Nothing Gold Can Stay

This was the other really interesting fungus that I ran across this summer.  At least, I think it's a fungus.

This log lies right over one of my main trails and I have to step over it nearly every day.  I've been stepping over this log since 2008 and this is the first time I've seen this.  It's the first time I've ever seen it anywhere. 

It started as just a faint hint of yellow that I wasn't sure was real and gradually progressed to the whole tree being covered in bright gold powder.

I might of thought it was some kind of mold except that the underside of the log grew into this...

This fungus proved to be exceptionally difficult to photograph.  Its inner light proved impossible to capture and none of these pictures even begin to do it justice.  The more subtle hues were colors that I have no name for and none of them showed up on film.

The white area shimmered and swirled with an opalescent sheen similar to mother-of-pearl.  The gold really did look metallic and both changed completely with the tiniest shift in angle.  The yellow powder came up out of this to cover the tree, I'm guessing that the powder is actually billions of spores.

I tried to capture a bit of the color shift, but the luminosity does not come through. Try to imagine this lit from with like a living fire opal with its own inner glow...

I tried anyway.  This year didn't bring out as many fungi as I usually see, but this and the white one were certainly the most beautiful and memorable I've come across in many years.  They are both gone now, but I will certainly be on the lookout for them next year. 

The Perils of Apples

Several people wanted to know why the apples were dangerous to the equines. A few apples a day are fine for a healthy horse or donkey, although they can be an issue for animals with insulin resistance.  I am sure that my herd are all still managing to steal at least 8-10 apples a day as is.  However, I picked up about 150 pounds of apples under that one tree.  If Tessa and the donkeys got into that many apples, it would very likely kill them and there are a couple of reasons why:

1. First, how would YOU feel if you ate 50 pounds of apples?  Unfortunately, donkeys and horses are rather foolish about apples and they will keep eating them way beyond the point of no return.  At the least, they would end up with a severe stomach ache.  
2. Since their stomachs are very small and not designed for a mass influx of apples, their GI processes would be highly compromised and slowed down even more than their normal very slow  progress.  The apples would ferment inside the gut, causing huge amounts of gas, which would likely cause a torsion of the bowel.  In other words - life threatening colic.
3. The massive intake of sugar in the apples would cause laminitis.  Huge intakes of sugar and/or a severe disruption of the GI tract, triggers a complicated cascade event that ends up as swelling inside the hoof capsules.  Since the outer wall of the hoof is hard and cannot give under this pressure, the swelling literally tears the inner structures of the hoof all to hell.  It can get so bad that the bone inside the hoof detaches and actually comes out the bottom of the foot. This is excruciatingly painful, and in severe cases, the only humane option is euthanasia.  

So, that's why all those apples were keeping me up nights and giving me nightmares.  If any of you are thinking that it is a waste to feed them all to the pigs, don't worry.  I still have several trees over by my pond, out of donkey reach, that are just as loaded.  Besides, apple-fed pork is mighty tasty:)

Stop! Thief!

While the herd has been circling round the apple trees, dreaming and scheming how to break in, I've been lying awake at night worried that they will.  Death-by-apple would be unbearable, time to take action.  I picked up three heaping muck buckets worth of apples under just one tree that usually produces no more than a dozen.  These are headed for the pigs over at FB's, far away from little velvety donkey lips.

Most years, the deer get to all the fallen apples before it becomes an issue.  This year, there are too many apples even for the deer to keep up with.  I don't think that has ever happened before.

As usual, my efforts to protect the donkeys from themselves was not appreciated. 

"STOP!  Thief!  Put those apples down Ma.  Step awaaaay from the tree."

"You just come out of there real slow, apples in hand and no one has to get hurt."

Join Us for a Fall Ride

It was a beautiful Fall day here, about 55*, sunny, no bugs....It sure would be nice if we got more of these.  Riding Buddy and I took the opportunity to do one of my favorite rides. 

For a lot of reasons, this is the first time we got onto these trails this year.  They can be a bit hard to get to because you have to be able to get up and down a 1.5 mile long, very steep hill that has really brutal footing. 

It's a tough hill for the horses and is not helped by the fact that the beavers have dammed a stream across the bottom of it, which is why I can no longer drive down the hill to the trail head.  Tanner and I used to hike down here a lot, but Connor and I haven't made it down here yet.  The road (if it can still be called that) is too rough.  You have to ride or hike quite a ways to get to one of my favorite little streams.

Thanks to the latest rather ambitious, scary and somewhat experimental hoof work I've been doing for Hawkeye, he was finally able to make the big hill with no problem for the first time in years. I've really got to write about that for everybody interested in hooves.

 
There are a lot of rough areas on this trail, but you don't get to see any of those since riding and taking pictures in those spots don't go together.   There are some nice gentle stretches though as well.

This used to be a main road back when horses and carriages still ruled the highway.  This was part of a large old resort and farm.  All that is left now is the pretty lane, a weed choked pond and a bit of old stone foundation.  It is all owned be the state now.

There was a pine plantation at the top of the lane, but it all got logged off this summer.  They must have burned the stumps for some reason as well as they all showed signs of charring.  I'm not sure why they did that.  As wet as it was when these were cut, it had to be on purpose.  Maybe some kind of infestation.  Looks awful brutal at the moment, but I think they'll probably plant hardwoods in here and it will come back.  New York State has many flaws, but they do a fairly decent job of managing the forest land.  Much better than the private sector, which tends toward rape-and-pillage logging techniques that leave the woods maimed for generations, if they ever recover.

