words for summer have arrived here for the first time this season. The air is thick with it. An early morning thunderstorm woke me up as it rumbled north of me, for once not passing over my cabin. But it was a clear warning of what to expect later today.

I am starting to see a few yellowing leaves on some of the forest plants. I’m guessing they’ve had enough of rain and no sunshine, too. The heavy air seems to hold scents better than drier air. When I walk the dogs, they start dancing and sniffing as though something is quite near, and then I’ll see a deer standing way up on the slope. Normally, something that far away wouldn’t bother them, but in this air, the scent must seem closer than it really is.

Birds are noisy around the cabin—the Carolina wren is especially vocal right now. Ovenbirds and wood thrush have quieted somewhat, no doubt performing nest duties. I still hear them occasionally at dusk or dawn, but it’s nothing like the constant singing of just a few weeks ago. I see deer occasionally but as yet no fawns. Perhaps they are still too small to be doing much traveling with the doe. Still, usually I’ve seen them by now, and this year I haven’t.

Today’s photo is of the old stone bridge that crosses Beaver Creek at the bottom of the mountain. I’ve shown this photo before, usually in fall or winter. I think this is the first time I’ve shown it in a green season.

Around the mountain

The forest is starting to dry out, though it won’t get far with that before more storms come through later today. Mud is still prevalent, though as of yesterday afternoon, it was a more solid kind of mud, as opposed to the quicksand kind. It’s not much of an improvement, but I’ll take my improvement wherever it can be found.

The rain and somewhat warmer temperatures have brought out mosquitos, those unwelcome summertime visitors. I worry that this will be a bad year for them, partly because of the rain, of course, and partly because bats with white-nose syndrome have been found in Pennsylvania. So far, I have heard little about how wide-spread that might be. Likely, no one knows the answer to that question at this point. The news is worrisome enough as it is. Roundtop has no shortage of bug-eating birds, but nothing can tackle those mosquitos the way bats can. And with west nile virus also prevalent here, this isn’t the year to be running a bat shortage.

My other choice, of course, is to cover myself with bug goop every time I stick a toe outside. I don’t favor that option. Bug goop stains clothing and smells terrible. I use it when I must, but I don’t want to spend an entire summer living in the stuff. Usually, when I do wear it, the first thing I do when I come back inside is to shower it off. Since I’m in and out multiple times a day, it’s simply not practical to shower each time. Better not to have so many mosquitos. It’s a bit too soon to know just how bad they will be, as I’m only just seeing the first few. The signs aren’t good, though.

Fleabane

Fleabane is common around the forest right now. This one, I believe, is common fleabane or Erigeron philadelphicus. Philadelphicus tends toward the pink or lavendar, as this one is, and it doesn't have much in the way of leaves.

There’s not much variation in how common fleabane, daisy fleabane (Erigeron strigosus) and annual fleabane (Erigeron annus) all look. The colors vary from white to pale lavender. They don’t keep fleas away.

Annual fleabane is often called daisy fleabane instead of annual fleabane even in some books. The difference between all of them lies in the tiny hairs on the stem and to some extent in the number of leaves, but even that isn’t noticeable unless the plant you are looking at is an especially healthy one. So just fleabane is good enough as far as I’m concerned.

Fleabanes, even the one called daisy fleabane, are really asters.

So let’s recap: they don’t keep fleas away and the daisy fleabane isn’t a daisy. So much for descriptive names. They are all pretty, however, or at least I think so. Several plants will often grow close together, so it’s not unusual to find a small patch filled with 50 flowers within a few feet of each other, one of nature’s living bouquets.

I’ve never been one to understand why people prefer grass to, well, just about anything else, so I will freely admit that I could never think of fleabane as a weed, the way many seem to. If it flowers and turns the edge of the woods or the pond pink with such tiny and delicate little blooms, how could it be a weed? Not in my book, anyway.

Guilty pleasure

Today’s photo is another one from Sunday’s walk down the mountain and through the valley. This one was taken in a more open area, where the forest isn’t as dense as it is along Beaver Creek or even as dense as most of the mountain. The little woods road itself partly to blame, but it’s not just that. The trees grow further apart and are fewer and smaller right in this spot than elsewhere. In a few steps, in fact, you can even see where the forest grows denser again up around the slight curve.

