Last Weekend's Camp



It was damp and breezy, but not the blowout weather reporters were forecasting. 

Our site, which I picked on a scouting trip a couple of weeks back was good in every measure, except one feature that I missed -adjacent to the Taconic Parkway. Oops. 

We were completely concealed from the other camp sites and the bathrooms, which were only across the road, thanks to some large boulders, and otherwise surrounded by the woods. The air had what I call the mineral scent, probably having more to do with decay than stones, but that's what it brings to my mind.

I am new to camping, although not completely, as I once lived out of my truck in NM for two months, and have overnighted on various cross-country trips. Once I back-packed in Hell's Canyon, but that's a story for another day. Packing the van took way too long, it seemed that I was bringing the whole house, one of everything, a Noah's Ark for domestic objects. I was a little frustrated by needing too much, but at the campground I could see that everyone else had too much, just like we did, and somehow this quelled my frustration. 

My favorite part of  the trip was waking up in the chilled morning, the coolness already enveloping me, jumping up and out to take some pictures.

 How rare it is that I am up at 6 am! The sun just coming above the ridge. 

It wasn't nearly as cold as we expected, the air was fresh, from the north, and the wind was brisk, but high in the canopy. 

And the geese hawnking overhead.

We started the fire for breakfast and coffee. Potatoes were boiled the day before, onion and garlic chopped, all in the pan with some oil. 

I began that morning by making Marie's camp bread (self-rising flour and milk, pinch of salt -recipe here). In fact, if it weren't for reading about her camping endeavors, I probably would have never reached beyond eggs and potatoes. She made bread seem possible, and to some degree, effortless. To ensure my over-reach, I had also brought with me a' no-knead' bread dough begun on Thursday night. That bread suffered from the chilly air, not rising to expectations, but still good enough to eat. It appears that bread can be made on an open fire.

The camp bread came out well, if a bit burnt on the bottom (I used an enameled steel oven, not heavy enough) and everyone thought it was awesome with jam and butter. Friends were impressed, although I'm not sure the crust should look like cooling lava.

Afterwards -eggs to order, with potatoes.

This plant was all around the campsite and I thought it was a kind of wintergreen, actually confusing it with Spotted Wintergreen until I stumbled upon that later. Still no understanding of what it is. *Update* Thanks to Ellen Zachos (and an anonymous), I can now safely say this is Mitchella repens, or Partridgeberry.

The funky crumpled ribbons of autumn blooming witchhazel, Hamamelis virginiana, near our campsite.

Of course, Solidago -the kind I often see in the woods, I believe is S. caesia, Bluestem Goldenrod, near camp.

On Saturday we went out for a hike around Pelton Pond, and then connected to a small section of the Appalachian Trail around Canopus Lake. I've never actually hiked any of the AT, although I've driven passed its many trail heads throughout New England. It's always held an allure, the three month hike, Maine to Georgia, August to November. I can say with confidence, that won't happen, but 5K on a Saturday, yes sir.

 A sleepy, and maybe sick, raccoon on the trail. I went around it, while the others went above. It never moved from its spot, but was irritated with us.

This waterfall drains a swamp over the ledge, tumbling down an impressive swath of  rocky slope toward Canopus Lake, which was possibly named after a nearby Wappinger community of a similar name. Dig a little into the Native American/Colonial history in these parts and there's blood on every stone, knowledge of which often obfuscated by the later wars of the plains.

Beauty tempers those thoughts.

Canopus Lake


Awesome


Chris over at The Occasional Gardener is now living in Malaysia (instead of NYC), revealing things that may be commonplace, exotic or unusual, and sometimes all three -such as this. What an idea, how silly that I didn't think of that. And how odd,too, because it is a stump, which is, well, as good looking as the word is poetry. Now I want to make one, using all my talent for re-presentation. I will make the best stump garbage container in all of NYC! How funny.



Beach


Two Sundays back the weather was perfect, we headed to the beach farm, and then to the beach. No one was out there, probably all stuck in traffic driving north for the colors. I've always loved the beach off season, not being much of a swimmer, but for the air, the rhythm, and all those objects softened by the sand and surf.







The jellyfish, neither jelly nor fish.

More like ice.

Glistening.

Wishing I could eat it, imagining it like a gummy bear or sea-flavored candy fruit.


