High Blue

The last time I visited the High Blue trail in Walpole was last October. It was a cool day then and I hadn’t dressed for it, so the only thing that kept me warm was walking. Here was another cool day but this time I had sense enough to dress for it, so I could dilly dally without freezing. It was a beautiful spring day but another 10 degrees would have been welcome.

In the shade there was ice on the puddles, and many fallen beech leaves. When they finally let go and fall spring can’t be far off.

In spring and fall you often see stones that appear to have sunken into the soil, but what really happens is the saturated soil freezes and heaves up around the stone, which doesn’t move. The hole always has the very same shape as the stone.

I saw an old gray birch which was slowly dying. One trunk was covered with fungi and the other full of woodpecker holes. Woodpecker activity means there are insects in the trunk and they, along with the fungi, mean death.

A fallen tree had an excellent example of a branch collar. If you do any tree pruning you would do well to read all you can find about branch collars, because if you prune off a branch while ignoring the branch collar you could be slowing down the healing process and inviting any number of diseases to come and visit your trees. This shot shows what happens naturally; the branch dies and falls off and the branch collar is left intact. A tree should look similar after it has been pruned. Of course it won’t have a hole where the branch was, but the branch collar should be intact.

Where the sunshine reached the road there was no more ice.

Instead there was water. A small stream runs alongside the road year-round, probably from a natural spring. There is a lot of groundwater in this area.

The breeze made ripples in the stream.

The ripples passing over sunken beech leaves in the sunshine were beautiful.

And here was the trail head. I remembered the winter I stood in this spot looking at waist deep snowdrifts that covered the trail. The snow was so deep I gave up and turned back. That memory made me grateful that there was no snow now.

When I was up here in October the corn still stood in what was once a meadow but I saw that the farmer finally cut it. I miss the meadow / hayfield that was here when I first started coming. There was orange hawkweed, buttercups, pale spike lobelia, asters, and many other wildflowers here, and many bees and butterflies to go with them.

The farmer got most of the corn but what he didn’t get birds and animals did. But not all of it. Nobody ever seems to get all of it. For years I watched flocks of Canada geese scouring the cornfields in Keene in spring before the fields were tilled, but even they never got all of it.

There are lots of ledges up here and when there aren’t leaves on the trees, they’re easy to see. They’re mostly covered with rock tripe lichen, as these were. It makes them look ragged.

I thought it was a one in a million chance that two stones could fall and end up like these did.

I know of a huge piece of milky quartz up here; the biggest I’ve seen. It’s hard to tell in the photo but it’s big enough so I doubt four men could lift it. We don’t see much quartz down in the lowlands.

The small pond on the summit was still frozen over. It’s fairly well shaded and there is a cool breeze at this time of year.

Running club moss (Lycopodium clavatum) seems to be spreading up here.This plant gets its name from the way it sends out long, horizontal stems. All along the horizontal stem erect stems form at intervals and roots form where it touches the ground. The bright sunlight showed a different side of it than I have seen in the past and showed why clubmosses are often associated with pines, even though they have no relationship.

I always feel that I have to get a shot of the old sign that marks the lookout spot but I’m not sure why. There have been times when it was a very hard shot to get because of the light and on this day a hemlock branch blowing in the breeze kept trying to shade it out.

But on this day the light was right and the view was good. The bench is a good place to sit and admire it when the wind isn’t blowing too hard. This view looks toward the west, so there is almost always some wind. In January it can be brutal.

The view across the Connecticut River valley was very blue but I expected it would be; I’ve never seen it when it wasn’t. That’s where the name comes from. Some puffy white clouds floating by would have been nice but I was happy with the clear blue sky. The clouds came to mind because ever since I was a boy, I’ve loved to watch the clouds float by and cast purple shadows on the hills. There are those who believe that, if you can see the thoughts in your mind as clouds, and can watch them floating by as you would clouds, you will find the path to inner peace. As a lifelong cloud watcher I believe there is a lot of truth in that, but I also believe there is always more than one path to any destination.

The ski slopes on Stratton Mountain over in Vermont still had snow on them but I’d guess that they would be closing soon. Nights are mostly staying above freezing now so they no longer have the weather they need to make snow. Hopefully those trails didn’t get as icy as the trails I tried to walk this winter.

Always be thankful for the little things… even the smallest mountains can hide the most breathtaking views. ~Nyki Mack

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High Blue

Two Sundays ago I decided to visit the High Blue Trail up in Walpole. It’s an easy climb with plenty to see and it was a beautiful fall day. Once I hit the trail I wished I had dressed a little more sensibly though. I had worn a short-sleeved summer shirt so I did a little shivering at the outset.

Hobblebush leaves (Viburnum lantanoides) were already changing into their beautiful, deep maroon fall color.

Hobblebush berries go from green to bright shiny red, and then to deep, purple black. You can see a single ripe berry here. The berries are said to taste like spicy raisins or dates and are eaten by cardinals, turkeys, cedar waxwings and even pileated woodpeckers. Bears, foxes, skunks and squirrels are among the animals that eat them. They go fast; I rarely find them fully ripe.

A New England Aster grew in a low spot so wet I couldn’t get to it, so I had to take a long shot. One thing I’ve learned this year is that New England asters like wet places.

Blue wood asters bloomed in sunnier (and drier) spots all along the trail.

Sensitive ferns (Onoclea sensibilis) got that name from colonials who noticed that they turned white at the slightest hint of frost. We haven’t had a frost but it is definitely cooling off, and this fern showed it.

Lady ferns (Athyrium filix-femina) also turn white early. Lady and sensitive ferns make up a large part of the growth found on the floors of many of our forests, so it won’t be long before they seem a little barren. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Once the leaves fall off the trees and shrubs you can see the bones of the forest; the hardscape of stony ridges, glacial erratics, fallen logs and patches of beautiful green mosses bigger than you ever thought they could get.

Speaking of beautiful green moss, here was a quartz stone covered in delicate fern moss (Thuidium delicatulum.) This is a color changing moss and in cold weather it turns bright, lime green. Color blindness usually means that I see it as bright orange but on this day, it was still green to these eyes.

This sign marks the trail to the overlook. So far, we’ve been following an old logging road.

There is magic in a forest and I know it has found me when these blog posts write themselves right there on the trail. I feel as if I’m on autopilot when it happens; all I have to do is take photos and then come home and type the words that have written themselves in my mind.

The corn in the cornfield was short and stunted looking, which was surprising considering all the rain we’ve had. You shouldn’t be able to see over the top of a cornfield like I could here; corn usually towers far over my head but these stalks might have been 5-6 feet tall. Each stalk had ears on it though, so it will help feed the cows this winter.

