Category Archives: Nature

To the woods

March 12, 2013Family, Land, Nature, Thoughtssit a spell, Woods y'allwarren

Abigail and I went to the cabin this weekend to do a little work on the place. We started out by planting onions. I like onions so we started with 60 sets. Abigail loves to get dirty and Emily hates it when she does, so it was a perfect opportunity since it was just the two of us. I emptied a few new bags of soil and a bag of manure (yeah, I bought it…I hope some neighbors will help me out with some next time around) into a raised bed we made. Abigail helped me space them out and we got as much dirt as we could under our nails.

After we licked our fingers clean, Abigail wanted to take a walk into the woods. It was such a beautiful day, how could I refuse a walk in the woods? We started down a path we hadn’t walked before and found a really great log down on the ground for sitting. We decided to sit a spell. It took a few minutes, but after a bit, Abigail stopped rustling around and it got really quiet. She commented how quiet it was in the woods. It was nice…she turned back to the woods and just sat and stared over the holler without another sound. I suppose we sat like that for 10 minutes or so. Eventually, we got up and spotted a deer trail off to one side and decided to follow it in to the woods.

We stopped again when Abigail spotted a hole in the ground. It was right where the deer trail went so it was easy to find. We stood still for a second and heard running water. There wasn’t a stream to speak of, but we heard running water down in the hole I suppose we discovered a spring though we never saw it come out anywhere. It didn’t matter…we had already cleaned our fingernails anyhow!

We continued on and spotted a small standing pool of water and another spring and an old bleached out turtle shell. We watched a pileated woodpecker for a few minutes and sat a few more spells on a couple of rocks. We saw some really cool trees that looked like birch trees but they were a a lot larger than any birch tree I have ever seen. We talked and picked out our favorite lichens. I must have brushed up against something on our walk as I now have a rash over my entire body. It’s just the price one pays I suppose. It was well worth it to have this great opportunity to spend some time with my daughter when she told me she wanted to go to the woods. It just doesn’t get any better!

Baby it’s cold outside

January 22, 2013Nature, WVColder than a witch's..., Nature, WVwarren

Winter is not my friend. I generally do not like a single thing about it. This week, we are supposed to get colder than average temperatures with the lowest on Tuesday…single digit stuff. We have a little tradition in our house that started by accident…whenever it’s cold outside, we sing (repeatedly) that Christmas-ish song, Baby it’s cold outside. The kids sing it. We sing it. It’s usually loud and bad and we rarely get past the first verse. And it’s bad. We love it though!

Anyhow, my blogging and real-life friend Granny Sue put up a great poem she wrote about the cold…check it out. My poems on cold would be a study in four letter words so I will spare you that.

So, instead, I thought I would post a few pics I have taken as I stand with Isaac at the bus stop…in the cold…and dark.

I do like one thing about winter and cold I guess. I like turning the heat up, piling on a big stack of blankets (which in my case, means one blanket on especially cold days), drinking hot tea non-stop and laughing at the wind with my sweetie. I know we need the cold to reset Mother Nature and all so I guess I will make the most of the crisp cool mornings at sunrise when I get to see the beauty around me and take a few special minutes to talk to Isaac in the dark. His guard is down in the dark (or maybe it’s the onset of hypothermia?) and we get to talk about a little bit of everything.

Bring on the Arctic blast…I am ready and so is my hot tea!

Do you know what I lichen the moss?

November 22, 2012NatureNaturewarren

Do you get that title or is it too obscure? Do you know what I like most? I like being outside. Well, I like my family and bacon the very most but after those things, I like anything outdoors.

Please click on these pics to enlarge…I think the detail is so cool!

We were up at my parents’ house the other weekend and I was struck but how many awesome mossy or lichen bearing trees they had. I have always been fascinated by lichen. I remember a great pair of oak trees behind the house that were covered in lichen. Those trees are gone, but the lichen spread!

