25 May
Finally, after two weeks away, a visit to the HWF. It's incredible how much the season has advanced. The sword and bracken ferns have shot up incredibly, and suddenly the vanilla leaf is in bloom, and the foamflower, abundant last year in the forest, is beginning to show. The spring and summer fungi are appearing. Poplar oyster mushrooms abound. The woodpecker stump continues to shrink, and the coiffure of moss at its top continues to grow. What we have heard called an "elder alder" shows shoots of growth near its base and a growth moss. An alder's life span is somewhere around eighty years. As they age, they put forth shoots from the lower ends of their trunks, in what appears to be an effort to absorb additional sunlight to that absorbed at the tree's top. The moss may be a form of cat-tail moss, unlike the longer strands apparent on cedar branches. (Corrections from readers are always appreciated.) T...