Through most of the forest, the undergrowth is so dense that I couldn’t walk through it during the green seasons without a machete or the old woods road to follow. So I am grateful for the woods road, which allows me to walk easily through the forest and explore its many delights. To be politically and environmentally correct, I should probably lament the existence of the road, but I can’t bring myself to do that.

I know I would not explore here if I had no path to follow, except perhaps in winter. I can’t see myself armed with a machete or bushwhacking my way through this much underbrush, ripping my clothing, getting scratched, stumbling over uneven ground and rocks. And missing the riot of growth and ferns and birds that thrive in this density of greenery would be a pity. How would I ever know the pleasures of the forest if I couldn’t walk through it and explore it for myself? So I am grateful for this little road that lets me explore easily and at my leisure.

The photo is already "old news," I'm afraid. The rain is back, dropping another inch on Tuesday, half an inch yesterday, and the forecast is promising another 1-1.5 inches today and tonight. The moisture-loving plants must love it. I, however, am not a moisture-loving plant and could use a bit of a respite from the 2 a.m. storms and the rain. This forest is already green enough, don't you think?

Where the sun rarely shines

The weather kept me away from venturing very far into the woods for longer than I like. Actually, any time the weather keeps me from venturing into the woods is longer than I like, but even I have come to understand that heavy downpours don’t make for good hiking. That’s been a hard lesson for me to learn, and I have many pairs of ruined shoes to attest to it.

So it had been a while since I’d been down in the valley between Nell’s Hill and Roundtop. The last time I was down before this past Sunday, spring was springing but not yet in full regalia. This long introduction is just my way of warning you to expect another day with a photo and a story about my walk.

The valley between these hills is narrow, and sun only fully penetrates for a brief spell in the afternoon, especially at the upper end of the valley, where I took this photo. A bit further to the west the valley opens up a bit where Nell’s Hill ends. There, the forest is sunnier throughout much of the afternoon. Mostly, though I only come down here in the afternoons simply because mornings and the dense forest don’t offer enough light for good photos. Even in this photo, taken nearly in mid-afternoon on a bright and sunny day, you can see that deep forest darkness.

No shadows dapple the woods down here, even when the sun is but a few weeks from reaching its highest point in the sky. The forest canopy is too thick and the valley too narrow for sunshine during most of the year. Some time, I’d like to keep track of just how few days of actual sunlight do penetrate into this upper valley. I’ve seen sun down here in March before the leaves come out, and I also think I’ve seen it briefly in late afternoon just after all the leaves have fallen. But I also know I’ve been down here in early winter, near the winter solstice on a sunny day, only to find this end of the woods as shadowless as a gray day.

My walk in the woods

Finally, the rain and gray skies have cleared here on Roundtop. After giving the woods a day for the rain and mud to settle, on Sunday I headed down to the bottom of the mountain for a walk along the normally quiet Beaver Creek.

I was lucky. The valley tends towards wetness even when a season is dry, and I was worried my walk would be stopped by yards of mud. I did find wet spots, of course, but not so much so that I needed waders. And the normally sleepy and nearly still Beaver Creek was, for once, a loud and very pretty little stream.

Baby Dog accompanied me on this foray, to her delight and my relief that the mud and water didn’t cause her to brace like a balky horse refusing a fence. Baby Dog hates to get wet. She wouldn’t even take a drink from the creek because it would mean getting her toes wet.

We headed down the mountain along an old woods road, which takes us to the bottom of the mountain, where we followed another woods road along the valley and along the creek. We saw no one and none of the large forest residents either. Bird song surrounded us—orioles, tanagers, the pewees, wood thrush and ovenbirds. The forest is thick enough already that spying the singers was almost impossible, even when the sound came from a tree nearby.

As you can see from the photo, the creek is running full, and the valley is bright with spring greens. I came across three species of ferns within 5 feet of each other—sensitive, Christmas and Lady. The three species abound this year.

The sun was finally out, dappling everything in green-tinged sunshine. The loudest sound was the creek, which carried everywhere, sometimes blocking out the sound of the singing birds. Even as we climbed up the mountain again, the sound lingered and followed us all the way back to the cabin.

