[AUG2022] It seems that every couple years there is a change in the predominant plant species on the cabin’s living roof. This summer, jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) is leading the way. A beautiful plant in bloom, with its delicate orange flowers. And it also performs! The seed pods that are produced by jewelweed “explode” when touched…
Category: Trees, Plants & Fungi
“Aging in Place”
[JUN2022] I guess it’s finally time to tell you about a major happening here. Though this happening happened last autumn. One afternoon, in the midst of a day filled with rain and wind, I heard a tree crash down in the forest. Living spot in the middle of 40-50,000 trees, some of them old or…
In praise of volunteers
[SEP2021] There’s a usage of the word “volunteer” I first heard after moving from the ‘burbs to this rural area. When errant seeds from the previous year’s corn sprout and grow in the middle of this year’s soy bean fields, farmers call them volunteers. Likewise, the potatoes that I miss when digging them out to…
Bleeding Tooth in the Forest
[AUG2020] There are a great variety of fungi on the property, especially in spring and autumn. Some are beautiful, some are “ugly”, some are massive (see blog post Aliens Emerging), and all are intricate. And some are downright scary! In early August I came across these along a path through the spruce tunnel in the…
Leaf-Out!
[MAY2020] “Leafing Out” is the wonderful time of the year when the forest turns lush and green, as the trees manifest the leaves they have been saving up as buds for many months. The fresh new “leaves” in the picture at left may look more like needles… and they are… but they belong to the…
Very Berry
[JUL2019] The wild berries are a bit late this year, I guess on account of the long spring and sometimes cooler summer temps, but now that they have appeared they are in bountiful abundance! Both red and black raspberries can be found all over the property, and are easy picking with a little patience. I…
Aliens Emerging
[SEP2018] One of my recent guests wrote in his Airbnb review that it was a “mushroom/fungi extravaganza” out on the trails here. Was he ever right–the combination of September and dampness brings ’em out in droves. When he showed me all the pictures on his phone, there were even a couple I hadn’t seen before….
Blackcurrant Wisdom
[JUL2017] I had hung some laundry on the line today and was waiting for the next load to finish in the washer when I saw there were lots of ripe looking blackcurrants in the bushes nearby. I don’t really cultivate these blackcurrant bushes… that they keep coming back year after year is more in spite…
A Most Extraordinary Tree
[SEP2016] Over the past year, there has been a wonderful and ever-growing initiative in Grey-Bruce counties called The Extraordinary Tree Project which seeks to celebrate the significance and influence of the tree in our lives. Such a thing seems particularly appropriate in Grey-Bruce, seeing as it contains some of the highest forest cover density in…
Off-Grid Retreat 