Over the dunes

 Seaside Goldenrod and Northern Bayberry, Myrica pensylvanica.

Their waxy, spicy fruit are really abundant this year.


Beach Farm: Week 11



It's now come to farming in the dark. Upset too, because I left my 15 year old Felco no. 2 at the farm, in the dark, rushing to get out of there before the damp wind got under my skin. I hope it's still sitting wherever I left it when I return -maybe on Friday.

Peas.

Grow already.

Radishes.

Today's haul, minus two lemons.


Bloom City




Front garden asters and max sunflowers -unfortunately cut in bulk by a greedy admirer.

The self-seeded borage.

Now that the heat of summer has passed, the path's alyssum looks good as new.

New Dawn's hips finally orange.

Side yard max sunflowers.

Eupatorium and aster together.

Honey bees hot for 'Alma Potschke.'

Asclepias tuberosa seeds.

The garden has been colonized by Snakeroot, formerly Eupatorium rugosum, now Ageratina altissima.

The under-appreciated individual flowers of Sedum.

The other asters -these more pointy-petaled and later blooming.

The gerbera daisy blooming in its pot.

White Gaura still gliding through the air.

Monkshood, Aconitum napellus (probably).

A look under the hood.

The unstoppable 'Sheffield's are now in bloom.

Other plants are still in bloom -the goldenrod, the phlox, the lily turf, the shrub rose, the honeysuckle, and even 'New Dawn.' It could be said the front garden has matured, and with it I have become aware of the movement of time, the passing of years, its inherent clockwork. It is both designed to take less of my time and I have less time for it. Yet I am comforted by the appreciation of so many passers-by, lending their presence -a certain kind of care all its own.


Good Foundation


I feel like writing outside of my normal framework, about painting and specifically, the technical and artistic issues that I confront in and out of the studio. Last week I began building a new support, the painting surface, the foundation of my work, for an addition to another painting that I am working on. Sometimes painters do this -we add more real estate to a current painting that needs more space.

About 12 years ago I stopped painting on canvas. That's how we were taught to do it, on stretched cotton canvas (duck) and it made sense for those extra large paintings I liked to make in my twenties. Yet I never liked the 'give' of the canvas when painting on it, or the inevitable sag to come later. Twelve years ago I began to paint on plywood (3/4" birch) and then MDF (medium density fiberboard, 3/4"). Each came with a specific set of advantages and problems, like all materials. Both were readily available, machinable, took painting grounds well, were rigid. The plywood is light, the mdf is smooth, without grain. Yet, the plywood has those difficult to conceal ply layers at the sides and the veneer layer would swell and shrink with humidity changes (causing at least one painting to crack with the grain). The mdf was heavy, would easily wafer if dropped or be totally destroyed if wet. After a decade of experimentation, I finally created a solution that brings those three materials, canvas, plywood, and mdf together to form a better, if not perfect, painting support.

Each panel is now made with 1/4-inch mdf, 1-inch birch plywood, and cotton muslin. The birch plywood is ripsawed to 1 and 3/4-inch strips which become what some call the 'cradle.' The birch cradle is cut to length, glued with a premium aliphatic wood glue, and mounted to 1/4-inch thick mdf panel.

After an initial set period of 10 minutes, spring clamps are added.

The birch cradle edges are tight-fitted and butt-jointed. The joint is glued and nailed with two 2-inch 18g brad nails. I find that this is satisfactory as the cradle's function is to maintain a uniformly straight panel and carries little weight (the glue is rated at 4000 psi). 

The entire panel: front, back, and sides -cradle included,  is then sealed with Golden 100% acrylic medium, also known as GAC 100. This creates the sheen you see in this image. The sealer keeps out atmospheric moisture, and seals in any remaining gas contained by the 1/4-inch mdf panel. On this point, I store my mdf sheets, upright, for at least a year before they are cut into panels, allowing them to offgas. 

After that first application of GAC 100, another layer is applied as a glue (or sizing) to the face of the panel, muslin at the ready. The sheet of muslin is then pressed firmly into the wet acrylic medium, and then the panel flipped, face down. Acrylic medium is then applied to the cradle sides, muslin pressed firmly, 'stretched' and stapled around the back edges of the cradle: one side, then the opposite, then the adjacent, then its opposite. I have no photos of this because it the acrylic sets fast, requiring my full attention.