Just a "little" rain

Last night I had 4 inches of rain.

This morning I have water in the basement and a collapsed chicken tarp. But it could be worse.

The water in the basement amounted to about an inch. I pumped it down to about .25 inch or thereabouts. The pump can’t work with less than that.

The chicken coop is still covered by the chicken wire, if no longer quite as secure as previously. The tarp is still held up on two ends. The chickens were unperterbed by the events of overnight. I’d cut a slit in the tarp to drain rain water and so it wouldn’t puddle, but I guess I need more slits for four inches of rain.

The good news? I can forget about that 4 inch rain deficit.

I slept through most of the event and certainly didn’t realize how much it was raining until I got up this morning. That’s when I saw the lane and my driveway, which now will require a four-wheel drive vehicle to get in and out or up and down the mountain. Fortunately, I have one of those.

Well, at least it’s Friday. Presumably, the chickens will remain okay until I can get another tarp tomorrow. The forecast is for scattered showers today. I hope the scattering isn’t over my cabin. Saturday is supposed to bring clearing skies, and I’m ready for those.

This morning as I was leaving the cabin I found this fern, still rain drops still in place. It’s a sensitive or bead fern (onoclea sensibilis in case there’s a different common name for it in your area). The woods look lovely this morning, raindrops on everything. The greenery is so thick that a jungle pales in comparison. Funny, I never thought I’d ever get to live in a rain forest.

Ruminations on a foggy morning

Mist, fog, rain, humidity are the watchwords around the cabin right now. Plants that don’t need sun are thriving. Some of the more sun-loving foliage is starting to look a little starved.

For me, ambition to work outside the cabin when the weather is like this is flagging. Even when it’s not raining, I return inside soaked just from walking around the perimeter of the cabin. Holding back the edges of the greenery that creeps ever-closer turns into a major chore. Easier to just wait for the eventual reappearance of the sun and a day of drying than to attempt something today. Or so I tell myself as the forecast for more of the same stretches further into the days ahead.

This is the kind of weather where my observational techniques for weather forecasting do little good. I can’t see any sky, as it is hidden by dense fog. Studying the sky for clues about weather to determine when a storm is coming or what the day ahead may hold works fine, but I have to see the sky to do that. Often, I can tell what the weather is going to be a full day, sometimes even longer, ahead of it actually arriving.

When I’m in the middle of fog or even rain or snow, I’ve found it impossible to tell when it’s going to end by looking overhead. By the time I can see the sky again, I know the weather is going to clear. But when I’m in the middle of the event, I can’t see the end of it. That’s where modern radar has a real advantage over the old ways.

Today, even the modern forecast doesn’t help much. Clearing weather is still at least two days away, and even that seems to be a moving target. Still, it’s something. I take for granted having that radar and those satellite photos, but both are quite modern advances. I try to imagine a farmer’s worries in the days before them. Or how it must have felt in winter a thousand years ago during a blizzard. Will it end in an hour or three or will this storm rage for days? That must have been a whole other level of anxiety that I don’t have. Thankfully.

Waiting for the sun

Roundtop is encased in mist and rain right now. Last night was so chilly that I briefly toyed with the idea of turning on the heat again. But I resisted the impulse, dug out a sweater I’d put away a few weeks ago and tossed another blanket on the bed. That worked well enough, even though the temperature in the cabin dropped down to 59 degrees.

The reason it was so chilly is that the bedroom window is open a bit so I can hear the chickens squawking in case anything attempts to breach Ft. Knox. Normally, I close the window when I go to work, but yesterday, perhaps out of practice after three days off work, I forgot to close it.

It’s not just mist and rain that encases me right now. The leaves are weighted down by the rain, lowering sometimes down into my face when I leave the cabin. Even with a rain jacket I can’t keep entirely dry. In my darker moments I am tempted to buy a machete.

The rain covers the sounds of many of the forest residents, though perhaps there simply aren’t as many sounds as on clear days. I am not seeing the usual number of rabbits, raccoons, deer or even the fox as usual. Maybe they are hunkered down, waiting for the sun to reappear, as am I.

Random ruminations

I’ve decided, at least in part, why I don’t particularly care for summer.

