The Return of Monochromy

Just as I was gloating over a return to a varied color palette, I was greeted again by this vision. It was expected, so not too shocking, but dang, I want to see more green settle in.

We've had a crowd of wood ducks (or is it a lumberyard, Dale suggests) and ring-neck ducks enjoying the seclusion and habitat our cove and breakwater offers. 

This is so picturesque! 

Treasure Revealed

The close up pic from yesterday is a beautiful fringed rosette lichen (Physcia stellaris) - magnificent! The intricate beauty and varied surface is stunning.

It's a common species found in North America, usually on bark or rocks. Those dark discs are its fruiting bodies that produce spores. Now, even more amazing, is that this particular little piece of perfection that I found is less than an inch across. Here it is next to my thumbnail for reference: 

Lichens are composites of fungi and algae (or bacteria) - they combine their individual capabilities to function as one. The book Ways of Enlichenment invites us to view lichens in an open-minded way - as fungal greenhouses, algal farmsteads, ecosystems, organisms or as emergent property.

 I hope you are happy to have been enlichened.

Treasure

I found this treasure lying on our driveway, and I was enthralled:

Of course, I've shown a detailed close-up to throw you off the trail, but in my mind it still looks pretty obvious ... probably way too easy! Answer tomorrow ...

Dimples

I love the look of these dimples (or blotches) in the changing ice - it's the imperfections that make it interesting.

Some look crusty, like scabs

or scars

Picture Perfect

What a difference a day makes!

Color returned to our world after a day of monochromy. Quite a stunning transformation.

Grapefern Joy

This unusual native plant, the cutleaf grapefern (Sceptridium obliquum form, I believe) is sometimes referred to as an fern ally, not a true fern though it is fern-like. It's related to the more widespread rattlesnake fern, and grows underground for 8 years, establishing a network with mycorrhizal fungi in the soil before producing a frond above ground, one each year. 

It is extremely beneficial to plants like this that we not destroy soil structure by digging and turning. Having an underground developmental time of 8 years before coming to the surface puts these organisms at risk of being destroyed when we disturb soils. I have had 2 occur in my yard since living here! So pleasing! Look at the beautiful glossy leaves.

Like orchids, their growing conditions are highly dependent on specific mycorrhizal networks, and are well nigh impossible to propagate artificially - leave them where they are and enjoy them.

Spring Powder

An icy coating

Of drifting, crystalline flakes

Transforms the landscape

Spring's Sting

After my recent reveling in the snow melt, spring gave in to winter's pressure and presented us with this dramatic monochromatic lake scene (complete with a cruising loon).

Thankfully, we were expecting this event, so it seemed more acceptable - a last hurrah, possibly? This is how it looked most of the day.

It was about 4 inches, but it fell on clear ground and liquid water, so it shouldn't hang around too long. 

Rutting Season

Ugh! Together the rain and snowmelt have turned our untarred road into a rutted mess, making traversing some areas rather adventurous and skiddy!

This is prime Maine mud season, very unpleasant indeed but it's still post-snow and therefore, progress.

Potholes abound, and are not solitary either, but rather congregating in clusters or rows. Their depths "bend" the shadows.

It's funny to read that people are wondering when the Association will "grate" the roads, when they mean grade! They are already grated, IMO.

Water's Flowing

Woo hoo! Our lake is liquid again, and the mergansers, loons and mallards are taking advantage.

Ticks are out, too!

Lucky Ducks

"Our" resident wood ducks now have a new location for their assisted living home in our cove. We've had a duck box on a pole standing in the water, but it's been pushed sideways by ice and hasn't really been upright for a number of years now.

After much planning, Dale hatched a great plan to suspend the duck box over the cove, making sure to thread PVC pipe onto the wire to stop predators (squirrels, raccoons) reaching the box to eat their eggs. It has turned out beautifully - I sure hope the wood ducks approve and grace us with their presence very soon.

This is the remains of their nest output from last year

I'm always intrigued at how the shells look like deflated balloons

Larval Pathways

I was intrigued by these patterns on a few twigs lying on the lawn. They looked rather creative, like nature's version of scrimshaw.

Google lens kept suggesting this was striped maple bark, but there's no bark at all - this is under the bark layer. Each one has a ring around the branch, with lines reaching out from it in both directions. After much prodding on the Internet, I've decided it must be from one of the insects or beetles that lays eggs in a girdle around a branch. Once the eggs hatch, the larvae move off, eating a path outwards from the original area until they emerge from the bark. 

