Categories
Tree Bob

A Trip to Moonville

Althea and I checked out the Moonville Rail Trail yesterday. It’s been a while since I hiked there. Previously, you couldn’t hike far past the tunnel before you hit Raccoon Creek and had to turn back. New bridges now make it possible to get in a great hike along the sycamore-lined railbed. Someone asked recently what my favorite tree is, and I said white oak, mostly because my cabin is surrounded by them, but yesterday’s hike made me reconsider. The sycamores are shedding their bark, giving them a ghostly appearance that complements the haunted tunnel.

So for yesterday, at least, sycamores were my favorite tree.

There are several beaver ponds long the way. We found this evidence of their activity, but apparently they gave up or lost interest in this tree long ago.

Abandoned electric poles are interspersed among the sycamores, a testament to the days when coal towns provided stops along the rail line. Those towns are mostly gone now, like the bark the sycamore’s are shedding, leaving only hints of the past. Many have been reduced to clusters of shacks and mobile homes while others have simply faded into the forest.

This plaque in the tunnel is covered with graffiti done by morons who have no sense of the past, no pride of place. The idiots have even graffitied many of the trees along the way. I guess they weren’t smart enough to realize the sycamores would shed this stupidity once autumn came around …

Categories
MycoBob Phenology Journal

Stinking Orange Oyster (Phyllotopsis nidulans)

Stinking Orange Oyster Phyllotopsis nidulans
Stinking Orange Oyster Phyllotopsis nidulans

Warm, rainy December night complete with thunder, lightning, something scurrying across the cabin’s pine ceiling. Return of the flying squirrels? They were probably grounded by the weather. I was up reading well before dawn, and by 9 Althea and I headed out for a hike. The rain had stopped, and after checking the bird feeders we headed out to the ridge trail, where I immediately spotted a new (to me) mushroom on a jagged maple stump. Hard to miss that orange glow in the drab winter woods, kindling a faint hope that I’d spotted an out-of-season fruiting of chicken of the woods. A closer look quashed that uncharacteristic fit of optimism. This mushroom had gills and looked more like an oyster, but not one I’d yet encountered.  iNaturalist suggested the Stinking Orange Oyster ID, and that’s what I’m going with unless someone there thinks differently. It does look like an oyster, and it does stink. Apparently it’s edible, but who’d want to?

Stinking Orange Oyster Phyllotopsis nidulans

Categories
Books

Beowulf vs. Sir Gawain

At one point, I considered doing an academic paper on Beowulf as the proto-rapper. Never got around to it, but these students took it a step further, pitting Grendel’s slayer against Sir Gawain in this epic rap battle.

And if you’re looking for a “rap” version of Beowulf, make sure to check out Maria Dahvana Headley’s translation. It’s phenomenal.