Fall is a lot different from summer. The leaves change color, turning beautiful shades of red, orange and yellow. Eventually they fall off the trees entirely. The temperature grows noticeably cooler week by week, and the sky can be clear blue, change to blue and white and then to threatening and gray--all before noon.

Winter is a lot different from fall. The temperature is cold. We (sometimes) get snow and ice. A whole range of fun outdoor activities can only be done in the winter and are possible again. The trees are bare.

Spring is a lot different from winter. The snow melts, the temperatures warm. The forest starts to grow again and soon everything is green. The temperature warms week by week. Rain is common.

And then there’s summer. It’s pretty much the same as spring, except hotter and more humid, perhaps with a bit less rain. Where’s the difference? Well, there isn’t much of one. I think part of my dislike for summer is simply that it doesn’t look much different from spring. I’m bored, I think. Summer, ho-hum, more of the same. At least that’s my theory for today.

This weekend, I had both spring and summer—hot and cool, sun and rain, thunder and lightning. The chickens are still well and safe.

News from the cabin

Last night I decided to make a run to get some chicken wire to cover the top of the chicken pen. The tarp is great for shade and to keep the girls dry, but I kept thinking that if a smart (and heavy) fox jumped on top of it, it may well give way. Hence, the chicken wire idea.

So I pick that up at the local feed store, figuring I’ll get an early start on Saturday morning to further securing the chicken pen. Later that evening, I take Dog outside for his final run of the night, and I no sooner open the door but that I hear one of the local foxes barking. The fox was close, somewhere around the end of the lane.

So I go back outside, now armed with my headlamp and what turns out to be the world’s dullest pair of wire cutters, to secure the chicken pen, all the while serenaded by the barking fox. The barking continued for well over half an hour, perhaps even 45 minutes. Sometimes it was a little closer, sometimes a bit further away. When a fox barks, it usually doesn’t mean, "Hey, over here! Free food." It’s more a "Where are you? I am here" call to the mate or kids so the separated foxes can reunite. Still, it’s not the kind of thing I want to hear that close to the chickens.

The girls, asleep in their domed litter box, seem unperturbed during the entire tarp-covering process. Eventually I get the wire cut and the tarp covered with chicken wire. I still need to do something more around the bottom of the pen, but I think I’m okay for now. When I went back inside, the fox was still barking.

My photo this Friday is the view from my cabin of the mountain to the west. Can’t see it? Neither can I. Hopefully it will still be there in the fall. Oh, and you can just see the edge of the chicken wire-covered pen in the lower, left-hand corner of the photo.

Sunny day ahead

For the moment at least, the weather on Roundtop is settling somewhere around normal again. No more frosts or near-frosts, no more chilly April rains in mid-May, and summer’s heat and humidity hasn’t found me yet. A three-day weekend edges ever closer. The fox didn’t make an appearance near the chicken coop last night either, so my mood is nearly as sunny as this morning.

I am eager to have an extra day to spend exploring the spring season deeper into the forest than a weekday allows. Dog and Baby Dog both need to be tired out on a long walk, or at least an attempt made in that direction. My little vegetable garden needs some attention, too.

This morning the local Canada geese were getting an early start to the holiday weekend, taking the five young ones on a trip to the new pond, marching them across the access road, down a lane and through the paintball fields. They were in a hurry too, just like the drivers on the highways of my commute.

The forest canopy is nearly as thick as it will get, which means I can no longer see the view to the west, or in any other direction for that matter. My view of the sky is reduced to little pinpricks of light. To see what’s going on with the weather, I have to walk out to the intersection of my driveway and the lane. Even out there, I only get a little view of the sky, just enough to see a few clouds. So that doesn’t give me the whole picture. For that, I need to walk to the end of the lane, where the trees give way to open sky at the old pond.

Until the denseness of the leafy canopy starts me feeling a bit claustrophobic, which likely won’t kick in until the hot days of July or August, the privacy afforded by the forest has its advantages. I’m not sure I will tell you what they are. You can come up with your own ideas. Let me just say that a person could pretty much do anything they wanted to and no one could see them doing it. And sometimes the idea of being able to do that is just as good as the reality of actually doing it.

