Posts Tagged ‘hard wood forest’
Tree Down
Sometimes a simple walking of the dog through the woods feels more like a reconnaissance mission of surveying the ever-changing status of our property. Certainly, after a few days of strong winds there are changes to be expected, but I’ve been surprised more than once about how easy it is to miss what eventually seems to be obvious.
Did this tree make a sound when it toppled?
We didn’t hear a thing. I expect I may have walked past it one or two times in the days since the gale force gusts blasted us for hours on end last week, but yesterday as I joined Cyndie and Delilah for morning chores, I spotted it immediately as we approached.
It fell in a perfect direction to avoid getting hung up in any other trees and pointed away from the trail. With all the other downed wood from our days of tree trimming awaiting attention, it’s possible this old poplar will be left where it lays for nature to process.
If we were intent on cleaning up downed trees and branches throughout the full extent of our meager stretch of forested acres, it would be more than a full-time job for us.
In the last couple of years we have focused our attention on the patch of trees closest to the house by the barn and back pasture, picking up dead wood that has made its way to the ground.
This is the time of year, before green leaves obscure the view entirely, when the extent of branches brought down over winter is so easy to spot that it intimidates. There is so much to be picked up. It doesn’t give any impression of our having done so last year. That is, until one strolls through the forest at the west end of our land to see how much is on the ground where nothing has ever been picked up.
I wonder what a year-long time-lapse recording of the trees and ground in our woods would look like. Timed right, I bet it would appear to be raining limbs and branches.
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Worm Lesson
Yesterday I learned something that surprised me, especially for the extent of time —basically, my lifetime— about which I have been clueless. I assumed earthworms were native to my region and entirely beneficial. They provide food for our birds and other critters, and they aerate and enrich the soil.
Au contraire! I spotted an article in the sports section of a local newspaper aiming to educate people who fish about not dumping their leftover angle worms on the ground. Worms should be disposed of in the trash.
Why? First of all, the terrestrial earthworms are a non-native invasive species from Europe and Asia! I had no idea. Second, they are harming our hardwood forests. They actually disrupt the natural decomposition of leaf litter on the forest floor and turn good soil into grainy, dry worm castings (poop), which then can’t support the understory plants of our forests.
Apparently, they are welcome to help in my compost pile, but they are not friendly to our woods. Up at our lake place in Hayward, WI, our favorite flowering woodland plant on the forest floor is the trillium. Around Memorial day at the end of May, when we head up for “work-weekend” to open up the property for the summer, we often find a carpet of white blossoms covering the ground.
I have dreamed of seeing the same thing occur in our woods at Wintervale, but we can’t find hardly any here. Cyndie spotted one all by itself recently with 3 blossoms, capturing this shot with her cell phone.
According to the literature I have reviewed, trillium is one of the plants that is lost to the earthworms.
All of my life I have assumed that earthworms were a good thing. I’m afraid I will no longer think of them the same way at all. I would much rather have a thick, healthy layer on our forest floor that could support a robust undergrowth, than a dry, leafless surface of worm poo.
Anglers, contain those crawlers!
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Relative Something 