As part of a forest land tax reduction, I had to mark the property boundaries and create a 10-year plan for my land. I hired a consulting forester to help assemble the plan and learned a hell of a lot in the process. While I was out doing that, I also planted ramp bulbs and started thinking about how trails will run.
One thing is certain: There will be switchbacks. The land is steep, with the two houses on a ridge that sits like a saddle above two hollows, one south facing, the other north, creating two micro-climates with different trees and conditions. The north-facing hollow has a lot of potential for mushrooms and ramps.
The forester also created some scope creep in my schemes, suggesting that a rope bridge would be awesome over one of the intermittent streams on the property. So I’m thinking about how that will play into my trail system.
I did a little mushroom foraging yesterday. I’m really, really hoping there are a few patches of morels out there, but the soil isn’t warm enough here yet for them to emerge. So I had to settle for elf cups, devil’s urns, and witches’ butter (a jelly fungus), and a few other specimens. Great hike overall.
As I walked the nothern hollow, I was amazed at the poplars there. They shoot skyward on straight trunks that culminate in tight crowns. A few of them cling to the rocky hillside in ways that defy gravity. I found a cluster of three old poplars that stopped me in my tracks. Two of them already are snags, and I think the third is going to join them soon.
Here are a few other photos taken during recent peregrinations …
Cool looking burl that I have named “Milton” 
Northern Cinnabar Polypore (trametes cinnabarina) 
Northern Cinnabar Polypore (trametes cinnabarina) 
Some sort of polypore that looks vaguely like turkey tail (trametes versicolor) 
I think these are wild cherry (prunus avium) blossoms. 
witches’ butter (tremella mesenterica) 
witches’ butter (tremella mesenterica) 
Poplar root clinging to hillside. 
Red maple flowers are littering the forest floor 
The three senior poplars, two of which are snags. 
Sydney is not amused.