Now here’s another something I don’t see every day—an eastern kingbird on the ground. The kingbirds at Roundtop usually ply the air for insects over the grassy ski slopes. When they sit, it’s usually on a lift cable or fence railing. This one was actually bouncing around on the ground, which I’m sure is a first for me to observe.

Also this morning, one of the local foxes has now seen my chickens. This morning when Dog and I left the cabin for our walk, Dog’s nose suddenly went into the air. He started prancing on tiptoe—both a sure sign that he didn’t like something. I didn’t see anything, and since Dog’s attention may be caught be anything from a fox to a deer to a skunk, we continued on our way. It was only when we were coming back to the cabin that I knew what he had sensed.

At the end of our walk, we went over to the chicken pen. The girls were all out performing their morning dirt scratch when a bit of movement caught my eye. Perhaps 30 feet into the forest I saw the fox, quietly moving away. It stopped and stared for a bit before eventually disappearing into the woods.

I hope the chain link fence is enough to keep him out. The tarp that is tied down to the top of the 4’ fence may not survive a fox jumping on top of it, though I don’t know if a fox can or could do that. I am reasonably sure the fox can’t dig his way in. The earth is a hard-packed driveway, covered with a thick layer of stones. Nothing has grown in the spot, that’s for sure.

The chickens, I am reasonably sure, never saw the fox as they weren’t panicked. Even with a near-frost two nights ago, I have been sleeping with the bedroom window open so I can hear the chickens in case something tries to get at them at night. I’m not there during the day, though. Fox usually move primarily at the edges of daylight. I hope this one knows that.

May evening

Last evening was beautiful—sunny, calm, great visibility, perhaps a tad cool but that’s splitting something at least as fine as a hair. I was off the mountain for much of the evening. Although that means I didn’t get to sit on the deck, coffee in hand and watch the sun set, I did get to enjoy the sights around the area, which was nearly as enjoyable.

The night brought near-record cold for this time of year and threatened a frost, though I didn’t see any. I tossed an old blanket over the litter box/chicken coop, gave the girls a hot water bottle and hoped all would be well. This morning the chickens all seemed fine. Last night’s chill marks the end of chilly weather for a bit. Warmer weather and sun is on the way for the next several days, which my mini-container garden will much appreciate, I’m sure.

The last of the summer migrants—the peewees--have arrived now. I love their little "pee-a-wee" call. They are the first and last singers of the day, their haunting call carries and echoes through the forest when it is nearly fully dark. At that time of day, their call is often the only sound I hear. No distant vehicle or people noises, no sounds of other birds or animals. That’s why their song carries so well and is heard over a long distance.

The rest of the forest is asleep when the peewees call. They sing before everyone and everything else is awake or after the bustle of the day is over. Perhaps because they are such tiny birds, evolution favored them a little when their call didn’t compete with other sounds and songs. In any event, now that they are here, spring migration is officially over on Roundtop. Oh, perhaps some stray warbler will still pass, but all the regular species are now accounted for, and the forest symphony is reaching its crescendo.

The comets are out!

Today I’m posting a photo of my chickens, which are now grown large enough to be outside. For the past 5 weeks, I’ve had them in a hamster cage in my bedroom, growing them from day-old chicks under a brood lamp to the 5 week old babies you see here. They are laying hens; the breed is Golden Comet.

I am hoping to get eggs from them later this summer, my own little homegrown hedge against the economy and high food prices. Currently, I have eight, which is more than I will need to keep me in eggs. I expected to lose a few and figured having a few extra would be smart. So far none of them have died, but they have only been outside since Saturday, and going outside is a big step.

Another part of my chicken experiment is that I didn’t want to spend a lot of money for my chicken arrangement. In the first place, as peeps, the chickens cost $2, and spending lots of money on $2 chickens doesn’t seem smart. Plus, if the chickens or their set-up cost more than the eggs they will hopefully lay, that wouldn’t be smart either.

So, I used a chain-link dog run that the dogs hated for their outside pen, covered with a tarp. I did buy a $10 brood lamp, and a waterer and feeder ($2 each). Plus I’m currently using a fancy cat litter box with ramp, ($21) which they love, and an ordinary covered litter box, which they hate, both filled with straw from my dad’s barn. I will have to come up with something better for them by winter, but that gives me some time yet to hopefully scavenge something suitable.