If there’s any of it left, that is. I saw signs of animals feeding on it.

White crested coral fungus (Clavulina cristata) grew just off the trail. This fungus is not as common as the yellow spindle corals that I see so often. As I was looking this up, I saw sea corals that looked identical to this example. It’s amazing how nature seems to use the same shapes again and again.

What I think might be a goat cheese webcap mushroom (Cortinarius camphoratus) grew just off the trail. Though it’s hard to see in this photo the cap surface has matted fibers on it, and that’s one of the identifiers, as are the lilac color and rather large size. Unfortunately I didn’t smell it, because that would have been the clincher. This mushroom is said to have a powerful odor of “old goat cheese or sweaty feet.” Some also think it smells like camphor, so maybe I should be glad I didn’t smell it. It’s a pretty thing though, and is a fall / late summer mushroom found usually in coniferous forests.

Years ago a hunter put small reflectors on the trees along the trail and they’re still there. I know there are bears up here and I’m fairly sure there must be lots of deer as well, because there are game trails here and there. I followed one once and discovered a lot of cornstalks that had been taken into the woods.

Running club moss (Lycopodium clavatum) grows near the summit. The name comes from the way it sends out long, horizontal stems. All along the horizontal stem erect stems form at intervals and roots form where it touches the ground. All of this happens under the fallen leaves so it can be difficult sometimes to tell this club moss from others. I can’t say that these plants are rare here, but I don’t see them too often. It is also called stag’s horn clubmoss because of its shape.

Wolf’s milk slime mold (Lycogala epidendrum) grew on a log. This slime mold starts out as tiny pink globules (aethalia) but as they age they become darker, like those seen on the lower part of the log. Once they darken the globules look more like small puffballs, so it is easy to be fooled.

If you pop a young one (and they do pop) an orange-pink liquid drips out. As they age this liquid takes on a toothpaste consistency before finally becoming a mass of dark colored, dust like spores. If you see one with liquid like that shown here oozing out of it, you’ll know they aren’t very old. Another name is toothpaste slime mold.

I reached what is left of the old stone foundation. It and the stone walls that snake through these woods are reminders of the days when these hillsides were pastures, and not forests. I don’t know who lived up here but I do know that they were hardy souls. I came here one winter and followed snowmobile tracks as far as I could before running into waist deep snowdrifts that stopped me cold. Up here, living with that kind of snow, miles from anywhere, you would have to be hardy indeed. But it wasn’t just the snow; there were bears and wolves as well, and you don’t run very well with snow shoes on. I just read that the last known wolf in the region was taken in the winter of 1819-1820.

Since there is a small pond here on the summit the people would have had water and food as well if they farmed this land. With food, water and plenty of wood for a fire they most likely just waited out the weather until spring. What long, dark and cold winters they must have seen.

At 1588 feet you aren’t exactly on top of the world but you are on the summit of the highest hill in Walpole New Hampshire.

And as always, the view was very blue. But hazy too.

This view is hazy most of the time when I come here but I could make out Stratton Mountain, off across the Connecticut River valley in Vermont. I don’t how far it is as the crow flies but it’s about 50 miles from here to the mountain if you’re driving.

I’m sure the sharp eyed among you saw signs of fall all through this post, like ripe corn, fall mushrooms, and ghostly ferns. This Indian cucumber root is another sign; it has lost all its green but hasn’t lost that beautiful crimson splash on its top tier of leaves. It’s a beautiful color but the trees are putting on their beautiful fall colors too now, so it won’t be long before you see some very colorful foliage.

The summer sun is fading as the year grows old. ~The Moody Blues

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Time for a Climb

I think it had been a year or more since I had climbed the High Blue trail in Walpole so last Saturday that’s where I went. It’s more of a walk than a climb but still, it’s enough to get someone with tired lungs huffing and puffing. It was another beautiful spring day and there is a lot to see there, so I was looking forward to it.

There are a lot of ruts in the old logging road that starts the climb and many of them still had rain water in them. Salamanders took advantage of the small ponds, swimming in them as these two did. New Hampshire has eight native salamanders including the red-spotted newt, and I think that’s what these were. The larva are aquatic and so are the adults, but the juveniles are called red efts and live on land.  They eat just about anything that is small enough, including earthworms and insects. As I walked on I heard the quacking of wood frogs and the trilling of spring peepers, so there is a lot of water in the area.

Coltsfoot plants (Tussilago farfara) were blooming by the dozens.

Striped maple buds (Acer pensylvanicum) are getting bigger each time I see them. They’ll be opening soon.

Hobblebush buds (Viburnum lantanoides) are going to bloom early this year, I think. Normally they wouldn’t open until May but these warm days are accelerating everything.

The early warmth has wreaked havoc on the maple syrup industry. The last article I read said one of the larger local producers was down more than 10,000 gallons below average. This shot shows how most of the big producers collect sap these days; with food grade plastic tubing.

It’s very simple really. The tapper drills a hole in the tree and the black piece seen above is inserted into the hole. The syrup flows through the blue tubing to the green tubing and from there to the collection tanks. Vacuum pumps are sometimes used to pull the sap through the tubing.

It’s nearly impossible to get lost up here with signs like these directing you.

It isn’t far to the summit but as slow as I walk, it takes a little while. I walk slow purposely as I’ve said many times before. Adopt a toddler’s pace and then you begin to see all the things in nature that you’ve been rushing past all these years.

Black knot grew on a young cherry tree. Infected stems swell up and produce hard black knots like those seen here. They will eventually become serious wounds and will eventually kill the tree, so infected limbs should be pruned off 2-4 inches below the knots and buried or burned before bud break the following spring.

Woodpeckers had been gouging out the wood of a dead birch.

This pile of shavings at the base of the tree showed that they had been working hard.

I saw that they were still growing corn here. When I first started hiking here this was a meadow full of wildflowers including orange hawkweed, which is hard to find.

I always wonder who gets the most corn, the farmer of the animals. I think that bears eat a lot of it. I’ve followed game trails away from the cornfield and have found whole stalks that have been dragged off. It takes strength to pull up a corn stalk and I doubt deer could do it.

Willows bloomed off in the distance across the cornfield.

Two or three red maples, all male flowered, bloomed along the trail side of the cornfield.

This is very stony ground up here with ledge outcrops like this one fairly common. I’ve always thought of features like these the bones of the forest.