Once all four sides are stretched and stapled, I can then fold and staple my corners. These are also 'glued' down with the acrylic medium. Typically I fold the edges over to the top and bottom, freeing the sides from visible folds. On this panel, I chose the opposite because I am mounting it atop another panel and wanted the gap between to be a minimum.

I then flip the panel onto its back. I apply another layer of acrylic medium, covering the face and sides while the layer under the muslin is still somewhat wet. I press this layer into the face of the muslin to integrate it with the acrylic below. The entire method is designed to achieve a tight, smooth face and side, with absolutely no wrinkles, no bubbles. Here you see the folded sides -two staples are added to keep the muslin flat more than to maintain the stretch.

This is the surface of the glued (or sized) cotton muslin. The muslin has natural imperfections, which I take wet sandpaper to after the first coat of white ground has dried.

Here is the entire panel, 24 x 49 inches, stretched and glued, ready for the white ground.

This is the panel after the first coat of white Golden Acrylic Gesso. Another two coats will be applied. Occasionally, I substitute the third coat of acrylic gesso with a white alkyd-based ground, which is similar to an oil white ground, but more fluid, flexible, and quick drying. The alkyd ground supplies a different type of painting surface than the acrylic gesso, which may be desireable depending on the particular painting. Gesso, of course, is a misnomer when applied to acrylic grounds. Traditional gesso is a mixture of hide glue and gypsum or chalk.

There is much debate over the use of time worn and contemporary techniques, and this is especially true in regards to grounds, gesso, and sizing. To use animal glues (animal rights, absorbs moisture, precise mixtures), to use oil grounds (too inflexible, too thick, destroys canvas), to use acrylic medium or PVA (too unknown), to use acrylic grounds with oil paints (impermanent), and on and on. There are extreme traditionalists and practitioners who have, in the face of so much ethereal imagery, given in to carelessness. I believe that my practices lie somewhere on the line between these two, having chosen to mix a hard, inflexible support (mdf panel) with flexible, contemporary grounds and glue (acrylic) that minimize the transfer of moisture, minimize physical movement of the support and paint.

The cloud covered moon on Monday night, just before the storm, from my studio.


Watching The Pot Boil

While this Nor'easter brews. I've been watching the weather every day this week as we have camping reservations for this Friday and Saturday night. First it was supposed to rain Wednesday, then Thursday and now I rise to a somewhat sunny morning. I've given in to the fact that it will rain Friday. Saturday -a big question mark. It's hard to say what will happen, but I'm thinking we'll go to town on Friday night to eat as opposed to lighting a campfire in the rain. We're pretty new to this kind of camping, that is the kind where you stay put, have your campfire breakfast and dinner, while hiking during the day. Well, if it rains all weekend, I suppose we can use the campground as an outdoor hotel, taking day trips to local sites. But, as of today, it's looking like a perfect, if cool (50 degrees F) weekend in the hills.

Planting Against The Tide



The temperature was 48 when we got out of bed on Sunday, but by the time we reached the farm, it must've been near 60. I weeded. Sweater removed. Vegetable gardens are a little sad at this time of the year. Pulling the old is necessary, but planting new things is important. Take stock. Take note. Keep the growing going.

I noticed these 'stink horn' type mushrooms growing near the chard. I pulled the chard.

The Caribbean Hots are just coming into their own, with many green fruits and flowers.

The generic sweet bell peppers have been granted a stay of expulsion from the garden. One more week, probation, to show us that they can turn sweet, or the very least, warm-toned yellow, orange, or ... We've got about 4 of these, all carrying about 5 fruits.

This is the generic eggplant flower -there are lots of these. The plants are healthy, but unlikely to produce anything with these cool temperatures and the low-hanging sun. They've been spared till first frost -for looks.

This is where the ichiban eggplants were. They are now in the compost heap. Planted here now, with all sorts of positivity, are the 'Piracicaba' broccoli (thanks Marie) seedlings  I sprouted a few weeks ago. Yes, farming ends in two weeks, but I didn't know that, right? Good weather, and a plastic cover should yield me something from these guys. Positivity.

Nearby is the celery, more tender stalked now than during the heat of summer. More practice with this one.

Our collards next to the freshly-cleared patch of all kinds of small tomatoes of my neighbor, Jimmy, who's brother is in the band Black 47 -this much we know.