My arrangement should keep out raccoons and fox, hopefully. The hawks shouldn’t be able to get at them. Weasels would have a field day, but I’ve never seen a weasel here, and I hope they stay away long enough for me to find a semi-decent chicken shelter. For now, all is well, at least it was when I left the cabin this morning.

Geraniums in bloom

I know I’ve already posted a photo of wild geraniums this spring, but I couldn’t resist another one. The geraniums are especially nice this spring, and this bunch is huge, much larger than is typical. Geraniums prefer dry conditions, which it was here for most of the spring, if not at the moment.

Sometimes, weather conditions favor what best suits one species. Just like in certain years strawberries are wonderful, and the next year they aren’t, the same is true of the forest’s plants. This year is particularly good for wild geraniums. The jury is still out on the strawberries.

An evening in spring

The recent rain on Roundtop has finally booted the ferns into action, and is likely responsible for helping this morel along too. I found it growing in my front forest last evening, camouflaged so nicely that I almost missed it.

The change from tinderbox to reasonably well-watered forest also brought a common garden toad into my driveway last evening, much to Dog’s delight. Dog knows well enough to keep his mouth shut around toads, but he can’t avoid nosing them when they jump. That’s simply too tempting.

Last evening the forest was filled with the usual after-dark noises—a great horned owl down in the valley, a wood thrush that simply couldn’t settle for long after the sun was down, a deer stepping delicately if not silently across the leaves. The usual noises of a woodland night are ones I find comforting and relaxing. I sit outside in the warm evening. The darkness veils my sight and I focus instead on the sounds that tell much. The woods sound at peace, and I go back inside.

A quiet night

Today’s photo is the bloom of a mayapple, of which I have millions around the cabin. Okay, perhaps not millions, but really a lot. As the flowers are under the umbrella-like leaves, I have to get down on the ground, all the while avoiding the ubiquitous poison ivy (also seen here), to photograph these lovely flowers. The umbrella leaves are so thick that the flowers are easy to miss, which is a shame, as they are the equal of any hothouse flower sold in the local nurseries.

Last night it was a quiet as the grave around the cabin, which immediately makes me suspicious. Even after dark, night noises are the norm, and when I can’t hear any sound I know something is up. The mostly likely explanation is a predator that is hidden by the dark. Often, like last night, I never find out what is going on, but I’ve learned over the years that when the woods are silent, it is time to pay extra attention when I am outside.

When the woods are quiet, I tend not to wander far from the cabin in the dark, as I sometimes do on other nights. Perhaps that is an over abundance of caution, but so be it. Paying attention to the ebb and flow of life in the woods hasn’t steered me wrong yet, and I’m not going to start to ignore the signs now. If I start ignoring the signs when it’s likely nothing important, I may accidentally ignore something that is important. So I pay attention.

Another thing I don't see too often...

Living here on the mountain means I have a ringside seat to observe the goings on in the woods around me. As woodland habitats go, Roundtop is great. It is not, however, a place where I normally see many sandpipers.

Several places nearby are decent for shorebirds. The Susquehanna River serves as a major migration route. The nearby Pinchot Lake can also be decent for shorebirds. Roundtop Mtn. doesn’t fall into the decent range for shorebirds. Roundtop does have a few small ponds, though, and perhaps that and its proximity to decent shorebird paths combines to occasionally bring me a sandpiper to look at.

Today’s photo of a spotted sandpiper is one of the few I semi-regularly get to see here. The birds never stay long. This is just a pit stop for them. This bird has been here since at least Saturday and will likely disappear in another day or so. In the fall, I might get to see them again.

Spotted sandpipers are common and the kind most likely to be found around little ponds like those at Roundtop. Most self-respecting sandpipers wouldn’t deign to stop here, let alone dip their toes in the waters of ponds this small. Spotted sandpipers seem comfortable in small ponds or in the woods. I’ve seen them sitting on logs sticking up out of lakes. Other sandpipers probably think they’re odd.

Black snake and other summer residents

I don’t see many snakes here at Roundtop. I have often gone a year or more without seeing any at all. At least 95% of the ones I do see are black snakes, like this handsome one that I found yesterday. I’ve never seen a poisonous snake here, though I know they’re around. This one was about 4 ft. long, a decent length, though it was slimmer than some I’ve seen.