It does not appear to be the bug known as a twig girdler since that chews a girdle through the entire branch causing it to snap off. I don't know exactly which insect it is, but it doesn't appear to be the Emerald Ash Borer, whose pathways are usually s-shaped and sinuous.

Impressive!

Orange Treasures

I was able to notice some really cool orange items in between the renovations and clean up in Orange, MA this week. 

First up, a black bear's calling card on the lawn, with orange seeds embedded within

Next, an orange jelly fungus known as witch's butter

A neighbor's delightful (though non-native) crocuses with orange centers

And a 3 star orange glow from the fire pit

Embedded in Ice

I love the fragility of these wispy looking leaves embedded in textured ice

Oak leaves frozen in time, looking mirage-like

The remains of a flower head glowing in the sun above the dippled ice

Looking Good

The sky and light seems so much more cheery now that daylight savings has begun. What a difference the light makes! The meltwater on top of the ice is rain that has pooled on top and not been able to soak through.

Since taking this picture, a fair amount of snow has melted, and the edges of the lake are watery (not solid) as you can see in the next picture, taken 10 days later. It looks rather dreary without sunshine, but at least our yard is no longer 100% white. 

Trudging through the snow to the lake edge is like walking through a slushie.

 It looks so messy!

Scrumping: Thievery or Windfall?

When the word scrumping came up recently, it made me wonder whether what I do when I encounter roadside berries, fruits and timber is ethical. Hmm, am I stealing, as indicated by the Cambridge English dictionary definition of scrumping: "an old English word for stealing fruit such as apples from trees"?

It's not that I trespass on people's lands and fields to harvest fruit they would otherwise use. I don't climb over fences or cross boundary lines. Rather, I see it as an innocent way to use produce that would otherwise go to waste, of making use of public bounty along roadways and other non-privatized places. I don't like to believe I might be stealing - though I know it's not my land ... I usually only take things that appear to have been abandoned or forgotten, whose use or value to others is negligible.

But then I consider whether I'm merely seeing our resources from a capitalist viewpoint ... since nothing goes to waste in nature; if I don't "use" it, it will be recycled, composted and become transformed into a life form again. It's all part of the same network and cycle - it's not just a usability issue, and it won't ever go 'to waste,' for nature has none! But it's also my way of being thrifty, of making use of produce that I don't have to pay money for.

There's a very fine line between scrumping (frowned upon) and foraging (acceptable), a gray area indeed! A more modern view of scrumping is found in the free dictionary, Wiktionary, and is explained as "To gather windfalls or small apples left on trees," with no indication of thievery or trespassing. But I'm still pondering over my perception of waste ...

Prison Bars

Imprisoned by snow

Shadows, like bars of my cell,

Cap the illusion.

Entangled with Fungi

Dale and I listened to the most amazing, mind-blowing, phenomenal non-fiction book about fungi during February on our car trips to and from Orange, MA. It's called Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake. Highly recommended to anyone who has an interest in the natural world and wants to expand their worldview.

It's a revelatory and earth-shattering read, forcing us out of our preconceptions about the living world, and revealing how little we really do understand non-animate life. In addition, it's beautifully and poetically written, with outstanding, helpful metaphors.

Sheldrake describes the mycelial network of fungi as our planet's "ecological connective tissue", and a "living seam of sprawling, interlaced webs." He refers to fungi as ecosystem engineers, which "underwrite the regenerative capacity of the living world," and which contain "an ancient library of information" enabling fungi to re-model themselves as environments change. 

As "chemical wizards", they are VITAL partners in helping solve the ecological disasters and climate disruptions from human activity. We owe it to ourselves not to destroy them further.

Do yourself and the planet a favor and dive into this incredible read!

Winter Blanket

My winter project is getting too warm to work with! This tells me it's nearing completion, and that spring is on the way, for real.

We had a steak and mushroom BBQ to capitalize on the balmy (60° F) weather.

Photo: D. Schultz 

In Praise of Shadows

I love how John Updike's poem "Penumbrae" begins ...
"The shadows have their seasons, too."

So very true. The ability of light to show time and seasons, as represented by shadows, is mind bogglingly simple yet profound. I always love how different the light and shadows look as we head towards spring.