And moss! Holy cow! If you look around, it’s not hard to find all sorts of moss variants. Some look like little ferns and others look like extraterrestrial herpes (just speculating on appearance) or something. Did you know that moss holds a tremendous amount of water and often times, that water is safe to drink?

As I understand it, moss has an iodine-esque substance in it that makes it somewhat antibiotic. I have drunk moss water many times and haven’t died though don’t trust me…I can barely run a hammer.

Anyhow, I love to look at these oft-overlooked flora and hope you’ll enjoy the pics too!

Large cluster of Chanterelles

November 21, 2012NatureNaturewarren

We were driving up the dirt road to the cabin the other day and I spied, with my magic mushroom eye (my eye is magic, not the mushrooms) a beautiful cluster of chanterelle mushrooms. I know you may be asking yourself how mushrooms can be beautiful, but in addition to a great taste, these mushrooms have an excellent yellow color and they just look so soft and cuddly. Well, I guess you wouldn’t want to cuddle mushrooms, but to me, they just begged to be touched.

Do you ever find yourself looking at something and you just have to touch it? I do it all of the time and I just had to touch these mushrooms as well.

I didn’t pick any because they were a little past prime and they were not on my property. I know some folks don’t mind picking stuff they find along the road but I sort of feel funny about it. I’d be mad if I had a great crop growing, just waiting for it to be perfect only to find it picked by someone else. Anyhow, I made note of where they were and will ask whoever owns the land next year in proper mushroom hunting season.

EDIT: Upon further investigation, it turns out that this may be a jack-o’-lantern mushroom which is mildly poisonous. When they are back in season, I will investigate further!

I tend to dislike autumn only because it precedes winter (which I absolutely despise). The beautiful mushrooms and a dead hornets’ nest do help to make me see autumn in a little more favorable light. Maybe I just need to look around a little harder…

I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok (though just barely)

October 26, 2012House, NatureHouse, Naturewarren

We had that massive mess-making derecho storm around June. We were out of town for all of the fun but had to drive through the heart of the storm which was terrifying. We had a good weekend away and all that, but when we came home, we found that a number of trees had not fared well. We cleaned up the immediate messes but the remaining parts of one tree that still hung over our house bothered me.

A few weekends ago, my folks were down for a visit. We are always good for a project while they are here as my Dad is good at helping me think through things. He also gets a good laugh when I press onward and do something stupid in spite of our planning. Anyhow, we decided to cut the one tree that hangs over my dining room, power lines, AC, dog house, chain link and vinyl fences as well as Isaac’s bedroom and my patio with glass table and a nice picket fence. Sounds like fun, eh?

A few years ago I bought an electric chainsaw for trimming tree limbs. Cutting this tree down is like trimming, right? Who cares? I used it to cut a lot of this tree down and only got the saw stuck in the tree one time where it was above my head such that I couldn’t reach it to get it down. That part…not fun.

We used some ropes, a ladder, my electric saw, and some foul language to bring down this ugly stupid house-hating tree…mostly anyhow. I have one more section to cut but I just need to wait for a really windy day…or not. I’ll wait for a day when Emily and the kids are away so I can sing that last limb a nice lullaby…a profanity-laced, meet-your-final-demise-stinking-tree lullaby.

I came away (so far) mostly intact so I consider myself a near-professional tree trimmer now! So where are my flip-flops again? I have another branch to cut!

Check out this huge mushroom!

September 11, 2012NatureNaturewarren

We were out at the land this weekend and Emily happened upon this huge mushroom! I do not think I have ever seen a mushroom this big before. I have seen shelf mushrooms on trees and hen-of-the-woods before, but of traditionally shaped mushrooms, I do not think I have ever seen one bigger!

I looked through my mushroom books and nothing caught my eye so I do not know what sort of mushroom this is. Does anyone else know? It had seen better days but I loved the little triangular ridges with the yellow triangles inside. It looked sort of pretty which I know is sort of strange to say about fungus. I don’t know about you, but I am continually amazed at the diversity of life that I have in my little corner of the world. Simply amazing!