This outcrop was mostly quartz and rock tripe lichen grew all over it. Rock tripe lichen (Umbilicaria mammulata) gets brownish and curls up when it is dry like these were. You can see the back of it , which is black and pebble textured in this photo. The Umbilicaria part of the scientific name comes from the Latin umbilicus, meaning navel, because of the way they attach themselves to stone with a single attachment point that looks like a navel. It sticks itself to stone by way of this single, navel like attachment point and the rest of the lichen hangs from this central point, much like a rag hanging from a peg. Rock tripe is edible and eating it has saved the lives of people who were lost and starving in the past. Though I imagine they must taste like old rubber, these lichens were a source of emergency food for Native Americans and saved the lives of many an early settler. Even George Washington’s troops are said to have eaten rock tripe to survive the brutal winter at Valley Forge in 1777.

Running club moss (Lycopodium clavatum) is also called stag’s horn clubmoss. This plant gets its name from the way it sends out long, horizontal stems. All along the horizontal stem erect stems form at intervals and roots form where it touches the ground. All of this happens under the leaves so it can be difficult to tell this club moss from others. I can’t say that these plants are rare here, but I don’t see them too often. For you people who have the app, Google lens identifies it as stag’s horn clubmoss.

The remains of an old foundation always make me wonder about the people who once lived up here. It’s easy to forget that just one hundred years ago most of these hills were cleared and used as pasture land. Once the industrial revolution happened people left the farms to work in the mills and ever since the land has been going back to forest.

These people worked hard, whoever they were. This stone wall runs off into the distance as far as the eye can see.

The pond that lives up here already had duckweed growing on it. And it was full of singing frogs.

I’ve seen these what I think are insect egg cases before but I’ve never been able to identify them. If you’ve ever seen a Tic-Tac candy mint, these are the same size and shape that they are. In other words, quite small. Google lens kept trying to identify the shrub instead of them. Apparently it couldn’t see the egg cases.

The sign at the overlook lets you know how high up you are…

…and the view is always blue, hence the name High Blue. The view was a little hazy but I could see the ski trails over on Stratton Mountain in Vermont, which is just across the Connecticut River Valley. I was surprised to see snow on them, because where I was sitting it was about 74 degrees. Far too warm for this early in spring but as anyone who spends much time in nature knows, you have to be at peace with what nature gives.

A beautiful life is not a place at which you arrive, but the experience you create moment by moment. ~Lebo Grand

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Time for a Climb

Last Sunday was the first warm, sunny day we’ve had in over a week so I decided to climb the High Blue trail up in Walpole. It’s actually more of a walk than a climb but with my lungs it does have enough of an uphill slant to get me huffing and puffing.

I saw that the rain we had in Keene the day before had fallen as snow here, and it hadn’t melted in shaded areas. There was no ice though.

Years ago there were hundreds of coltsfoot plants (Tussilago farfara) here but then along came a logging skidder and it plowed them all up. On this day I was happy to see that they had made a small comeback. May they be allowed to spread at will.

I could see a little white in this one, which means it was about to go to seed. I also saw lots of insects buzzing around the flowers.

Hobblebushes (Viburnum lantanoides) grow all along the first leg of the trail. In May these flower buds will open to reveal one of our most beautiful native shrub blossoms. The large white, flat flower heads are very noticeable as they bloom on hillsides along our roads. Botanically speaking the flower head is called a corymb, which is a flat topped disc shaped flower cluster. The name hobblebush comes from the way the low growing branches, unseen under last year’s fallen leaves, can trip up or “hobble” a horse or hiker. George Washington thought so highly of them he planted two at Mt. Vernon.

A huge oak tree had blown over and had taken a good piece of soil with it. It’s always surprising to see how shallow growing tree roots really are. That could be because there is lots of water here and the tree’s roots didn’t have to go deeper searching for it. The hole the uprooted tree left was full of water.

There is a lot of good farmland in Walpole and as this cornfield and hayfield show, much of it is still in use. I’ve seen signs of bear in this spot in the past but I was hopeful that I wouldn’t see any on this day.

Before you know it you’re at the trail head. You can’t miss it.

The trail narrows from here on up.

You can hunt at daybreak here but getting to your hunting spot in the dark can be a challenge, so hunters put small reflecting buttons on the trees. A flashlight will pick them out easily, I would think.

One year the meadow that was here suddenly became a cornfield and the corn attracted animals of all kinds, including bears. I’ve seen a lot of bear droppings all over this area ever since, so I carry a can of bear spray when I come here.

In Keene red maples (Acer rubrum) are producing seeds but up here their buds haven’t even opened yet.

Striped maple buds (Acer pensylvanicum) were also behind their lowland cousins.

As I neared the overlook I saw a new sign, so I decided to explore.

Yes, there were ledges and I could see that the rock pilers had been here, piling their rocks. I’m guessing that they took them from one of the stone walls, which carries a fairly hefty fine if you get caught at it. I’m always at a loss as to why anyone would do this because these piles of rock don’t mark a trail and are meaningless, for the most part.

Other than a nice quartz outcrop there was really nothing here to see; trees blocked any view there might have been.

I left the ledge and kept on toward the summit and as I usually do when I come here, I had to stop at what’s left of the old foundation. I’m not sure who lived up here but they had plenty of courage and were strong people. All of this land would have been cleared then and sheep would probably have lived in the pastures. It was a tough life in what the Walpole Town History describes as a “vast wilderness.” But it was populated; many Native Americans lived here and they weren’t afraid to show their displeasure at losing their land.

There are an estimated 259,000 miles of stone walls in the northeastern U.S., most of which are in New England, and many are here in New Hampshire. The stones were found when the recently cleared pastures were plowed and they were either tossed into piles or used to build walls, wells, foundations and many other necessities of the day. Sometimes entire houses were built of stone but wood was plentiful and easier to work with, so we don’t have too many stone houses from that time. Most of what we see is used in stone walls like this one, which cross and crisscross the countryside in every direction.

This pond on the summit must be spring fed because it never dries up completely, even in drought years when the streams dry up. I always wonder if it was the water source for the family that once lived here.

I always take a photo of the sign when I come here. What it means is that at 1588 feet above sea level the summit is higher than the surrounding terrain, and the view is always blue.

The view was blue on this day but hazy as well. Still, you could just see the ski trails over on Stratton Mountain in Vermont, which is just across the Connecticut River Valley. I sat for a while, thankful that I made it up without meeting up with any bears. I’ve heard that more and more animals are getting used to seeing fewer people these days and everything from squirrels to deer to bear are being seen in towns, walking down city streets and even sunning themselves on lawns. It makes me think that if people suddenly disappeared it wouldn’t take animals long to get used to the silence.  

When I got back to my car I found a winter dark firefly (Ellychnia corrusca) on my door handle. According to Bugguide.net, these fireflies can be a pest in sap buckets in the spring because they like maple sap, and they will also drink from wounds in maple trees. They like to sun themselves on the sunny side of trees or buildings, but this one seemed happy on a car door handle. Most fireflies live as larvae in rotting wood and forest litter near water and stay in the area they were born in, even as adults. They like it warm and humid, and this recent April day was both. They don’t seem to be afraid of people at all; I’ve gotten quite close to them several times.

