Introduction
July 5th, 2021, at 6:00 a blue sky with dense gray clouds cover the sky, it as cool 75 degrees with little to no wind. The foliage even denser than the last time as it usually is, new purple flowers surround the outskirts of the reservoir, and new mushrooms seem to be poking out of the dead trees on the side of the trail. The water calm with almost no noticeable flow toward the dam. Small birds chirp and fly around the top of the pond sweeping low almost hitting the water. The clearing in the back of the reservoir harder to see into then ever as the over growth in the path continue to spread. On the side of the brick arch in the clearing is a large crater that has small trees springing up in it, this appears like the site of a fell tree, but it may not be as there appears to be stacked rock in one of the crevices open to the bottom of the crater. Whether these rocks are exposed shale rocks peaking out due to the loss of roots or if they are more evidence of human buildings once being here intrigues me. The crater is surrounded by large rocks poking out and there is no apparent mound from a tree depositing the earth it brought up in its fall, but there is an indent in the ground that goes into the forest from the bottom of the crater that is about 6 feet wide and could be from the trunk of a large tree. Many of the trees around here have fallen as the water rises and causes the trees to slant into the reservoir, just beyond this crater two pines slant at a 45-degree angle over the reservoir which has risen to right next to their roots. Deeper in the clearing two pine trees 50 feet apart are bowed out of the ground at their base in the same direction at about the same angle the ground. One of them seeming to be at a higher elevation, but that might not be so as there is a mound around the other. The reason why they both grew out the ground like this eludes me, there is a rock bed behind in one that could make it hard to grow straight down and no apparent rock bed in the ground under the other one. Why two pine trees of seemingly the same age would both grow bowed in the same direction at about the same angle intrigues me as there could be a growing condition in this line that would cause for both trees to grow in such a way. There are a few other trees here that grow out of the ground in an arc that follows the same direction as the other arced trees arcing to the northwest it appears. The split tree with the burn mark appears to be wet as if sap is leaking out of the intersection of the two trunks, this may not be a burn mark but just sap flowing from the tree giving it extremely dark burnt appearance, the sap seems to be more prevalent on one side with little black and much moss growing on the other side of the tree. What is going on with this tree is something that I’ve been wondering and not gotten around to researching.
The large orange mushrooms that were here last week have disappeared and new small red mushrooms have arisen in the place the old stocks base’s still stand, with their destroyed bodies on the ground next to them, this could have been due to people knocking them over or maybe even animals. Other than the small red mushroom the only one that remains in a lone pure white mushroom growing up in the center of the clearing. Numerous dark red gilled mushrooms with a convex cap have popped up at the head of the trail what they are eludes me as there are a few small brown bolete appearing mushrooms scattered about that are very different looking making me think they are not also boletes. There is also a large dark brown peaked mushroom, that fades to white on the rest with many veils running down it’s stock and thin gills hidden under the cap, sitting alone in the woods off from the head of the trail that caught my eye as I left.
Natural History Mystery
This week I was very intrigued as to why there are trees growing out of the ground bowed only to grow straight up from then on, there are multiple trees like this all bowed in the same general direction. The only similar evidence of trees growing crooked at the base and straight the rest of the way is the Crooked forested in Gryfino, Poland where there are is a forest of about 400 pine trees growing with a near 90 degree bend in the base and a relatively straight trunk. The explanation given for why the pines grow like this is said to most likely be that they were bent as saplings for curved timber to help with building boats or furniture, this would make sense in my location as the site of an old saw mill is a few hundred yards away but my trees are relatively young unlike the large bent pines in Poland. Another plausible explanation would be a snow fall when they were young that caused all of the trees to grow crooked out of the snow as pines being evergreens would still try to grow to sunlight in the winter. It is common for trees to grow crooked to find sunlight but in these trees they grow straight up to get sunlight except for the very bottom. The exact cause of this curvature in the tree is unknown to me but it is probably due to something causing them to bend not the tree wanting to grow that way.
The large split tree that I initially believed to be burnt is actually infected. An infection in trees called Wetwood or slime flux causes trees to leak a wet slimy liquid at cracks in bark or wounds. The origin of the wound that leaks this liquid is still foreign to me but the reason why it is so dark and appears burnt from a distance is the slime flux. This is not curable in trees and is a very widely known conditions in trees.
Photos
Conclusion
The process of taking photos made me look at my site in a very different lens. To get a photo that captures a process, event, or concept playing out in the site is very hard with a large land scape picture as there is too much going on to take any meaningful information out of it. Trying to find something that captured an idea with a photo made me look at the area in a very fine lens as I must be able to get close enough to take a picture up close as well as getting a picture that is framed to show what I want to show. One of the challenges I had was trying to show the inside of the brick arch being held up by the tree as just a picture into the tunnel it makes would be to large and a picture in the inside is hard to frame, for this reason I tried to take a picture of the inside seam of the intersection looking out to show how the brick and roots meet. An easier picture to capture was the fallen mushroom and the small mushrooms behind it as the picture almost framed its self. It was on top of the arch and the top of the fallen cap was facing out with the new mushrooms’ right behind it, I could get down on the ground level very easily and take a picture as the objects I was trying to capture were small so there is not much background interference. It was similar to sketching in the way that finding the right angle to draw at effectively and finding the right angle to take a picture that captures what you want are essentially the same process but give a different outcome. The angle you sketch something from would most likely be to capture the most of that object without drawing the background, the angle you take a picture at something from is more about capturing something so it stand out in its’ surrounding making finding the right background part of the process. The process of taking photos at my site made me look at my sight not as a whole place but as a collection of tiny environments that I need to look into. The breaking down of my site into what is going on on top of a rock, in the back corner of the arch way, in the needles and soil in a pocket of rock, or just at the site of a fallen mushroom made me see my site as a whole of much smaller interactions that made this place come to be.