Now that the shade of those tomatoes is no more, I used this spot to plant some spinach in nice little rows.

And the snap peas, they're on their way now. Grow grow grow before the snow snow snow. 

 These little guys, umm, they're some kind of salad greens -mesclun or arugula.

Very popular around the greater Ft. Tilden Community Garden.  

And this? I'll explain that to you later.

Yo Green Thum!


Robert is a lying panhandler like the Post says, but, can we give someone some credit for respecting gardening and gardeners?

Whenever he would see me, he'd yell "Yo green thum!" One day he gave me a book on houseplants after I helped him solve a problem with an english ivy cutting. Last spring, he stopped to ask how the gardening was going. A few small words between us. Then, as he strode on down the block, he stopped and turned.

"Yo green thum, can I ask you somethin?"

Uh, yeah.

"Do you love what you do?"

Yeah.

"You can tell, green thum. You can tell."

Robert is an alcoholic, fake amputee, panhandler, with mental and/or emotional problems. Yet, I'm going to give him a pass for that one comment.


Thunder

Courtesy of Wunderground.com
I saw the lightning from the studio window and I didn't want to get caught in the rain without my half-beaten umbrella, destroyed by one or another of the thunderstorms of this summer. I wasn't sure of the direction the storm was moving, all the while the chinny moon was in and out of our smokey warm front sky.

The yellow square indicates hail, the arrows direction, the notches in the arrows time till your neighborhood.
I made it home by 7:45 pm and only some low cracks and a few flashes, a drop on the sill, maybe two. The radar above tells a different story. Or not, this could be petering out. The storm V0 briefly had a tornadic signature over NJ, which I could see on the radial velocity radar image. Whenever I see a particularly intense thunderstorm, one with purple coloration and strong "shape" I check that radial velocity for the signature -something I did quite a few times this year.

The yellow diamond indicates a mesocyclone, which is simply a rotating storm which could lead to tornadic activity.

When I was a child I was horribly afraid of thunderstorms. So was my mother, and I think this is where I learned to fear. During really bad storms, which there always seemed to be, we would hunker down in the basement -a space somewhat capable of diminishing the experience of the storm. But, there were too many times that we kids were on our own, during storms, largely in summertime, in the afternoon, long before my parents would return from work. Those storms seemed so dangerous -as if the sky was after us, like a monster or hungry tiger ready to strike children.

I couldn't handle the loud, instant cracks of thunder -the sharp ones, the ones that feel like someone is shattering steel sheets over your head. I would plug my ears with my fingers to the point of ache. One time I was caught out on the open water in a skiff with my father. While we could see that a storm was brewing, he waited until the last minute to bring us in. I put my head between my legs so that I wasn't the highest point as lightning crashed around us, wind whipped waves driving the boat into the air. Another time, on the beach, a green sky storm seemed to stir up out of nowhere. Rushed from the water to the parking lot, lightning bolts crashing down yards away, but locked out of the car and waiting for my mother and aunt to make it with the keys.

It probably wasn't until my time in New Mexico that I truly began to get comfortable with thunderstorms. In my first few months there I lived out of my Ford pickup. It being monsoon season, afternoon, evening and night time thunderstorms were the norm. That first month was hellish as I tried to sleep in the pickup during night time storms, rain so heavy I thought I would get washed away in a flash flood.

Because of the nature of the landscape in the high desert, we can see distances, can watch thunderstorms form and dissipate from 30 or 40 miles away. I began to appreciate them for aesthetic qualities, something distance allows. I also began to appreciate the rains, and to watch people, however foolishly, not be scared off by storms moving in, ever so slowly, in the heat of a desert afternoon -soccer must go on.

It may have been my fear of thunderstorms that led me to my interest in meteorology, although I am as much inclined to believe it was Hurricane Belle, hitting Long Island one August, when I was six. My parents were in NYC that day, and we were cared for by my young uncle. It was humid and very cloudy, gray -I remember everything about that day from the moment my uncle told us we would have to bring in anything that could blow away. Up until that moment, we knew nothing of what was coming. The idea that things could blow away was highly intriguing. This was my first wind storm.

The storm passed overnight, lightning flashes revealing swishing, tormented trees, the black and white on all night, as my parents watched the progress of the storm via news reports. The next morning I recall the litter of twigs and branches, the fallen fences, the smell of fresh oak wood, but most of what I recall is the view out our bedroom window the night before, made visible by flashes of lightning.