Close your eyes and turn your face into the wind.
Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exultation.
Suddenly, you know you are alive.
~Vera Nazarian

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Time for a Climb

Last Sunday dawned cool and free of the oppressive humidity that we’ve seen so much of this summer, so I thought I’d go for a climb up to the High Blue Trail lookout in Walpole. As I mentioned in last Saturday’s post, I’ve been having some breathing issues so I chose this trail because the climb is easy and gentle. I also chose it because there is usually much to see here and on this day I wasn’t disappointed.

The first things that caught my eye were the map like patterns in this coltsfoot leaf left by leaf miners. How remarkable that anything could be small enough to eat the tissue between the top and bottom surfaces of a leaf.

Hobblebush (Viburnum lantanoides) leaves whispered that fall was on the way but I didn’t want to listen.

But listen I had to, because everywhere I looked nature was whispering fall. Soon the whisper will become a shout.

I saw a young fly agaric (Amanita muscaria v. formosa) just up out of the soil and looking like it had been scrubbed clean even though it hadn’t rained in a week. This mushroom is common where pine trees grow. The name fly agaric comes from the practice of putting pieces of the mushroom in a dish of milk. The story says that when flies drank the milk they died, but it’s something I’ve never tried. Fly agaric is said to have the ability to “turn off” fear in humans and is considered toxic. Vikings are said to have used it for that very reason.

I’ve seen plenty of club coral fungi but I’ve never seen one that was hairy like this one. I think they might be examples of cotton base coral fungi (Lentaria byssieda,) which has “stalks that rise out of a creamy white, felt-like, hairy mycelial patch.” From what I’ve seen online and in guide books this fungi’s appearance can vary greatly as far as shape, with some having branch tips that are sharply pointed and others with blunt branch tips.

When I saw this I knew that it didn’t matter what else I saw on this day, because my day was complete. Violet coral fungus (Clavaria zollingeri) is a very rare thing in these parts and this is only the second time I’ve seen one. Both times I’ve seen it on a hillside, growing out of the soil on the side of the trail. Such a rare and beautiful thing can take you outside yourself for a time and I knelt there in the dirt taking photos and admiring it for I don’t know how long. I wish I’d see more of them but who knows what makes them only show themselves so rarely, and who knows why they wear that color?

The old road isn’t long but it is winding.

Before you know it you’re at the sign on the side road that leads to the lookout.

A birch tree had fallen across the old road. Many trees have fallen this summer and in a way it’s a good thing. Weak trees standing in a forest could fall without warning at any time so it’s good when the wind removes them. It’s dangerous to have them standing near trails, as this one illustrates.

I saw quite a few examples of the old man of the woods mushroom (Strobilomyces floccopus.) This grayish mushroom has black scales on its cap and stem and was very hard to get a good shot of. Both cameras that I carried had trouble focusing on it. Nobody seems to know how this mushroom came by its common name.

The old man’s pore surface starts off white, then turns gray before finally becoming black, so this one had some age. The flesh turns pinkish red when bruised and finally turns black. You can see the shaggy stem in this photo and that helps with identification.

Powdery mildew on an oak showed how very humid and still the air has been lately. Molds and mildews have a hard time developing when there is good air circulation.

Soon I was at the cornfield which was once a meadow. All my senses go on high alert here because I know that bears come here regularly to feed on the corn. I carried bear spray but if a bear suddenly burst out of the cornfield I doubt I would have had time to use it, so I stopped and listened for a minute or two. Hearing nothing but the rustling of the corn leaves I moved on.

The corn was just about ready to pick but since this is cattle corn the whole plant gets chewed up and becomes silage. It attracts almost every animal in the forest, including deer and raccoons but I was surprised to find very little animal damage among the stalks. Quite often you’ll find broken stalks lying on the ground with the husks torn from the ears, and all the kernels eaten. Maybe the animals are waiting for it to become dead ripe, I don’t know.

I saw two or three of these odd insects on ears of corn. Some kind of shield bug, I think.

Asters bloomed along the edge of the cornfield.

A black eyed Susan bloomed among hundreds of blooming lobelias. These were the pretty little lobelias called Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata.) I was surprised to see them because they’re just about finished blooming down in the low country.

I was especially glad the lobelias were blooming because there were two monarch butterflies visiting the small flowers. I scared this one away but luckily it landed close enough to get a photo of. I’ve been seeing lots of monarchs this year I’m happy to say, but this is the only one I’ve been able to get a photo of.

Though it was cool, sunny and dry when I left Keene by the time I reached the overlook clouds had rolled in and the air was so thick with humidity you could have cut it with a knife. This didn’t make breathing any easier and I was just about puffed out, as my blogging friend Mr. Tootlepedal says, so all I could think of was getting back to the car and into some air conditioning.  After a couple of quick shots of the thick haze I headed back down the hill.

The view wasn’t very good; you couldn’t even see Stratton Mountain over in Vermont. The blue was a little darker where it should have been but I think I see it in this shot only because I know where it is. As I’ve said many time before, if I climbed for the view I’d end up disappointed most of the time, so though I enjoy seeing across the Connecticut River Valley into Vermont I could hardly be disappointed after seeing all of the beautiful things I saw on the way up here. It isn’t about the end of the trail or how fast you can climb a hill; it really is about what you see along the way.

The events of the past day have proven to me that I am wholly alive, and that no matter what transpires from here on in, I have truly lived. ~Anonymous mountain climber

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Time for a Climb

Last Sunday we had a day that was as close to perfect as a day could be, with sunny skies, low humidity and temperatures in the mid-seventies with a slight breeze, so I decided it was time for a climb. I chose the High Blue Trail in Walpole because it’s an easy, gentle climb that doesn’t wear me out. It also wanders through a beautiful forest.

The first thing I noticed was a colony of coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara.) They had gone to seed but this one surprisingly still showed some color. It’s late for a spring ephemeral.

Canada mayflowers (Maianthemum canadensis) grew all along the trail, all the way to the overlook. Though this is a native wildflower it acts like an invasive, growing in huge colonies of tens of thousands, and it chokes out just about anything else. It also invades gardens and once it gains a foothold it’s almost impossible to eradicate. Its stem breaks off at the soil surface and the roots live on.

Canada mayflowers tiny four petaled white flowers will become speckled red berries that are loved by many birds and small animals, and that’s one way it spreads. Another way is by a thick mat of underground stems.

I saw a lot of wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana) still blooming along the trail, which was a surprise. The ones in my yard stopped blooming a week or more ago, so I should check for berries. My kids used to love eating them, sun warmed and sweet.

