Where The Wild Things Are- All or Nothing

It has been a winter of all or nothing. Sunshine or endless grey, bitterly cold, mild temps, ice or feet of snow. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground. So it is small wonder that I was taken aback while driving up 71 by Cedar Lake. As I approached the south end of the lake, enjoying the sunshine, I saw that here was a darkness shadowing the end of the lake. My mind went to where the trees stood along the shore, where the sun was angling across the landscape. Nothing made sense to my eyes. Why would there be a shadow there? On the lake?

Eyes back on the road, because I’m driving, and I realized what it was. There were small clouds in the sky. It was only a shadow of a cloud, covering only part of the lake. In this winter of all or nothing, I had forgotten that it could be both cloudy and sunny at the same time! It is strange what our eyes and minds start to accept as normal. It seems like it has always been winter and always will be. When we are in the depths of summer, we can not really call to mind what snowdrifts are like, the bitter cold wind. But we are in the time of changes. Soon the fish houses must be off the lake, although the lake still seems frozen solid. Daylight savings time will soon kick in and evenings with daylight will become a thing again, giving time for nature walks after supper, in not so cold winds. The ice that has held the road in its grip for what seems like years will slowly melt away. Mud will come. Then the green. I have observed that on the road, where the small springs and creeks creep along. There is not only a lack of snow… but green. It’s coming…

Sundogs. Photo by Ann Luloff

Where The Wild Things Are- Bees, Bears, Birches, Fungi and Life

Today's ramble is about bees, bears, birches, fungi and life. It may be hard to see how these relate to each other, but hopefully, if you follow the bouncing ball, it will make sense at the end. Lets start with trees. In particular birches and tamaracks. They both grow in abundance on Camphill land. On these trees grow fungi. Tinder polypore, chaga and Red belted Polypore. As you may know from other writings, most of fungi is not the part that shows, but is underground, within the tree, spread out in a much larger area than the mushroom itself. Those connecting parts are called the mycelium. So we have the trees and the fungi. But what about the bears? Well, bears scratch trees. They like to lick the sweet sap. The same sap that contains mycelium. 

But on an aside, we must talk about men and bears. Lumbermen did not like that the bears scratch trees. It detracted from the value of the lumber. So they had bounties on bears. Well, as it turns out the bears also bring salmon out of the water, adding nutrients to the soil so trees grew bigger. So without the balance bears brought, the lumber industry suffers. Now back to the main point.

If you are familiar with chaga, you know that it has some very interesting medicinal properties. The Tinder polypore was also discovered in the 1960's to contain antivirals (Hippocrates said that in 450 BCE, but who's counting?). The red belted polypore has been proven to break down all kinds of toxins, such as pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. So we have three fungi, growing on particular trees, connected by mycelium (which shares these properties) just sitting out there in the woods. The bears scratch them, causing wounds, where the fungi grow. Now for the bees.

Bees are in trouble in our world from many different causes, loss of nutrition, loss of forage land, parasites that carry mites that carry viruses and exposure to pesticides. But what, do you ask, does that have to do with the bears and the trees and the fungi??? Everything.

When bees have to travel further to forage, they don't make it back to the hive, as they would if there were ample foods closer. In a hive the younger bees work in the hive, caring for the young, cleaning up the mites, and then when they are older, they become foragers. When the foragers go out and don't make it back, younger bees need to go out sooner, leaving less bees to do the work in the hive, causing stress there, more mites and more viruses, and eventually causing the collapse of the colony. 

So now we take the leap...The bees drink the sap from the birch and tamaracks, where the bears have torn the trees open (or the trees have damage from other reasons). The bees will also remove leaf debris on the forest floor and access the mycelium that way. The sap contains the antivirals and other really good stuff. It helps that bees stay healthier, with the workers living longer and the hive in general in better health to fight off the viruses. 

So long story short, we need the decaying trees in the woods and the fungi that grows on them. We need the fungi that we know about that does amazing things, and to keep all the stuff we don't have a clue about, because the next big cure may be right under our noses. We need bears to be bears and trees to be trees, and the forest to be raw and messy and full of life. So if you go out in the woods, winter is a good time to see the polypores and the chaga. Now you will appreciate it even more...