So now it is that I am mostly comfortable with thunderstorms. But every so often, I am caught completely off guard, and this usually happens when I am removed from that ever so useful radar.

A few summers ago I was at the Mac Dowell Colony. It was the kind of summer where an unstable frontal boundary had parked right over northern NY, southern Vermont and New Hampshire. We had rough storms daily for about two weeks. I was in the common building, when it was struck by lightning. That was a loud. We had internet access in the building, so I checked the radar before leaving for my studio -a 15 minute walk. Nothing else appeared to be out there, so I left for my studio. When I got there, I had about an hour before dinner, which was in a yellow house atop a hill in a field another 15 minutes away. I decided to call Betsy on my cell. While we were talking I heard thunder that had the momentum of a march, canon fire, mortar blasts, a rather steady beating. After a few minutes, and seeing that dinner time was near, I told her that I should leave for dinner lest I get caught in the rain -oh the horror, wet at dinner.

I headed out the door, down the road, and into the woods. I can't see anything -only my ears to tell me what is going on. By this time Betsy can hear the thunder on her phone. I tell her that it is coming on awfully fast, mere minutes since I had left the studio. She tells me to hurry up and I tell her I think I should move faster. I hang up and walk faster, never inclined to run if I don't have to. By the time I exit the woods, maybe 7 minutes after leaving the studio, to cross the paved road, I see that the storm is just over the hill. It is not raining, however, and judge that I have enough time to get to the house up the hill before the deluge.

What came next was entirely unexpected. As I made my way up the paved road and turned onto the dirt drive, still the hill to climb, I am completely overtaken by the storm, surrounded by lightning bolts -there are ground strikes everywhere. I am mobilized by fear. You'll find this hard to believe, but the Mac Dowell creedo to not bother anyone in their studios prevented me from taking cover in any of the two studios on the way up the hill! I saw lightning above me, I instinctively dropped on all fours, or did I fall? The thunder was constant, never ceasing. I ran up that hill -who knew it was made of molasses? When I arrived at the top, I saw some of the kitchen staff running up the hill from the kitchen garden -they too were caught off guard. At that moment, lightning, which was landing all around us, had struck the large pine tree in front of the yellow house. A spiral burn and missing bark marked the spot, and where it leaped to the wishing well, it lost its shingles. All four of us ran into the nearest building to endure the storm. Never before had I felt so unprepared, so overtaken by a storm, so exposed.

Part of that is being in the mountains, where the woods obfuscates the sky, and the echoes off the hillsides distort what we hear -distorting our judgement. We were later told that this storm produced 20,000 lightning strikes per hour, which accounts for the thunderous march.

The next day, my friend, Tayari, a wonderful writer (and who introduced me to blogging!), wanted to go to town for lunch. I agreed, but a new thunderstorm was building just then. "Just a little thunder," she offered with her sweet Georgia sound before she walked and I jogged to her car. By the time we were on our way to Peterborough, it was clear things were going to get worse. After turning onto main street, the rain was so hard and wind so strong that we could not see in front of us. Then came the hail. I implored Tayari to turn right, into the bank parking lot, where there is a covering. But, honestly, and I think she would concur, she was just shrieking, freaking out, sitting in the middle of the road! She got the gumption to move on, but instead of the bank, pulled into another lot and parked under a tree. We endure 15 minutes of hail, falling branches, me wondering aloud whether or not hail could break the windshield, and crazy, car-rocking wind. I wondered about tornados in New Hampshire. And then we had lunch.

And that's how it is for most of us -tempest, then lunch. Although every now and then, we're awoken to what's possible.


Warm Front


This morning my thermometer said it was 48 degrees F at 6:30 am. We were getting an early start to head to the farmers' market and then the beach farm. By the time we got to the beach, say 9:30 am, it had warmed up considerably. Sweater off. I planted my broccoli seedlings, some more spinach seeds, hesitated on pulling the green bell peppers -allowing them to ripen more on the plant, and pulled the ichiban eggplants.