Of course the trail has to go uphill but the grade isn’t steep and I think most people would find it an easy climb. My camera has trouble with such dappled light, high contrast scenes such as this one.

When I was up here in March the snow on the other side of this gate was nearly waist deep and I was forced to take a detour. I’m hoping I don’t see that much snow again until at least January.

The breeze lasted until I met this pink lady’s slipper orchid growing beside the trail, and then it turned into a wind that wouldn’t stop no matter how patient I was. After about 30 wasted shutter clicks I finally got one useable photo of it. This is the first pink lady’s slipper (Cypripedium acaule) I’ve ever seen growing up here. The experience showed me just how much wing a lady’s slipper can take, and it’s quite a lot.

Though I’m sure these woods must be full of them this is the first Indian cucumber root plant (Medeola virginiana) I’ve ever seen here. This shot shows how the mature knee high plants have two tiers of whorled leaves. A whorl means the leaves radiate around the stem at the same place on it, so if you looked at a whorl of leaves from the side you would see the edge of a flat plane, like the edge of a plate.

The reproductive parts of this Indian cucumber root flower were much redder than the flower that I found along the Ashuelot River two posts ago.

Before I knew it I was at the cornfield that used to be a hay field. The farmer had planted his corn but it wasn’t up yet so I was able to walk the field without harming corn seedlings. Orange hawkweed (Pilosella aurantiaca) usually grows here but it wasn’t blooming yet so I don’t have any to show you. Orange hawkweed is on the rare side in this area; I probably see one orange for every thousand yellow hawkweeds, and this is one of only two places I know of where it grows.

Here was a yellow hawkweed (Hieracium caespitosum,) just out of the bud. There were hundreds more just like it.

Lesser stitchwort (Stellaria graminea) just appeared in my last post but here it was again in the cornfield. I’m seeing a lot of these pretty little, aspirin size flowers this year.

The small pond near the overlook was covered in duckweed, as I expected. I used to wonder how it ever got up here until I read that the tiny plants  can get stuck in a bird’s feathers and move from place to place that way, so this duckweed probably found its way here via duck.

I loved the different colors of the pond’s surface. I was wondering why the blue reflection of the sky on water was always bluer than the sky itself when I heard a croak and a splash.

Hearing a croak and a splash while standing at the edge of a pond might not seem to be an earthshaking event until you realize that I’ve never seen a living thing in this pond other than duckweed. I looked to my left and there was a turtle so I took a photo of its shell because that’s all that showed. Then when I got home and looked at the shot I saw that the turtle was being watched by a frog, which showed up in the lower left. I never saw it when I was at the pond, but I heard it. How either one of them got way up here is anyone’s guess.

Once I was done playing at the pond I went on to the overlook. The sign let me know that I had arrived.

The view let me know too. That’s Stratton Mountain off across the Connecticut River valley in Vermont. Stratton Mountain is a popular skiing mountain and because of our cold, snowy March they had an extended season this year. Thankfully it didn’t last into June.

You can just barely make out the ski trails through the haze, there on the right end of the mountain.

I love seeing the varying shades of blue on the distant Vermont hills. It’s a beautiful scene that seems like it would be so easy to paint; just a simple watercolor wash, but if I had it hanging on my wall would the real thing be as enticing? I can’t imagine not coming here anymore, so it probably would.

There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations. ~Washington Irving.

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Detoured

Last week’s nor’easter sat up north and just spun in one place for days after it buried parts of New England, and clouds and snow showers filled the air all week. And then finally on Sunday the sun came out. The temperature shot up to a relatively balmy 40 degrees F., and I decided to get into the woods. The plan was to climb the High Blue trail in Walpole to see if any of the coltsfoot that live along the trail were blooming, but Walpole got a lot more snow than I did in my yard and everything was snow covered.

I stopped to admire a snow curl on a branch.

The new way of colleting sap is used here. Or at least it was; this tubing wasn’t being used and these maple trees hadn’t been tapped. The black bit on the left at the end of the blue tubing is the part that would be in the tree if it had been tapped.

Normally I would have taken a left turn and followed the high blue trail to the overlook but nobody else had been here and my trail breaking days through a foot of snow are over. I was really surprised that there was no trail though, because this is a popular spot. I had to come up with a plan B.

Plan B was simply bypassing the left turn onto the high blue trail and staying on the old logging road that leads to it. The snow on the old road had been packed down by snowmobiles but it was still slow going. At the pace I usually walk though slow is the norm, so slipping and sliding in the snow wasn’t really a problem.

There were a few paper birch trees (Betula papyrifera) along the trail and some gray and golden birches as well.

A small stream ran alongside the road and bubbled and gurgled as I walked. Even though I couldn’t sense it the rushing water told me the snow was melting fast.

The little stream slowed and opened up into quiet pools every now and then.

I was hoping to find some evidence of amphibian activity like frog eggs, but all I saw were stones.

When two trees grow close enough together like these two sugar maples did the wind can cause them to rub together enough so their outer bark is rubbed off. If the trees are the same species, when the cambium layer just under the bark touches the two trees can grow together. This process is called inosculation and trees naturally grafted together like these two are called “husband and wife” trees or “marriage trees.” Rarely, trees of different species like red and sugar maple can become grafted, but I’ve never seen it.

I hope I never get too busy to admire a beech tree (Fagus americana) caught in a sunbeam. They’re so beautiful at this time of year.

I looked at many beech buds but I didn’t see any signs of bud break. I didn’t really expect to because it’s really too early, but the warm February could have confused some trees as well as shrubs and other plants. Like the striped maple buds I mentioned in my last post, beech buds breaking is an event I look forward to all winter.

The reason I look forward to tree buds opening in spring is because many of them are as beautiful as any flower. I’ll start looking for them in earnest starting in Late April and early May.

One of the theories of why beech trees hold onto their leaves throughout winter says that deer and moose are afraid of the sound of the papery, dry, whispering leaves and wont browse on the buds.  Deer have bottom incisor teeth that meet a hard pad of cartilage on their upper jaw, so they can’t bite through a twig cleanly. Instead they have to tear it, and this torn twig tells me that this beech bud was taken by a deer so papery leaves or not, deer do indeed browse on beech trees.

The trail opened into a large clearing that offered a few choices of where to go. The snowmobile tracks that went off to the left might circle around and go up to the overlook but they might not, and I might do a lot of trudging through the snow for nothing.  There was already a long walk ahead of me to get back out again, so I had to be careful that I didn’t get tired out walking in. While I thought about it I decided to explore the clearing.

