If Walls Could Talk

Actually stone walls can talk, but you have to speak their language to be able to decipher what they’re saying. Having built a few myself this one was relatively easy to understand. It told me that its builder didn’t have time for tight joint stone masonry and in any case most likely didn’t know how to build with stone anyway. He needed a field to plant crops in so he and his family could survive and these stones were in the way of the plow, so he tossed them in a long undulating pile, and that became what is now called a tossed or thrown wall, because the stones were literally just thrown on top of one another with no time or eye for intricacies.

The landowners on either side of the wall didn’t have time to patrol the wall and pull tree seedlings so many of them started growing down in the wall where their seeds fell. Some saplings were too close to stones to cut with an axe or saw so they grew to massive size, sometimes pushing the wall stones apart ever so slowly  to make room for the huge trunk. Now, over 250 years later they shade the wall and keep it from being covered in deep snow. Some, like the white pine shown above, still stand even after being struck by lightning. The old split in its bark runs from the top of the tree all the way down its trunk, following a root right down into the ground. I’ve found trees like this one soon after they were struck and the ground around them was covered with narrow strips of bark, blown right off the wood by the lightning bolt.

You can see many interesting things if you look at our stone walls carefully, like this blacksmith made hitching ring where someone would have hitched up a horse. The odd thing about it is its location in the wall. It’s in an empty place where it doesn’t look like there would have much going on but 250 years ago it could have been a community information hub, for all I know. Most likely it was simply a shaded place for the horse to rest while the rider did whatever they had to do here.  I’m guessing it involved a lot of work.

My grandfather was the town Blacksmith in Westmoreland which is to the north west of here, so I’m always fascinated by iron work. The chain hook shown here is one of the best examples of 18th century blacksmithing I know of. I like it because it shows hand hammered marks and shows the fine workmanship and talent of the smith. He didn’t have to make such a utilitarian object as beautiful as a dragon’s tail, but he did.

This stone in this wall is only the second place I’ve found a beard lichen growing on stone. I’ve seen thousands of beard lichens but they were growing on wood 99% of the time. I think this one might be a bushy rock lichen (Ramalina intermedia.) Lichen communities grow in succession with many varieties of crustose lichens as pioneers. Foliose lichens come next as intermediary species and finally fruticose lichens like this one are considered climax species. What I don’t know is, how much time is between pioneer and climax? Climax communities of lichens are considered “old growth” communities.

As this stone shows stone walls absorb a lot of heat from the sun and release it slowly all night long until the sun shines again the following day.

Because it’s so warm near stone walls in the winter many plants like this mullein like to grow along them. In fact there is an amazing variety of plants growing on or near this wall.

There are many ferns growing along this old wall. Some are evergreen and others, like this one, are trying to be.

Many types of trees grow along the old wall including shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) which is named, not surprisingly, for its shaggy looking bark. These trees drop large amounts of hickory nuts each fall so I thought I’d find one and show it to you.

Unfortunately the squirrels had already found all the nuts and I didn’t see a single one.

I did see a lichen on the bark of the hickory that I’ve never seen before though, made up of a grayish body (Thallus) with tiny black fruiting bodies (Apothecia.) I think it might be the tiny button lichen (Amandinea punctata) which grows on wood and has a grayish, barely perceptible thallus and flat, disk shaped, black apothecia. Each black dot seen here is very small; about the size of a period made on paper with a pencil.

At the base of the hickory was a stone with a forest of pixie cup lichens (Cladonia asahinae) on it. The tiny little golf tee shaped parts are the fruiting bodies of this lichen. Spores produced in them will be splashed out of the cup by raindrops.  Pixie cups almost always produce large groups of fruiting bodies like these.

Shield lichens have become kind of a ho-hum lichen for me because I see thousands of them, but the way this one seems to overlap like shingles and the way it grows in concentric circles is different, and I’m not so sure it’s a shield lichen at all. I’m leaning towards the zoned dust lichen (Lepraria neglecta) but I’ll have to go back and have another look to be sure. It also resembles the shingled rock shield (Xanthoparmelia somloensis.) Like any other part of nature, stone walls have their own mysteries.

Another lichen that I don’t see often is what I believe is the rosy saucer lichen (Ochrolechia trochophora) seen here. Its rosy or orange apothecia are large and pad like and I’ve read that though it usually grows on wood it can grow on stone as well. It could also be a scattered rock posy lichen but I don’t think so.

Sometime I can be fooled into thinking I’m seeing lichens when I’m really seeing something else. In this case I’m not sure what the green “something else” was but possibly algae. Why it was here in this spot and nowhere else along the wall, I’m not sure.

Common speedwell was enjoying the warmth from the wall and looked as good as it does in early June but of course it wasn’t flowering. This European native is common here and has been used medicinally for centuries. Its leaves have also been used as a tea substitute.