The last time we were on this truck-trail was right after a major storm and there were dozens of trees down on it.  We had to do some creative detouring to get around them.  Today, these were the only trees that hadn't been cleared off.

 A quick bite of Beech leaves to keep the strength up.

Down the hill and back across the creek over the scary bridge.....

 ...and back up the big hill, which looks deceptively innocent in photos.

It's good to see this big guy tackling the tough hills again.  This time last year, he was unwillingly retired and we thought his riding days were over.  A nice Fall ride was a good reward for all the hard work that has gone into getting him back on the trails.

An Apple (or ten) a Day

The apple trees are absolutely loaded this year.  There are four apple trees in the pasture that I usually don't think much about because they rarely produce anything.  This year, the apples are an issue.

I didn't really notice at first when the herd started spending a LOT of time at the far end of the field.  I just noticed that they donkeys, who had been nagging me incessantly to take them for walks or give them more hay or more grass or more something, were suddenly very content to hang out in the lower field.

I should have known better.  Like any parent knows, silence means trouble.  

Fortunately, a couple of weeks ago Tessa decided that the lure of green grass was just too much and she went through the fence.  I was highly annoyed at the time and we had words about it, but that is how I discovered the apple issue.  The trees are fenced off, but the deer had knocked it down (which is where Tessa got the idea in the first place) and the herd were out there snarfing up every apple they could reach.  There was a bunch of brush under the tree and the donkeys had even made little tunnels through it all so that no apple escaped their bloodhound noses.  

It was OK early on because it was just a few apples falling every day.  The herd was spending hours hanging out down there and scouring the area for just a handful of apples.  However, about the time Tessa went through the the fence, the apples started falling in ernest.  Ramsey, who is an absolute truffle pig when it comes to apples was acting a bit off and actually walked away from his food dish.  I was just about to hit the panic button because Ramsey doesn't ever walk away from even a story molecule of food, when I realized that he just couldn't be bothered to eat his vitamins when there might be an apple falling right that very minute.  The very idea was more than he could stand.  

The apples have been getting progressively riper and are falling by the dozen now.  

Which is why I now have two layers of hot fence around each tree, good thing I had to fix fence.  The donkeys are not pleased.  

Every day now, I go out to check the fence and test the security measures.  I grab up a half dozen apples and toss them out for the herd to find.  They think this is great fun while it lasts, but that thier apple quota is far too stingy.

  

It is especially unfair that Tessa is big enough to reach over the fence and occasionally get an extra apple that they can't reach.

The unfairness of it all is just awful.  The donkeys are feeling terribly deprived and I sure am hearing about it.

The whining is OK though, I rather like hearing the incredible variety of woe-is-me brays, squeaks and snorts that they produce.  Their repertoire is astounding.  They have an especially dirgeful duet that they have been working on.  I may have to get some kind of automated voice recorder because the camera doesn't have the range needed to record and you really should hear these two.  Th apple lament is just priceless.

Brief, Beautiful Ephemera

It's been an interesting summer for fungi.  I hike with my dog in the woods every day and I always keep an eye out for the small oddities that pop up throughout the year.  I find it fascinating that I can walk the same trails every day and yet always find something new.  The fungi never disappoint in this area.  There are some that I always see in the same place and about the same time every year.  However, there are always a couple of unique specimens that show up out of the blue and just as suddenly disappear, never to be seen again.  At least not yet. 

There hasn't been the variety or fantastic colors that I have seen in previous years, but this summer did bring out a couple of notable appearances.  This showed up under a log that lies right on the path.

I've walked past this spot a 1000 times.  It wasn't there one day and the next, there were three patches of these luminescent icicle fungi.  

That is what I named them anyway.  I have no idea what they really are as I never bother to look up these little treasures - I kind of enjoy the mystery.

I tried hard to capture the color, which was a pure, creamy white with a sort of bio-luminescent shimmer that the camera just couldn't see.

I guess you'll just have to take my word for that part.

These showed up overnight and by the third day, their luminescence had faded and become a powdery substance on the ground underneath them.  

By the fourth day, they were gone.

I've never seen these before and may never see them again.

I'm sure that someday though, when the conditions are just right, they will show up again somewhere.

Hopefully, I'll still be out in the woods looking for them.

Changing of the Guard

We took all the dogs hiking over at the lake this afternoon. There are nice trails around it that Tanner and I used to walk on nearly every day.

I realized this afternoon that I haven't been back there since we took Tanner for one last visit just about a year ago...

 This crazy pup certainly takes up a lot of space in the world, but I do still miss Tanner.

The new generation had tons of fun though...

Bess and Connor's first trip to the lake.

 
Kelsey, the middle child, always getting overlooked.

It's not easy being the middle child, as Kelsy and I can bot attest....

....especially not with big, squishable puppies around

And the last of the Old Guard, Scout (Tanner's litter-mate) will be 13 this month

Last year, there was a Blue Heron fishing along the shore, annoyed by our presence.  Tanner was too sick to do anything about it.  This year, Connor spotted him and herded him off to the other side of the lake just like Tanner would have if he could have.