The spore bearing fronds of sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis) told me that the soil here was wet. Sensitive ferns like damp, sunny places like wet meadows and the edges of forests. Fossils that closely resemble sensitive fern have been found dating back to the time of the dinosaurs, so they have been here for a very long time. Early American settlers gave this fern its common name when they noticed how sensitive they were to frost.

Native river grapes (Vitis riparia) grew up and into the sugar maples and judging from the size of the vines they’ve been doing so for a very long time. I see these grapes growing in wet soil quite often so I think it’s safe to say that they also like damp sunny spots.

River grapes don’t seem to have as many tendrils as other grapes but they have enough to help them climb. This vine’s tendril had wrapped around this maple branch long enough ago so the branch had been growing around it. I see this often with tough vines like oriental bittersweet but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a grape vine do this. The tendrils must be a lot stronger than I thought.

The second way out of the clearing involved climbing a steep hill, so I passed on that option.

The third way out also involved a hill. Less steep but still a hill and I had no idea where the trail went, so in the end I decided to turn around and head back down the old road. I knew a lot more about this area than I did when I started and I got to walk in the winter woods on a warm sunny day, so my time certainly wasn’t wasted.

After stopping for a moment to wonder at the mechanics of another snow curl, off I went.

The world is as large as I let it be. Each step I take into the unknown reveals a thousand more steps of possibility. Earth may not be growing but my world certainly does with each step I take. ~Avina Celeste

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Time for a Climb

After putting together a post like the last one I did on lichens I needed to free up my mind a bit so I headed into the woods of Walpole to climb the High Blue trail. I had just been here in October but it wasn’t that cold then. My mission on this day was to see if the ski areas had started making snow.

It was definitely cold enough here to make snow. This shot is of some of the many bubbles I saw in the ice of a mud puddle.

Intermediate wood ferns (Dryopteris intermedia) were still nice and green but that was no surprise because it is one of our native evergreen ferns. It is thought that evergreen ferns get a jump on the competition in spring by starting photosynthesis earlier than their cousins.

A large tinder polypore (Fomes fomentarius) grew on a trail side tree. These bracket fungi produce spores at all times of year but through spring and summer studies have shown that they can produce as many as 800 million spores in a single hour. Its common name comes from its usefulness as tinder for starting fires. The 5000 year old “iceman” found preserved in ice and snow in the Italian Alps carried pieces of this fungus with him. It is also useful medicinally and is known to stop bleeding, so he might have used it both ways.

The small reflectors put on the trees by hunters reminded me that I probably wasn’t the only one in these woods. I was glad that I remembered to wear my bright orange hat and vest.

There are people who think that plants grow their buds when it warms up in the spring but most plants actually plan ahead and grow their spring buds in the fall. This hobblebush bud (Viburnum lantanoides) already has all it needs to produce a pair of new leaves and a beautiful head of white flowers next spring. Hobblebush buds are naked, meaning they have no bud scales to protect them from the cold, and that’s why they are furry. Hobblebushes are one of our most beautiful native viburnums and there are many of them in these woods.

Beech trees (Fagus grandifolia) also have their spring buds at the ready. They’re small now but they’ll grow bigger when it starts to warm up. When they break in spring beech buds are one of the most beautiful things you’ll find in a New England forest.

The farmer has cut all his corn for silage. This was a meadow for many years and it’s always a bit surprising for me to find a cornfield here now. The corn attracts bears and last year I saw several piles of their dung, but this year I didn’t see any. I’m hoping they found a different corn field.

There are game trails that lead from the meadow / cornfield into the woods. Do you see this one? It’s just a narrow trail but it is used regularly, especially by deer. When I come here in winter there are deer tracks everywhere up here.

I followed the game trail into the forest to see what I’d see and found a huge quartz boulder sitting on top of an old stone wall. How anyone ever lifted it up there is beyond me. It was at least 4 feet long and must have been very heavy.

There were also a lot of ears of corn along the game trail and even entire corn stalks pulled up by the roots. This is obviously where the animals come to eat it after they take it from the cornfield. I don’t know if a deer could pull up a cornstalk but a bear certainly could. I was hoping it was cold enough for them to be sleeping by now.

Back on the main trail the sun was shining brightly but not providing much warmth. It was probably about 40 degrees F. and that isn’t bad for the end of November but it still felt cold. November is said to be the cloudiest month but we’ve been lucky this year and have had quite a few sunny days.

One of the things I like about this time of year is how you can see so deeply into the forest now that there is no foliage to block the view. One of the things that is much easier to see now is the old stone wall that snakes through the woods. It’s a “tossed wall,” meaning that the stones were literally tossed or thrown on top of one another. Stones were not nice to plows and farmers wanted to get them out of their fields as quickly and efficiently as possible, and ringing the fields with them was the easiest way. In 1872 there were an estimated 270,000 miles of stone walls in New England. It’s hard to hike through a piece of forest these days without seeing at least one wall.

Walpole is famous among stone wall builders for its ledges which, with little effort, break into nice, flat slabs. The fractures happen naturally, as can be seen on this outcrop. This is very easy stone to build with and it makes a great looking wall.

This stone was taken from the ledge in the previous photo at some point in the past. It hasn’t been cut; this is how it comes right out of the ledge, and that’s what makes it so special. Building a wall with stone like this is a real pleasure but it doesn’t happen often. Usually the stones are rounded, so it takes much more time and effort to build with them.

The small pond on the summit was frozen over as I thought it would be. I used to think that the animals would suffer when the pond froze but there are many small streams nearby that run year round so they always have a place to get a drink.

The sign at the granite overlook tells you that you’ve arrived. High means the spot is higher than the surrounding terrain and blue means the view is very blue, and it always is.

It was a bit humid on this day and as it did the last time I was up here a haze blanketed the landscape, so even though the view across the Connecticut River Valley into Vermont was blue it wasn’t that good. Still, you could see Stratton Mountain so I couldn’t complain. The question was, would my camera be able to cut through the haze so I could see the ski area?

So far so good. Sometimes the camera really goes bonkers up here and I’m shocked by what I see when I get home, so I was hoping this wouldn’t be one of those days. I put it on “auto” for a few shots just to give it a chance to do what it wanted. It seems to have a mind of its own sometimes when capturing landscapes.

Though it is a blotchy photo it showed me that there was indeed snow on the ski trails, so after sitting and admiring the view for a bit, down I went. Before long this entire landscape will be snow covered and there won’t be any snowmaking required, so I was happy that I was still walking in crunchy leaves rather than squeaky snow. You know it’s cold when the snow squeaks underfoot.

Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood. Andy Goldsworthy

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Time for a Climb

I don’t know why but every now and then I’ll feel a pull from a certain place, almost like I imagine a salmon must feel when it has to return to the stream it was born in. On this day the pull came from the High Blue trail in Walpole. I know better than to try to ignore the pull because it’ll just get stronger as time goes by, so off I went to Walpole. The strongly contrasted, sun dappled woods were just what my camera can’t seem to cope with so some of these photo are poor, like the one above of the trail.

I forgot to take more photos of the trail because I gained some helpers along the way and they kept me preoccupied with a hundred different things; everything from chasing chipmunks to stopping and pricking up our ears to listen to whatever was going on in the woods. One helper was a black Labrador retriever and the other…

…was a chocolate lab, apparently the black lab’s sister or maybe his girlfriend, I don’t know. They were very friendly these two, but only the chocolate lab would let me pet her. The black lab would stand close enough to touch but wouldn’t let it happen, so I let him be and just talked to him.

Every time I stopped to take a photo they came running back down the trail and whirled around me like a dust devil before racing back up the trail. They were trying to hurry me along, even though I told them several times that I was here to take photos and see the countryside. It was a cool morning and I don’t know if there was heavy dew on this grass or leftovers from the previous day’s rain, but I’m surprised that this photo came out at all since I had a cold wet nose in my ear when I snapped the shutter.

There are a lot of hobblebushes (Viburnum lantanoides) along the trail and they were showing their fall colors. Hobblebush is one of our most beautiful native flowering shrubs in the spring, and they aren’t bad in the fall either.

Lady ferns (Athyrium filix-femina) were wearing their fall pale greens and whites.

I took a left at the sign and my new friends ran ahead as if they knew the place better than I did.

But they didn’t know everything. They both stopped suddenly at this spot and froze, pricked up their ears and stared into the woods before bounding off toward whatever it was they heard. The black lab went in first and the chocolate followed and I stood with all my senses on high alert. There are bears up here and though I had a can of bear spray with me I was still a bit apprehensive.

Last year I found that a lot of corn had been eaten from this cornfield and there were a lot of bear droppings in the area, so I pay real close attention to my surroundings when I’m up here. I was glad to have the dogs with me. I doubt a bear would have tangled with two dogs unless it was protecting cubs.

The corn was ripe and ready, but since it’s used for silage it can be cut and processed at any time. Animals will take a lot of it if this year is anything like last. Bears, deer, raccoons and many other animals and birds love corn.

Something big and heavy had flattened a few cornstalks.

The dogs finally came back and seemed fine but I noticed that some of the frolic appeared to have gone out of them. Maybe they were just getting tired; they had been doing a lot of running. While they were out carousing I had been taking photos. I think this one shows a calico aster (Symphyotrichum lateriflorum,) which is one I’m trying to learn this year. I figure if I learn one new one each year by the time I’m 80 I might know them all. Of course by then I probably won’t be in the woods and won’t care anyway. This aster is difficult because it resembles a couple of others, but of course that’s true with many asters.

Before you know it you’re at the 1,588 foot high overlook that looks out over the Connecticut River Valley into Vermont. I could see Stratton Mountain clearly so there was no haze. The last time I was here in June it was so hazy I could barely see beyond the valley. I was hoping for a white puffy cloud kind of day so I could take photos of cloudscapes as well as landscapes, but instead it was a ragged purple cloud day. Two of them stayed in place as if someone had pasted them on the sky.

The light seemed a little flat to the camera, apparently. I could see the shading between the hills that I like so much but the camera couldn’t catch it. Luckily the dogs had found a chipmunk hole under a boulder out in the woods and were digging away, furiously. Silly dogs; I’ve never seen or heard of a dog actually catching a chipmunk. They’re very smart little animals and the bite on the nose that the unlucky dog would get wouldn’t be worth it.

I could see the ski trails on the right side of the mountain but thankfully they weren’t white. I suppose before too long it will be cold enough for them to start making snow. I’m hoping the natural kind will wait a few more months or stay on that side of the river. Odd that you can’t see a single colored leaf in this shot, though there must have been thousands out there.

I had to visit the small pond that lives up here before I went back down the mountain. As I expected it was covered completely in duckweed. Covered until the dogs decided to go for a swim, that is. But that was fine because they broke up the mat of green and let some blue in.

Clubmosses have grown their clubs and that means they are busy producing spores. There are lots of clubmoss plants up here and I think at last count I had seen 4 different species. I think this one is ground pine (Lycopodium dendroideum,) but despite the name the plant has nothing to do with pines or any other tree. Each leaf looks more like a scale than a leaf and is called a microphyll. A microphyll is a leaf with a single, unbranched vein. Clubmosses won’t grow where the temperature is too warm so when you see them in the forest you know you’ve found a relatively cool spot. They have been on earth for about 200 million years, and once grew to tree size. The spores and a tea made from the leaves were used medicinally by Native Americans to treat headaches, nosebleeds, skin ailments, and to aid digestion.

Clubmosses are vascular plants that produce spores instead of flowers in yellowish club shaped structures called strobili. The spores can take up to 20 years to germinate, but the plants also reproduce by long horizontal underground stems. When the spores are ready to be released each triangular scale will open along the length of the strobilus, and the wind will do the rest.

I saw a lot of beech drops (Epifagus americana) here. These plants are parasitic on the roots of American beech (Fagus grandifolia) and take all of their nutrients from the tree. Because of that they don’t need leaves, chlorophyll, or sunlight so what you see is a naked stalk with tiny blossoms on it.

Tiny pinkish purple beech drop flowers have a darker purple or reddish stripe. This one had a yellow pistil poking out of it but most don’t. I think this is only the second time I’ve seen this. Beech drops are annuals that grow new from seed each year but scientists don’t know much about how the flowers are pollinated.

I think the strangest thing I saw on this hike was this lichen I found on a tree. Something had scratched or chewed through the white outer layer to the reddish brown layer beneath. There are animals that eat lichen like reindeer, moose, and even white tailed deer, but none of them did this. This lichen was small at maybe a half inch across, so whatever made these marks was also quite small, like a mouse or a bat, or a chipmunk.

Once I saw the marks in the lichen in the previous photo I started looking a little closer and here was another one with the same kind of marks. I’ve never seen this before and I can’t even guess how the marks were made.

The dogs have an owner and she was waiting for us when we reached the trailhead; not looking very happy. I explained that her dogs had been keeping me company but it was an old story for her. They live close by and apparently every time the dogs hear a car they run off to see who it is. I didn’t say anything but it is legal in this state to shoot dogs that are loose in the woods, because they can form into packs and chase down and kill white tail deer. Letting dogs run loose is illegal and if caught dog owners can be fined big money. I’m sure the owner of these dogs knows all this but I’m not sure how the dogs keep getting loose. I think I’d tie them up or walk with them. I’d hate to see such friendly and beautiful dogs come to harm.