Edit: I think this is a Calvatia cyathiformis

West Virginia Wild Flowers – Part 2

August 27, 2012Nature, WVNature, WVwarren

Well, just like the last time, I noticed that there were a bunch more pretty flowers…and some other scenes that just really struck me about how pretty WV (and more specifically my little part of WV) really is. I hope you enjoy them even half as much as I did!

(click on each pic to enlarge…I think they are even prettier that way!)

West Virginia wild flowers

August 24, 2012Nature, WVNature, WVwarren

Here are some more nature pics I took recently. I was driving up to the property by myself the other morning and for some reason, I took a few minutes to slow down and notice what a pretty trip it is once I get off of the main road. I stopped every hundred feet or so (it seemed) and took pics of some of the beautiful sights and scenes around me. I hope you enjoy even half as much as I did!

(click on each pic to enlarge…I think they are even prettier that way!)

These are all growing in the ditch lines on the old dirt road on the way up to the property. There are so many more things growing up there…I wish I could spend more time exploring…I can only imagine what grows wild. I just never noticed how much blooms this late in the summer…I always think of spring as the time of flowers…boy was I wrong!

Bull Thistle

August 22, 2012Nature, WVNature, WVwarren

I know this stuff is a nuisance to most people. In fact, when I was in college, I worked as a lifeguard at the Cook Forest State Park swimming pool (which I believe is gone now, sadly…my Mom worked there eons before I did). There was a ton of fun to be had as a lifeguard and the forest itself was beautiful. If you ever need a place to visit in PA, consider Cook Forest.

Anyhow, the superintendent at the park hated bull thistle. The pool opened on Memorial Day each year and in PA (at least then), it could still be quite cool. They also filled the pool from a deep well which ran about 50 degrees…it took awhile to be swimmable even if the air was warmer. So, when we had really cool days, the chief would come by and send some of us out to rid the park of all bull thistle. I hated that job and at that time, I vowed to never view thistle as an enemy again (at least not until I have power equipment to deal with it). You see, we cut it by hand then and it was not an amusing pastime.

All of these pictures were taken at our place and the thistle are pretty rampant. All sorts of insects love them though and I have no strong urge to deal with the thistle so, for now, they will remain an insect paradise and a great source of late summer color!

Maybe she did swallow the spider to eat the fly

August 17, 2012Bees, NatureHoneybees, Naturewarren

Many of you have probably heard the nursery rhyme about the old lady who swallowed a fly. I do not remember it from my childhood but our kids loved to hear us tell them the story. It’s an old story but may freak out some folks (as a proper nursery rhyme should!)

So, as my father-in-law and I were pulling honey supers off of the hives last week, I noticed a funny little spider loitering. Spiders often loiter around bee hives. Roaches do too but I shall speak no more of them. I hate roaches. Actually, all sorts of bugs hang around bee hives to pick up the detritus naturally generated by the colony.

So, I watched my spider friend for a few minutes and sure enough, in a quick move, he reached up and grabbed a bee that I had injured in the harvesting process. I may be wrong, but I think that is the first time I have seen a spider make off with a bee! I am always amazed by the circle of life (or whatever you want to call it) that goes on around a bee hive. Aside from the colony itself, the bees support other nearby bugs as well as providing pollination services to many trees and other flowering plants. Most importantly, they provide me with honey!

Anyhow, I love to just watch the bees and take time to see what happens around the hive. There is quite an education to be had there. If I ever swallow a fly (or a bee), I am definitely going to swallow a spider too!

In case you are not familiar, here are the lyrics to The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly rhyme…

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and wiggled and tiggled inside her;
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady who swallowed a bird;
How absurd to swallow a bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady who swallowed a cat;
Fancy that to swallow a cat!
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady that swallowed a dog;
What a hog, to swallow a dog;
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady who swallowed a cow,
I don’t know how she swallowed a cow;
She swallowed the cow to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady who swallowed a horse…
She’s died, of course!

The moral of the story: Never swallow a horse!

My Home Among The Hills

Life in WV!