Photo Red Belted Polypore in Camphill. Photo by Ann Luloff

Where The Wild Things Are- Surviving the Wild Winter

The weather has really been a wild thing this month! Soft fluffy flakes, piling up. Blizzard strength winds causing whiteout conditions, sunny and frigid. Rain, sleet, coatings of ice. Now thirty degrees, cloudy, and warm enough to not hurt your face. It seems hard to deal with as a human. How many layers of clothes will be enough today? Are the roads passable? If I go somewhere, will I get home again? Should I stock up on some groceries just in case? Is it easier as an animal? They certainly don't seem to worry about it like we do. Instinct tells them how much food to store away, where to go to be safe from the storms. 

There are species that not only survive, they thrive in the cold temperatures. This is the time of owls. They don't seem to mind the cold and wind. They are setting up territories and preparing nest. Some, like the great horned owls, use crow and squirrel nests. Other like the barred owl like holes in trees, deep pockets that will help protect the eggs and young. In February they lay eggs. They will sit on them, snow or rain, subzero temps. Then in the end of February the eggs will hatch and the endless feeding of hungry owlets begins. This hatching may seem early for those of us who hide in heated buildings most of the winter, but it reflects the time when many animals that the owls eat are producing the next generation. Rabbits, mice and voles, large litters that quickly out grow nests and are forced out into the snowy landscapes. 

The owlets grow quickly on a rich diet and it only takes a few weeks and they get large enough to outgrow their nest, and learn to fly enough to go away into the woods, where they are much less likely to become lunch for another.

Deer, fox, coyotes are out and about the instant weather allows. All in search of the next meal, a good place to bed down. Cubs will soon be born in the underground dens. Milk will only suffice for a time, then prey will be needed to feed hungry mouths. 

So even when you are tucked in your home, with a blanket and a hot beverage, the world just keeps going on around you. Spring will come when it does, teasing us a few times before it lasts. If you get out, enjoy the brief moments of snowy intensity, the blinding white and the breath stealing cold. Listen for the owls, quietly hooting. Life will be there when you shovel out...

Where The Wild Things Are- The Secret Behind Snow Flakes

Snow. Frozen water. Intricate hexagonal structures, each an individual. It has it's beauty, it has it's hazards. Before we get too much further along, let me issue a warning. If you are one those people who love to catch snowflakes on your tongue, you might not want to read any further. There. You have been warned.

We think we know about things, and then we learn more. And it kind of turns your world on it's side. 32 degrees. The temperature when water turns to frozen. Ice. Snow. Snizzle. What ever you call it, it freezes. Right? Wrong. It turns out that water actually doesn't freeze at 32 degrees. It actually freezes at much lower temps. But why then do we think and see water freezing at 32 degrees??? To delve deeper requires a bit of science. Pure water is H2O. We don't have much pure water in our world. The closest you will probably find is highly filtered water like the bottles of Evian. Because it is pure (or close enough for our purposes) it doesn't freeze at 32 degrees. Go ahead and stick a bottle of it in your freezer, I'll wait. Okay. Presuming you did that, you now have a bottle of really cold water, that is not frozen. If you now open it and add a contaminant, like a speck of dirt, bacteria, etc, it will instantly freeze solid. 

I won't go into the scientific principles, but now you know that what makes water freeze at 32 degrees is not the water, but the contaminants in it. But Ann, what kind of contaminants are in the air that would cause snow to form, and why would nature do this whole process? 

Every breathe you take you inhale all kinds of things besides oxygen. Living things. Like bacteria. But the human body is remarkably resilient. It processes all kinds of things and just passes them through. The air has lots of bacteria in it. All kinds. Some we are familiar with, as they can cause colds and other illnesses. Other kinds have no effect on us. But they all are very tiny and light. So light that they cannot float down to the earths surface. So how do these lighter than air bacteria get to the ground, to the plants that they need for life, get down? They find themselves a friendly drop of water. And once they attach to the water, it becomes able to freeze at 32 degrees. It makes snow possible. Then it floats down, lands on plants, the ice causes damage to the plants surface creating an opening for the bacteria to get in, and the life cycle of the bacteria continues. 

So now you know about how the bacteria lifecyle is part of the larger cycles of weather. So now that you know each snowflake has to contain a contaminate. Whether dust, bacteria, or something else, in every snowflake is something more. Will that stop you from catching them on your tongue the next time it gently falls from the sky? Maybe not. But I highly recommend not eating yellow snow. That is just another thing all together. So go for a walk and enjoy the beauty of the (nots-so-pure) white snow.

Snow in the woods, by Ann Luloff

Where The Wild Things Are- Fresh Snow

Fresh snow. A clean white undisturbed page, waiting to be written on. Sometimes the first tracks are mine, but often, as I push further on, I find that others have been out and about. This morning, after two days of avoiding the unshoveled depths, I stepped out on paths buried in several inches of fluff. The only clue of the path’s existence is the lack of grasses sticking up along its length. Tall grasses and the remains of goldenrod spread across the rest of the field.

