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Category Archives: Our Forest
Double Rainbow
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Walls of Green
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June Forest
It was cool and windy yesterday. Click on the image for a larger view.
Oak Apple Gall
While clearing up some low hanging limbs on one of our oak trees, I found this under a leaf—an oak apple gall. The gall is created by a tiny wasp of the Cynipidae family that lays its egg in a young oak leaf. The secretions from the egg cause the leaf to mutate and create this structure—humans are not the first to experiment with genetic engineering. If you open the gall up, you will find a small center capsule that holds the larvae and is suspended by filaments stretching out to the thick walls of the gall. The wasp will emerge later in the summer. This gall is about an inch in diameter. Click on the image for a larger view.
Blackberry in Bloom
Our fruit plants are going through their annual flowering cycle. At the beginning of May, our wild plum was in bloom. The middle of may brought the blossoms out in our apple and peach trees. Now our blackberry canes are blossoming. These are in our field, but the blackberry under our forest canopy are also out. Click on the image for a larger view.
Celebrating Spring Revisited
At the end of April, I was so excited about the arrival of spring. The flora was returning and the weather was warm. A month later, the forest is a rich mass of green. Oddly enough, in winter, the forest is spacious and full of light, yet there is an absence of life. Now, it is dark and closed, but full of the vitality. Click on the image for a different view.
The First Foliage
The emergence of the spring foliage always takes me by surprise. Not only in how fast it happens—it seems like last week the trees were just beginning to bud—but also in the intensity of color. This evening’s sun seemed to make the forest glow in a burning green-yellow flame.
The other thing that caught my attention this evening was was the scent of new plants. While the air in winter is fresh and clean, it is rather sanitized. You seem to forget the world has a fragrance. And when I passed our lilac trees, the sweetness of the air was almost unreal. It is really nice to see spring taking hold. Click on the image for a larger view.
Plum in Bloom
Our wild plum are now in bloom. The trees cluster around an old ash at the entrance of our driveway. Since the forest has not come into foliage, the light from the setting sun strikes them in the evening. The bloom are still white, but they will turn pink as the leaves come out. In August, we can harvest the fruit. Click on the image for a larger view.
Cicada
The exuvia of a cicada nymph. Click on the image for a larger view.