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring—it was peace. ~Milan Kundera

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Triple H Weather

We were having some “triple H” weather here last weekend, which means hazy, hot and humid, so I wanted to get to a shady forest. I chose High Blue trail in Walpole because I was fairly sure that there would be a good breeze on the summit, which faces west. The trail starts out following an old logging road.

I started seeing things of interest almost as soon as I reached the old road. False Solomon’s seal plants (Maianthemum racemosum  or Smilacina racemosa) bloomed all along it. Some grow close to three feet tall but most are less than that; about knee high. False Solomon’s seal has small white, star shaped flowers in a branching cluster (raceme) at the end of its stem. Soon the blossoms will give way to small reddish berries that provide food for many birds and other wildlife. It is said that a Native American tribe in California used crushed false Solomon’s seal roots to stun fish. Others used the plant medicinally.

Brittle cinder fungus (Kretzschmaria deusta) in this stage are stunning, in my opinion. I like the powder gray against the bright white margin. As they age they blacken and look like burnt wood and become very brittle and are easily crushed. They grow on dead hardwoods and cause soft rot, which breaks down both cellulose and lignin. In short, this is one of the fungi that help turn wood into compost.

This photo taken previously shows what the brittle cinder fungus will become; a black lump. Younger examples have a hard lumpy crust or skin, a piece of which can be seen in the upper left of the example in the photo. It’s hard to believe that it’s the same fungus that’s in the previous photo.

Grasses are flowering nearly everywhere I go now and I like looking at them closely. I don’t know this one’s name but I’ve learned enough about grasses to know that the yellow bits at the top are the male pollen bearing flowers and the wispy white bits on the lower half are the female flowers.

Fringed sedge (Carex crinite) grew in wet spots along the road. It’s a large sedge that grows in big, 2 foot tall clumps. I like its drooping habit and I’m not the only one, because it has become a popular garden plant. Many animals and waterfowl eat different parts of sedge plants, especially the seeds. Other names for this plant are drooping sedge and long-haired sedge.

The trail does a loop but I always take the left at the High Blue sign and walk in and out.

From here the logging road narrows down into little more than a foot path. The sunlight was dappled and my camera doesn’t do dappled well, so this isn’t the best photo I’ve ever taken.

Hay-scented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula) does well up here and grows in large colonies all along the trail. I like the repeating patterns that they make. This fern likes shade but will tolerate extreme dryness well. Its common name comes from the way it smells like hay when it is bruised. This fern does well in gardens but gardeners want to make absolutely sure they want it because once they have it they’ll most likely have it for a long time. It’s very difficult to eradicate.

Last year the meadow suddenly became a cornfield and the corn attracted animals of all kinds, including bears. I’ve seen a lot of bear droppings all over this area ever since, so I carried a can of bear spray. Thankfully I didn’t have to use it.

Our brambles are coming into bloom and it looks like we might have a good blackberry harvest. Easy to pick blackberries can be found along virtually any rail trail and many woodland trails. Blackberries have been eaten by man for thousands of years. The discovery of the remains of an Iron Age woman called the Haraldskær Woman showed that she ate blackberries about 2500 years ago. The Haraldskær Woman is the body of a woman found naturally preserved in a peat bog in Jutland, Denmark in 1835. Native Americans made a strong twine from fibers found in blackberry canes, and they used piles of dead canes as barricades around villages. I’m guessing that anyone who had ever been caught on blackberry thorns wouldn’t have tried to make it through such a barricade.

Orange hawkweed (Pilosella aurantiaca) was dotted here and there in the meadow. I see thousands of examples of yellow hawkweed for every one orange hawkweed plant and I’m not sure why that is. The plant might be from Europe but it’s far from invasive in this area. Maybe their scarcity is due to the color orange being virtually invisible to bees. Orange Flowers do reflect ultraviolet light though, so that means that some insects must find them.

As I usually do when I come here, I had to stop at what’s left of the old foundation. I’m not sure who lived up here but they had plenty of courage and were strong people. All of this land would have been cleared then and sheep would probably have lived in the pastures. It was a tough life in what the Walpole Town History describes as a “vast wilderness.” But it was populated; many Native Americans lived here and they weren’t afraid to show their displeasure at losing their land.

One of the reasons I chose this place was because there is a small pond on the summit and I wanted to see if it was covered with duckweed yet. I wanted to take a close look at the tiny plants but about all I could see was pine pollen floating on the surface.

There was some duckweed but it was too far off shore to be easily reached. This pond must be spring fed because it never dries up completely, even in last year’s drought when streams were disappearing. I always wonder if it was the family’s water source.

There are an estimated 259,000 miles of stone walls in the northeastern U.S., most of which are in New England, and many are here in New Hampshire. The stones were found when the recently cleared pastures were plowed and they were either tossed into piles or used to build walls, wells, foundations and many other necessities of the day. Sometimes entire houses were built of stone but wood was plentiful and easier to work with, so we don’t have too many stone houses from that time. Most of what we see is used in stone walls like this one, which cross and crisscross the countryside in every direction.

I always take a photo of the sign when I come here, but I’m not sure why. What it means is that at 1588 feet above sea level the summit is higher than the surrounding terrain, and the view is always blue.

As I thought it would be the view was very hazy on this day, but there was a nice cool breeze blowing and that alone made the short hike worth it on such a hot humid day.

It was so hazy I couldn’t even see Stratton Mountain over in Vermont, which is just across the Connecticut River Valley seen here.

The stone pile builder has been busy. I’ve wondered why anyone would carry stones all the way up here just to build an eyesore like this, but on this day I realized that it was much more likely that these stones are being taken from the stone wall we saw 4 photos back. I wonder if this person knows that taking stones from stone walls is a crime, punishable by having to pay three times the cost of restoring the wall, plus legal costs. This is because many of these old walls mark boundary lines and are recorded as such in property deeds. I’m not sure why anyone would risk it just to put piles of stones in other people’s way, but to each their own.

We’ve had a lot of rain recently but I was still surprised to see a slime mold growing on the side of a log. The book Mushrooms of Northeast (no, not northeastern) North America-Midwest to New England by George Barron has quite a good section on slime molds and it starts off with one called Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa. I believe that the photo above shows the cylindrical white fruiting bodies of Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa, variety fruticulosa. There is a second variety of this slime mold called porioides, and the fruiting bodies look like tiny white geodesic domes. The fruiting bodies shown are so small and so fragile that one swipe of a finger can destroy hundreds of them.

If you reconnect with nature and the wilderness you will not only find the meaning of life, but you will experience what it means to be truly alive. ~Sylvia Dolson

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