The first tracks I come upon are those of a mouse or vole. Dribbling out of a tiny hole, skittering across the light snow that doesn't seem hard enough to support a leaf, and over the drifts. It surprises me how far they travel, yards across the white surface. Do they know how vulnerable they are? Dark moving shapes against the light background, obvious even in the dim light of stars. Do they see it as freedom? No longer needing to weave through endless grass stems, over rocks that seem like mountains. Or are they just young and find the snow irresistible? Most of the mice alive this early winter have never seen snow before. Mice have short lives. A favorite lunch of many creatures. They reproduce several times a year, and most will not see a second year. So how do they know how to survive? Instinct? Mousy myths passed down from elders on long moonlit nights? Regardless, they venture forth.

Not to far on I find the tracks of a predator. The least weasel. I'm sure it found sustenance bounding along. The tracks go all over, impossible to sort out who went where, and when. There is no obvious carnage. Further on more tracks. This time a predator after both the others. A fox cutting through the field, its tracks showing where it found interesting things to smell and track down. I have no doubt that it went to sleep in a cozy den with the sun coming up, belly assuaged.

My own tracks soon turned toward home, the effort of pushing through snow which cannot support my weight, too much. At some point the snow will pack down and form a tougher skin, and snowshoes will give me an advantage. I will be back.

Where The Wild Things Are- The First Snow

The snow falls silently. Delicate white trails appear, following branches, tracing paths not seen in the mass of tangled branches while summer reigns. There is a magic in being the first to walk in a blanket of snow. The feeling of being the first and only to witness this silence. Then you notice the tiny track of a bird who landed in the road. A few hops and it was gone again. Here is the trail of a mouse that braved the wide open to get to seeds, still tucking away a hoard for the deep winter.

Ice has appeared, covering the ponds and even Cedar Lake. It's smooth surface tempts, but wiser heads know that it is not yet enough to hold anything but the snow. Soon enough little houses will form communities over the best fishing spots. The muskrat still show up on the edges, ready to dive for safety at a sudden movement or sound.

The river is open, flowing at flood stage when it should be low and slow. The power of the water will keep it open for a while, but one morning, after weeks if cold, it will submit and become yet another white spot in the landscape..

Deer hunting keeps me from where I want to walk, but soon I will trudge through winter postcards, finding beauty in the frozen landscape.

Where The Wild Things Are- Moving Inward or Onward

The sun is shining. Just looking out there it doesn't seem too bad. Then you step out and find out the wind has teeth and the sun has little strength these days. It has been a rough fall. Either rain, or clouds, or colder than normal temperatures. The wind has stripped away the fall color, except a few solid oaks that will hang on until the spring. The grasses, after a really wet year, maintained it's green color far longer than normal. Finally after the frost have hit, they are browning and drying out.

Flocks of birds come and go. Robins and bluebirds have still been seen around as late as last week. Juncos filter through from their summer homes in the far north. The sandhill cranes are flocking up, in the National Crane Refuge by Little Falls, and other places, but you can still occasionally hear them calling in the fields.

Geese and ducks are starting their journeys to warmer climates, it seems like they should have been passing by already, but the cooler temps have fooled us. Their time is still to come.

I have been feeding chickadees and blue jays at my feeder, with a fair share going to a chipmunk. Suet attracts the woodpeckers, including the pileated. Juncos come through and dig through the leaves for seeds.

Hawks soar overhead. They sit on the electric poles, and the tops of trees, always looking for the next meal. The next meal is most likely a rodent, seen from a vantage point and swooped down on.

There is a bald eagle that sits in a tree by the corner. There was a roadkill deer in the ditch nearby, but that has long been devoured. Still it sits there. Waiting. I feel like I am also waiting. Waiting for the dry days of August, the sunny, cooler days of September, the shorter, but still bright October landscapes. Their time has passed. Now I must wait and see what November does. Short days, cold winds, sullen skies. But since nothing is as it seems, perhaps it will also fools us. It could be warm, bright, and leave us eating turkey in short sleeves and flip flops. Welcome to November. Get out there and enjoy it, dress appropriately, and put your face to the sun...

Where The Wild Things Are- Blackbirds in Motion

My excursions into the woods and prairies can be unremarkable. Somedays it seems there is little to see that is new or exciting. It is cold enough that the fungi are not popping up like they were just a few weeks ago. Flowers and grasses have faded. The strong winds and rains have stripped the trees of much of the color that we were just beginning to enjoy. The skyholes have opened up in my little section of woods, allowing me to see through, acknowledging to myself that my woods doesn't go on forever.