I think a lot of us believe that winter is a very wet season and it can be when the snow melts, but when it is cold and there isn’t any melting going on it can be very dry, and this white tipped moss (Hedwigia ciliata) reminded me of that. When dry it pulls its tiny needle like leaves in close to the stem and if dry enough it looks like strands of string or clumps of worms, and this gives it another common name of medusa moss. It hadn’t reached that point when this photo was taken but it was quite dry, even with snow on it.

Stone walls will give many gifts to those who walk slowly along their length and look closely. One of the greatest gifts they give me is green leaves in winter, even when there is snow on the ground.

Stones are all about time—time to find them, to move them, to place them, and time, occasionally, to chisel and shape them. And above all, time to see them, experience them, and fall under their spell. ~Charles McRaven

Thanks for coming by.

 

Read Full Post »

Things I’ve Seen

We’ve had a few really cold days and a little snow but all in all our winter has seen above average temperatures and below average snowfall. I decided to take a walk along the Ashuelot River last weekend to celebrate the relative warmth.

I thought I might see some interesting ice formations since the temperature dropped below freezing the night before, but ice was hard to find. A few baubles had formed on this clump of reed growing in the water.

This one looked like a teardrop. It seems odd that it could have formed in that shape since water drops fall straight down as they freeze, but there it was.

A small but beautiful white feather was trapped in the ice just off shore.  I see quite a few feathers and don’t take photos of all of them but I liked what the water had done to this one.

Ashuelot falls in Keene showed no signs of freezing. The dam that creates the falls was first built in 1775 by Elisha Briggs to power grist and sawmills. It was improved over the years and went from wood to stone, and went on to power woolen mills from 1815 to 1935. There is talk of removing it by some, but others want to use it to generate power. I’m for returning it to its natural state. Meanwhile the river rolls on, not caring one way or another.

Black knot disease grew on a black cherry. It is caused by the fungus Apiosporina morbosa which can also attack plums, peaches, and apricots. Spores from the fungus can be spread by rain or wind and typically infect trees from April through June on new growth. Infected stems swell up and produce hard black knots like those in the above photo. This disease can 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.

There are many gray lichens with black fruiting bodies (Apothecia) growing on trees but I think this one might be tiny button lichen (Amandinea punctata.) An unusual fact about this lichen is how its gray body (Thallus) can sometimes be missing, leaving only the dark apothecia on the tree bark. Something else unusual about it is its tolerance of pollutants and toxins. Most lichens will refuse to grow where there is air pollution but this one doesn’t seem to mind. That’s not a very comforting thought.

I just spoke about the milk white toothed polypore (Irpex lacteus) not too long ago but I keep running into them and I find them very interesting. This is a “winter” fungus that can appear quite late in the year. It is also a resupinate fungus, which means it looks like it grows upside down, and that’s what many crust fungi seem to do. Their spore bearing surface can be wrinkled, smooth, warty, toothed, or porous and though they appear on the undersides of logs the main body of the fungus is in the wood, slowly decomposing it. This is not a good one to see on a live tree.

An extreme close-up of the milk white toothed polypore’s “teeth” shows that they are just ragged bits of spore bearing tissue. They start life as tubes or pores and break apart and turn brown as they age.

It seems like the hairy berries of staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) would be hard for a bird to swallow but apparently not, because many birds eat them. Native Americans used these berries for thousands of years to make a lemonade substitute that I’ve always wanted to try, and in some countries the berries are ground and used as a lemon flavored spice. It makes me wonder if birds have taste buds. If so they must like lemon flavoring.

I thought this yellow ornamental grass was beautiful against the white of the snow in a public garden. Unfortunately it has encroached on what looks to be a dwarf spirea and I’m glad that I’m not the one who has to weed it out. I’m not sure what the name of the grass is but after some research I’m leaning toward a Japanese forest grass called Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola.’  This grass is said to be shade tolerant and makes a good companion plant for hosta, ferns, and other shade lovers. But not spirea, apparently.

Canadian hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) trees surround my house and that’s a good thing because black capped chickadees love their tiny seeds and that means I get to hear their song all year long. My favorite season is spring when I can hear the male bird’s sad but beautiful Fee Bee mating call. In fact I’ve heard it for such a long time and now it doesn’t feel like spring unless I do.

A wound or a branch stub is an excellent place for a tree to become infected by fungi in the winter months when it is dormant. In spring and throughout the growing season the tree tries to heal its wound and produces callus tissue around the site of the infection. When winter returns the infection appears once again and once again in the warmer months the tree tries to heal with more callus tissue. This infection / healing cycle year after year is called perennial canker and it produced the ring like growth seen in the photo above. Though it doesn’t always kill the tree it always seems to make them look sad, and In this case it’s no wonder; to add insult to injury a woodpecker has been pecking at the wound on this tree.

Imagine; green grass in January. It’s a rare winter sight here, especially when it has survived being snowed on.

I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful — an endless prospect of magic and wonder. ~Ansel Adams

Thanks for stopping in.

Read Full Post »