Probably the weather this spring hasn’t been easy on reptiles. It’s dry, it’s wet. It’s hot, it’s cold. The changes are annoying enough for us warm-blooded creatures. I can’t imagine how the cold-bloods are doing with it.

Yesterday was pleasant but cool, and I first found this snake at the corner of the dirt lane and my driveway. I pulled the car into the driveway, grabbed the camera, returned to the spot and in that short time the snake had moved. I thought my photo opportunity was past, but I slowly checked around and found the snake again, this time on the opposite side of the lane, just off the road. I grabbed a few shots and then let it alone.

This clearing weather has brought a lot of new arrivals to my woods. The Canada geese have launched five new babies. The Eastern kingbirds have arrived on the slopes.

On Sunday morning a pair of scarlet tanagers were curiously eyeing the dogs as we were all out on the back deck. Tanagers usually nest at Roundtop but often they are further down the slope of the mountain. That I saw a pair of them right overhead makes me hope they will nest close enough to keep an eye on them while they do it. I’ve certainly heard the male singing all around the cabin this weekend. Having them next close enough to see them regularly would be exciting.

At this point, I think the only spring arrival I’m missing are the peewees, the latest of the summer residents. And they will be here soon. The rain held everything up for at least a week, but once that storm system cleared, that also cleared the way for the summer residents to show up and step out.

Mom's dogwood

Rain clears from the distant peaks

Dew glistens frostily.

Moonlight glazes the front of

My ivied hut among the pines.

How can I tell you how I am,

Right now?

A swollen brook gushes in the valley

Darkened by clouds.

- Daito (1282-1334)

This 800 year old poem seems appropriate to me today. I found it on the daily zen site for May 8.

The photo was taken at my parents' farm. Mom's pink dogwood tree is especially lush this year.

Rain, rain go away (...and Wild Geraniums)

Another .75 inch of rain fell on the mountain yesterday, most of it last evening. I managed to quickly snap a few photos of the wild geraniums around the cabin before the next round of rain hit. Right now, the geraniums are the most prevalent of the local wildflowers. I can’t walk along the side of the cabin without having to dodge them. There are dozens of them around the cabin right now.

Lest you think that living in a cabins in the woods is all peace, quiet and wildflowers, the rain is forcing me to deal with a flooded basement. Even on a mountain, such things happen. In my case the water enters around the well casing. I’ve had plumbers look at it but none have yet come up with a good solution. It’s ground water from soaked ground, and even if I managed to completely block it at this entry point, the water would only go someplace else and the someplace else could be worse than where it goes now. Or so they say.

As a result, over the years I have armed myself with a variety of pumps. My basement is nothing more than a small space that houses the hot water heater and the electrical panel—all of which are raised off the floor of the basement. The little space can quickly get several inches of water in it. If it’s been dry, it takes a good many inches of rain to flood it. In spring, I often get a flooded basement when the snow melts off the mountain. This rain, which has been going on since Saturday, has the mountain pretty saturated, and I wasn’t surprised to discover an inch of water in it this morning.

I have both battery-powered pumps and an electric pump. The electric pump is a workhorse but requires a bit of work to set up. The battery-powered pumps are small, lightweight handheld things, originally designed for small sport boats. They are good for small jobs and have the advantage of working when the electricity is out. That wasn’t the case this time around, but it was after one such instance when my electric pump was useless that sent me looking for something that would work when I didn’t have power.

This morning, I set up both battery-powered pumps, and both were sucking air within an hour. I still have a slightly wet basement. None of the pumps will pump when the depth is much less than .25 inch. At least I shouldn’t get any more rain today. Tonight, perhaps a few showers but apparently nothing measurable is expected to fall, for which I am grateful.

Second verse, same as the first

I’d thought of making today’s post a Wordless Wednesday, since the headline says it all, but I guess I’m chattier than that. Rain continues here at Roundtop and will continue through around Saturday. Even a gentle rain can cause flooding if it lasts for a week, and that’s about the point we’re reached here on the mountain.

The area needed rain. The gentle rain was much needed and appreciated. But now I feel like shouting, "enough, already!" In the space of a few days, the woods has gone from a tinderbox to a rain forest. The air is so moist that even I can identify the animals floating around the cabin by their smells.