When I was in NM, I grew eggplants and broccoli amongst other things. When winter came, I tented both under clear-ish plastic. The broccoli responded wonderfully with 60 degree days and 25 degree nights. The eggplant just couldn't deal without the heat and strong sun. So, while I am considering tenting my broccoli seedlings, I knew to pull those eggplants. I did leave the Italian eggplants, a few fruits and too many flowers to have the heart to pull just yet. Oh yes, and they're in the back not casting any shade on the broccoli.

After a delightful walk on an empty beach (because its autumn, everyone goes north), we headed for the studio. When we left it around 7:30 pm, I was struck by how moist and warm it was compared to earlier today. My thermometer says it is 64.8 degrees F currently. Warm front must be on its way. I like warm fronts in October -not ready for the jacket.



Just Rotten


Today I believe that I discovered why so many tomatoes rot on the vines at our community garden. Because we live in a city, without the space nor time to process so many fruits at once and neither does our livelihood or survival depend on it.

How did I make this discovery? Charged with cleaning the house today, I decided to tackle the compost bin first -it was filled with tomatoes and starting to smell of fermentation. Before emptying that outside in the pile, I thought I would handle the three different piles of tomatoes we had from recent farm harvest expeditions on the countertop. My fingers instinctively retracted as the tips sunk into the gooey mess on the underside of one tomato, then another, and another. How about the ones in the bowl, nope, those too. Disgusting. The bottom side of almost every tomato, ripe or just ripe, had turned to mush or had slits foaming with with white mold. The runny juices, had slowly moved from the pile to the collection of salt, pepper, and oils. Through some sort of capillary action, these juices made their way up into the pepper grinder. Yuck and now trash.

I had just the other day went through all the super size cherry tomatoes to pick out the cracked and moldy. I thought I had gotten them all. Here's my speculation: The overdose of rain at the beach farm, in conjunction with regular watering, cool temps, and the ground or near-ground contact of so many of the tomatoes brought them into contact with all kinds of fungus and bacteria ready to take them on. They hardly had a chance. My instinct had been to resist eating any of these post rain tomatoes fresh. Now, those ripe and free of goo, are in the oven to be de-skinned, and boiled, for a long time, as sauce.

Betsy and I have been talking about how we will stagger everything next year, so that we can try to reduce an inundation of tomatoes and other vegetables. We'll also grow some heirloom types that seem to produce less tomatoes. The broccoli and peppers were abundant, kept longer, and were easier to process into frozen packages. We just didn't have the time or space for 100 tomatoes.

Despite all this, we're still trying to concoct a scheme so that we can have another plot -maybe one of those unused, untended plots. I judge myself not on this years experience, which I think was a grand success given our planting dates in late July and very little care given to much of the growing.

What I Really Should've Written Last Night


As soon as I got home I got wind of the crazies coming to my part of town and was so distracted by my anger that I didn't even think to say how wonderful I thought the exhibit I went to see at the Whitney Museum is. Friday nights are 'open late, pay what you wish' at the Whitney. Betsy and I got there around 7 pm to see the Charles Burchfield exhibit before it closed next week. The curator is Robert Gober, a great artist and nice guy that I was fortunate to meet up in Maine a few years back. It's wonderful to see he is thinking about this painter, who inspired me a decade or more ago and who is often under-recognized.

Burchfield's life-long work shows a shifting emphasis between his drafting skills and inventive form. His medium is watercolor, doing it in a way that is completely his own, and often with a density that may make it look like oil painting when seen in reproduction. My favorite early works are those that are highly evocative of a sensation, an experience of the environment.

His images of western NY state towns and industry appear menacing at times, always in dark grays, blues, and white. They have a density and mood that recalls for me early van gogh.

Later in life, freed from certain representational constraints, and in no way completely unconnected from the movement of abstract expressionism, he moves into a wildly energetic symbolist landscape painting that reminds me of Samuel Palmer.

Samuel Palmer
Charles Burchfield


The exhibition is up for one more week, closing on the 17th. You also have one more opportunity for 'open late, pay what you wish' next friday. Enjoy.

On The Mushroom Trail




We arrived in darkness the evening before I hit the trail of the woods, anxious to see it in August, never have I been present so late in summer. I was told it would be cool and dry this time of the year, but it was warm and humid, much like the NYC we had left behind. There had been significant rains in the prior weeks, leaving fresh signs of muddy torrents. The mosquitoes told the same tale, trailing me, humming it in my ear.