But sometimes, when you least expect it, nature can surprise you. I took a trip to Glacial Lakes State Park on Sunday. I knew the colors were past peak, but the urge to get out on what could be one of the last nice days of fall was too much to ignore. The blend of woods and prairie always makes for an interesting walk. Broad vistas of brown hills roll away in the distance. Winding paths through the oaks, now showing their gnarled trunks and branches. A wood frog on the path. Then, as rain clouds moved in, it happened.

The noise caught my attention first. Loud and raucous, seeming to come from north and south. Blackbirds. Our local blackbirds have been gone for a week or two, already south. These must be traveling from further north, from the plains and potholes in Canada. And not just a flock high above. These were on the ground, in the trees and flying in endless streams along the trails.

A murmuration is when a flock of birds flys in an undulating mass, that often turns back on itself and seems to be one creature. Other species do this, but this was a flock of blackbirds, redwinged, brewers, and grackles. For a time I was in the middle, as birds were moving constantly from north to south and back again. As I walked up the trail, those closest would lift, then more would join them. Some disappeared over a hill, while others would circle around and cover the ground behind me. It was impossible to count how many, but I would estimate over a thousand birds swirled over the prairie. The noise, the movement, the pure energy of life. It is a moment I will not forget any time soon.

It was a reminder that we don't know what awaits us over the next hill, or around a bend. So put on a jacket, and a hat, maybe some gloves, and go for a walk...nature awaits.

A flock of migrating blackbirds against the fall poplars.

Where The Wild Things Are- Blue October Skies

The blue skies of October. I had forgotten they existed. Seemingly perpetual rain and clouds had turned my vision downward. But, then, the clouds broke open and beyond even the bright sunlight lay a sea of blue. As humans we tend to focus on whatever shiny bauble is in front of us at the moment. The rest of the world disappears into the blurry side vision. We quickly forget the the sun is still up there, shining away, even when we can not see it. I think this is true of most things in life. Do I really remember the colors of autumn or the blazing white of winter snows when I am not in the middle of them. Can I remember the varied colors of soft flower petals, much less the delicate scents when they have faded?

When the sun hits the yellow and reds of autumn leaves, with the blue sky so bold behind it, I think I will never forget this moment. That in the depths of winter. I will recall this and commit it to paper or canvas. We will see.

And about that blue sky, is it really different than the sky of summer or spring? As an artist I can tell you that color is all about the humans ability to perceive it. If you have a blue sky against a foreground of greens, both will not seem so intense. They are next to each other on the color wheel. But if you move opposite on the color wheel, from blue to orange, it is a different sight. If you add a bit of blue sky holes in your yellow to red trees, both seem much more colorful. The same blue sky will pop against fall colors creating those almost edible landscapes we love at this time of year. So the sky does look different. It may not be, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this beholder can't get enough of the riot of fall colors and blue sky! I hope you get to fill your senses before...well, you know...that other season comes.

Where The Wild Things Are- A Bee’s Life (and death)

It is the time of the year when things, while not necessarily slow down in nature, present less opportunities to see "new" things. All the flowers have come, and most have gone. Leaves are falling, animals either leaving or busy filling larders for the winter. Some have reached the end of their cycles, having passed on their genes to the next generation, butterflies and dragonflies being the most obvious of these. While some butterflies and dragonflies will migrate, most either winter over in the dead leaves, emerging in the spring to mate and then die, or they have already laid their eggs, which will lay dormant until spring and the begin the larval stage.

I haven't always given much thought to bees. Bumblebees in particular. This fall I have noticed that as I walk by thistle plants in the cool mornings and waning afternoon warmth, that many of the lingering blossoms have bees on them. Most times one sometimes two, they just seem to be sleeping there.

Upon further research I learned more about these bumbleing bees of fall. As fall approaches they switch from producing worker bees to Queen bees and mating males. Only the queens will survive the winter, already having mated and full of eggs. The males, once they have done their part of the job, eat, sleep and pass away. They like to cuddle into blossoms and I can imagine them, after a hard summer (6 to 8 weeks) they tucking into the soft petals, occasionally sipping some sweet nectar, until they pass to the other side.

So the next time you walk past a late blooming thistle or other flower, take a peek. The end of summer, wrapped up in a furry yellow and black jacket is taking it's final repose.

A Bee’s Final Resting Place