The skunk, of course, is an easy one. But the soupy, moist air also holds the scent of the fox, the raccoons and deer. The dogs, whose noses are far superior to mine, can scent without touching nose to track. They walk with noses in the air, excited and misbehaving with the mix of scents that must be overwhelming to them. To me, with a human’s notoriously weak sense of smell, the air makes scenting the different species possible. I can now tell what’s been around, but I’ll never be able to trail by scent the way the dogs can.

That said, it’s still an interesting experience to notice so many smells when that’s not usually possible to do. Even though I can’t trail by scent, I do notice when a scent grows more or less intense, at least in a general way, as we walk along the lane. I guess this is as close as I will ever get to understanding how a dog trails. It’s not very close, I’m sure, but it’s certainly closer than usual. I think I’d prefer a little sunshine, though.

Today's photo was taken off the mountain but looking up towards one bump of it. This morning I am living in that mist, which is even thicker up where I am.

Not my favorite thing

My favorite kind of evening at the cabin is one where I can sit outside on the deck after dinner, perhaps with a newspaper or a cup of coffee. I can listen to the forest goings on, watch the sky, perhaps see an interesting bird or watch the fox pick its way across the landscape.

Last evening was not that evening.

Instead it rained, quite a bit actually. The rain was gentle enough most of the time, but after 3 days of it, even a gentle rain amounts to quite a bit. Worse, at least from my point of view, I really didn’t spend the evening at the cabin. Indeed, I spent perhaps 10 minutes of the evening there. so my photo today was not taken at Roundtop. Instead, I took a photo of Beaver Creek flooding a meadow on the way to my evening event.

This morning the rain has stopped for the moment, though the sky still looks as though it could start again at any time. I’ve learned over the years that once the ground gets saturated, as it is now, even a respite of a few hours with no rain is a good thing.

April showers in May

April-like showers covered the mountain this first weekend in May. It’s been a good rain, the kind that soaks in, not the kind that runs off in rivulets. Sometimes the rain was hard enough to keep me inside, sometimes it was just a comfortable sprinkle. Always the landscape was misty or foggy, with ever more greenery coloring the woods.

Ovenbirds have now arrived, to join the chorus with the wood thrush, whose lovely song carries throughout the forest. I’ve often wondered why that song seems to carry through the trees so well, and now I’ve learned the answer.

I was sitting out on the front deck during one of the weekend’s rain free episodes when a wood thrush landed in a low tree just over my head. I didn’t move, so I wouldn’t scare it and was rewarded when it began to sing, I almost had to put my hands over my ears. When that bird is close, the song is loud, very loud. It’s still beautiful, of course, but another 10-15 feet of distance wouldn’t have hurt the beauty of the song one bit.

The rain has finally kicked the ferns into new growth. They were looking pretty bad this spring. Some hadn’t even produced fiddleheads yet, but now they all seem to be growing again. For the moment, I have no new flowers around the woods, just more of the ones I’ve already photographed. That will soon change, probably as soon as the sun comes out again for a day or so, which might not be until next week. Are we sure this isn’t April? It sure feels like it, despite the calendar.

Dogwoods in the spring

Flowering dogwood has now started its annual blooming, a process that tends to last at least a little longer than the glorious burst of color that appears during the leafing of the redbud trees. Unfortunately, this year the dogwood flowering appears less abundant than usual, while the redbuds are spectacular. It looks like redbud soup right now.

Perhaps the redbuds simply got pushed to bud all at once by the heat earlier this week. Dogwoods have always had a somewhat variable level of flowering, with some years naturally better than others. With this spring so dry here, that may be a reason for it. The reason may also be the "dogwood disease," a fungus really, that has caused the deaths of many of the trees throughout the east and the rest of the nation.

The dogwood fungus first appears as brownish spots on the leaves, usually seen in late May or early June. The fungus eventually affects the tree’s stems and branches, killing them over time. Trees can take up to three years to die.

Last year around Roundtop, I didn’t see any trees that appeared to be affected with the spots, though I confess I did not examine every tree I could find. I am hoping that this year’s diminished flowering is simply due to the dry spring.

Spring here wouldn’t be spring without dogwood.