On the northern slopes, where the forest canopy is nearly impenetrable by sun light, and amongst the few plants, there is much fallen timber. Whether or not something is wrong with this woods, as it appears to my senses, the tangle of twigs and timber is the understory. There is little to no leaf litter, no humus, not much of anything. But, on those fallen trees, there are fungi of all sorts. Ever since my experience in the Pine Barrens of LI, I've held a casual, but definitively greater curiosity about mushrooms.

The beautiful, velvety, green and white Turkey Tail, trametes versicolor, or, if not, possibly Stereum ostrea.

Unidentifiable mushrooms were fruiting everywhere; the cool blue-tinged browns, grays and greens of the understory punctuated by yellows and oranges.

Of course, there are rotting logs and timber everywhere for the saprobic fungi to decompose.

Dappled light occasionally appears on the forest floor. Wait, is that? Yes, those are mushrooms.

Hundreds of small white mushrooms growing on a few logs, dappled by sunlight.

They are humorous in appearance -in that pubescent way.

But also a bit alien, mysterious. These turn out to be Lycoperdon pyriforme, pear-shaped puffballs, edible when young. Tom Volk says the name can also mean pear-shaped wolf fart, if translated -"Lyco" meaning wolf, "perdon" to break wind.

An aging Coral mushroom, possibly Ramaria stricta, along side the little puffs.

Simply striking.

And startling.

Well named and creepy, Dead Man's Fingers, Xylaria polymorpha, easily spooks those prone.

It is hard to seek out mushroom IDs on the internet. The characteristics often necessary to ID fungi are often overlooked, often underneath, sometimes microscopic, and often discovered after the fact.

Quite possibly Chinese Snow Fungus, Tremella Fuciformis. I'm guessing "Tremella" for its shaky nature and "Fuciformis" for its seaweed-like form. Am I getting good at this?

I really want this to be called Bread of the Woods, Panisilva mellidermis!

And these could be called Toadstool People, Mycosella minipopulus.

Any

suggestions

for

these?


On The Mushroom Trail



We arrived in darkness the evening before I hit the trail of the woods, anxious to see it in August, never have I been present so late in summer. I was told it would be cool and dry this time of the year, but it was warm and humid, much like the NYC we had left behind. There had been significant rains in the prior weeks, leaving fresh signs of muddy torrents. The mosquitoes told the same tale, trailing me, humming it in my ear.


On the northern slopes, where the forest canopy is nearly impenetrable by sun light, and amongst the few plants, there is much fallen timber. Whether or not something is wrong with this woods, as it appears to my senses, the tangle of twigs and timber is the understory. There is little to no leaf litter, no humus, not much of anything. But, on those fallen trees, there are fungi of all sorts. Ever since my experience in the Pine Barrens of LI, I've held a casual, but definitively greater curiosity about mushrooms.

The beautiful, velvety, green and white Turkey Tail, trametes versicolor, or, if not, possibly Stereum ostrea.

Unidentifiable mushrooms were fruiting everywhere; the cool blue-tinged browns, grays and greens of the understory punctuated by yellows and oranges.

Of course, there are rotting logs and timber everywhere for the saprobic fungi to decompose.

Dappled light occasionally appears on the forest floor. Wait, is that? Yes, those are mushrooms.

Hundreds of small white mushrooms growing on a few logs, dappled by sunlight.

They are humorous in appearance -in that pubescent way.

But also a bit alien, mysterious. These turn out to be Lycoperdon pyriforme, pear-shaped puffballs, edible when young. Tom Volk says the name can also mean pear-shaped wolf fart, if translated -"Lyco" meaning wolf, "perdon" to break wind.

An aging Coral mushroom, possibly Ramaria stricta, along side the little puffs.

Simply striking.

And startling.

Well named and creepy, Dead Man's Fingers, Xylaria polymorpha, easily spooks those prone.

It is hard to seek out mushroom IDs on the internet. The characteristics often necessary to ID fungi are often overlooked, often underneath, sometimes microscopic, and often discovered after the fact.

Quite possibly Chinese Snow Fungus, Tremella Fuciformis. I'm guessing "Tremella" for its shaky nature and "Fuciformis" for its seaweed-like form. Am I getting good at this?

I really want this to be called Bread of the Woods, Panisilva mellidermis!

And these could be called Toadstool People, Mycosella minipopulus.

Any

suggestions

for

these?