2/20/05 – Field Observation Log 6

It was “hazy cold” and about 16 degrees today at 11:00 am. Yesterday a “stewardship day” work project I missed because my brother was visiting from Ohio moved a bunch of log rounds to the top of the highest bare mound of spoils. Apparently the work group “ran out of gas” because they left a couple of the bigger rounds at the foot of the hill.

Photo 1

Council circle logs

I wandered over the spoils pile toward the “Sweat Lodge” listening for birds. A very small mixed flock was working its way through the hawthorn/buckthorn thicket below and to the east of me. They were too far away and stayed near the ground so I could not make any positive identification. I tried using my father’s old bird watching scope, but they were moving too fast and the haze didn’t help.

An “Apple Gall” on the middle of a weed stem caught my eye.

Photo 2

Mid-stem gall

Other evidence of insect activity which I had not understood earlier was also apparent. They had wrapped themselves up in leaves high off the ground in a tree.

Photo 3

Insect houses in a tree

The cold was pretty severe and the snow was very fresh and soft. It hung on teasel making them into little snow cones.

Photo 4

Snow on the teasel

The snow makes interesting “snow cones” out of the stickers on these plants. When you take one of these and shake it to get the snow off, fresh snow underfoot looks like you have just shaken a pepper shaker on a tablecloth.

Photo 5

More Insect houses way up there inside curled leaves

Near one of the observation benches, the one set up under the great hawthorn “mother tree” in along the fence line which probably seeded most of the hawthorn across the middle of the “Back 40”, is a young Burr Oak. When I was identifying it, I noticed a weird gall on the end of a stem about 4’ off the ground. It looks as though the insects were trying to make one of those disposable toilet brushes out of the stem.

Photo 6

Oak Gall – found on a small “Burr” oak.

There are some American Elm trees growing on the UUAA property. Probably the biggest currently healthy one is located a little southwest of the sweat lodge near the intersection of three different abandoned fences. I got a good shot of the characteristic profile of an elm growing in the open against the grey sky.

Photo 7

The “classic” profile of an American Elm

Some of the Elm trees farther down near the creek have died of “Dutch Elm” disease at a much younger age than this tree, but this one, cross your fingers, shows little or no signs of decline. When I was a graduate student at Penn State, I had a summer job working for the university “Tree Crew.” There is a magnificent planted mall on the Penn State campus. It goes from the main street in University Park, PA north up a long hill to the old Library which is a replica of the Parthenon. The trees were planted American Elms established in 1857. The last time I was there they had still only lost three of these trees since they were planted. One was lost to a fire in the Chemistry building. One was removed after sustaining construction damage. Only one was classified has having been lost to the Dutch Elm blight.

When the disease began devastating American Elms, a bequest was made to the university to protect these trees and find a cure for the disease. From the 1940’s through until 1967, the year I was on the tree crew, the main Dutch Elm prevention strategy employed there was bi-annual “fogging” of the mall with DDT. After the publication of Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, the practice was finally discontinued. The most visible and immediate natural response to the change in management practice was the return of pigeons to the campus. During an entire generation, there had been no pigeons on campus. In addition to employing a new chemical injection under the bark at the base of each tree, campus maintenance crews had to figure out a way to get pigeon dirt off the faces of several buildings which they had not had to clean before.

Photo 8

Elm Bark

One of the “keys” to American Elm is the “white stripe” under the bark.

Not only was the snow fresh and deep, making progress a bit of an effort, but there are some areas on the “Back 40” that are just about impassible any time of year. Along the upper trail used to walk to the sweat lodge is a great clump of rose bush. I didn’t see any evidence that rabbits were using it as cover. If you want to see if there are rabbit tracks in the thicket behind this bush, you better be wearing thorn resistant clothing.

Photo 9

A big multiflora rose thicket

It seems that certain plants come to dominate certain areas and can stay there relatively the same for years. These roses are so thick nothing else can grow there.

Out in the old field southwest of the Sweat Lodge, there is an area dominated by a specific type of goldenrod. I have seen the same “patch” of bare stems every year since I started walking the “Back 40.” The patch has gradually gotten longer along a north-south axis but seems to remain pretty much the same from east to west. Maybe the grasses on either side are just too dense to allow goldenrod to grow, but the shade of the clump stunts the grasses on the north allowing the patch to expand on its’ north-south axis. Note that the southern tip of the patch is the tallest part. It gets a boost from the sun heating the stems of last year’s stalks in early spring.

Photo 10

A “stand” of goldenrod in an “old field”

It was so cold that my camera stopped working. Every time I would turn it on it would try to focus and then shut itself off again. I didn’t bother to take the battery out and warm it up with my hands, a trick I know works with these old ni-cad batteries.

I looped down through the lower “flat” to the west of the stream looking for evidence of deer bedding down. Last year during a big snow, I had found a thicket surrounding an area two deer had obviously been using as a bedroom. This year, even though I have checked regularly, there have not even been any deer tracks near the bedding area. It took advantage of several storm-fall trees which built a natural fence/wall around three sides of the area. Maybe the fact that the small branches off the main stems of the downed trees have begun to crack off and rot away makes the area feel less secure to the deer. Maybe the fact that I went back several times to check to see if they were there after I first found the evidence that they had been sleeping there made them decide not to come back this year. Maybe a hunter got them and the deer which forage on our property have found better places to hide.

When I came back up the hill, I focused on a tree near the Memorial Garden. I think this tree is a variety of crabapple, but its fruit are tiny.

Photo 11

Tree near Memorial Garden

Photo 12

It has tiny fruits on it

Identification must probably wait until spring when we see the leaves and flowers. It reminds me of some of the apple trees I used to take care of when I was a kid except for the tiny fruit hanging from the branches. I vaguely remember seeing a tree “all white” with flowers in this area last spring. Thinking about this tree makes me wonder whether somebody planted it for its appearance or it just happened to grow up near an area the congregation is using as a symbolic memorial to members of the congregation who have died.