Fog and Mushrooms

               The radio says “clear skis.” But I look out at a soft gray fuzziness blanketing the lake and foliage of the opposite shore. A Slightly lighter gray highlights where the sky meets the treetops. Though we are told that temperatures will rise to the mid-seventies, there is no way I’ll be swimming in a lake that is now giving up its warmth to the air.

                Yesterday we spent an hour following an entertaining mycologist around a small path in the Frelinghuysen Arboretum. The mushroom walk—a highlight of the Fungi Fest—began amusingly  because our area of New Jersey has had so little rain lately that, naturally, there are few mushrooms growing. So mushrooms of various genera and species had been carefully placed along a small, looping path, with accompanying signs to identify them.

Amanita - Poisonous!

                I’ve always been a mushroom fancier. I do like to eat them, but I also enjoy their very different looks in the wild and the way they seemingly pop up in unexpected places over night. In my 20s, I collected mushrooms when I hiked, identified them with a guide book I still own, dried them and placed them into cute jars, usually on a bed of moss and soil. I labeled them on the bottom of the jar with a sketch to identify each mushroom within. I called this art “Forest Floors” and attempted to sell them—without much success.

                I learned a lot at the mushroom walk. If I were to make “Forest Floors” now, I’d be more careful of the mushroom’s surroundings. Now I know that some mushrooms only grow on wood and that many have a symbiotic relationship with trees, giving antibiotic protection to the trees while helping themselves to the trees’ sugars. And species specialize by tree type.

                Many of the people on the tour with us were members of the NJ Mycological Association, MNMA, and regularly go on mushroom forays. They all oohed when looking at the hen-of-the-woods colony placed next to an oak. Apparently it makes a welcome feast and there is no mistaking it. I think we had some growing next to a tree stump in our backyard. Maybe it will return next year.

                Looking out now, there is no lake, no opposite shore. Fog has enveloped and softened everything. Perhaps there’ll be rain – and mushrooms.

Water Fowl Convention

Someduck must have called for a convention in the cove end of Kittatinny Lake for Labor Day weekend, because all the water fowl of the lake seem to be congregating down this end.

 Usually we see a group of six to nine mallard ducks. They like to sun on the dock across from us, come up on land at our neighbor’s beach.  Other ducks frequent places further down the lake. I haven’t seen more than a dozen together all summer. 

 

The swan couple lives at the shallow south end, by the dense patches of water lilies.  They rarely sail up to the cove, although two summers ago, one of the pair regularly came up to beg for handouts of bread.  Neighbors at the south end tell me that the swans lay eggs each summer and attempt to raise their cygnets to adulthood. Apparently predators often deplete their brood. I suppose those that survive then relocate to their own lake, because we have only one couple in residence.

This weekend is different. The swans and 23 mallard ducks—only females and young adults, no mature males—are all hanging out in the cove. No bird produced a barbeque grill nor did any uncover a bowl of potato salad, so I can’t imagine what brought them all down here.  We offered crackers to the swans but they were not interested. Obviously they had somehow gotten plenty to eat at this party.

Could it be the current?  There is usually a mild current from south to north.  This weekend a steady wind has blown across the lake from the south making the current stronger than usual. But there have been stronger currents –days when I’ve tried to canoe out of the cove and have been continually turned back –and the birds have not been there.  

No. I’m convinced that somefowl has called an end of summer party in the cove. And we get to enjoy the gracious condescension of a swan visit. 

Chicks and ducks and geese – We scurried around the county fair.

          Every variety of chicken, duck and rabbit was represented at the Sussex County Fair. Love the chickens so covered in fluffy feathers that it looks like fur!  And, during out morning visit on Tuesday, we also saw geese, sheep, alpacas – what beautiful faces they have, pigs –all sleeping, goats, cows, horses and oxen.  The 4-H clubs were much represented; many of the animals had been raised by youngsters, who proudly fed, combed and even sheered them. 

A chicken - believe it or not!

Alpacas

Sheering his sheep

                 

                There was also a quilt exhibit hanging from the ceiling of one hall. I walked around with arched neck the entire time admiring the colors here and the needlework there. I tried to quilt once, so I was also in awe, knowing the patience and precision it took to make such beautiful works of art. The fair ends on Sunday.

               

Back home we have plenty of wildlife of our own. The groundhogs—now there are two of them, one large, one small—have made an arrangement with a thieving squirrel.  Each day the squirrel climbs our pear tree, chooses a pear, takes one or two bites, and drops it to the ground. Then a groundhog comes and finishes them off. They do look cute sitting up on their haunches, munching our fruit. But thanks to those groundhogs, our garden is the worst it’s been in years. 

                And they seem to have gotten wise about the trap. Set at the garden’s entrance it only attracted a woebegone opossum.  Poor thing scrunched way back in the trap while I opened it. I let him play possum and left. He only left the trap when I was out of sight. 

August Showers Bring Mushrooms

               I’ve known for years that mushrooms grow in the rain. I’ve enjoyed looking for them—their  different forms and colors and their unpredictable appearance.  At one time, I used to pick up mushrooms samples when I hiked through woods in late summer and early fall. I’d categorize them with The Mushroom Handbook, dried the ones that cooperated, and placed them, with moss, into little arrangements in jars.  Even when I’ve been 99 percent certain that no poisonous mushroom resembled what I picked up, I never ate any. I’m not that daring.

                Two days ago, thing one and thing two poked their tiny caps up from the soil between the street and sidewalk in front of my next door neighbor’s house.  Then it rained.  And they grew, and grew. Now it’s impossible to walk by without noticing them—graceful and creamy white, with a little frill on their stems. Their mushroom caps measure a glorious 10 inches—dinner plate size!

                But these beauties should never find their way onto a dinner place.  Consulting the MycoKey fungus identifier, http://www.mycokey.org  (isn’t it fantastic how much you can find out on the Internet?) I confirmed suspicions gleaned from my trusty Mushroom Handbook. My neighbor’s mushroom are indeed amanitas.  In fact, they are Warted Amanitas (Amanita Strobiliformis) and most likely poisonous. But don’t they make a pretty picture?

Where are the Monarchs?

Most years, in midsummer, I’m finding many Monarch Butterfly eggs on my milkweed.  I bring them inside to let them hatch, grow into fat caterpillars, form chrysalises and finally transform into butterflies.  I’m a piker in this endeavor. There are many Monarch nurturers more dedicated than I. But this summer is different. There are no monarchs!  They have not returned to New Jersey after wintering in Mexico.

I’ve checked with Trina, our local “Butterfly Lady.”  She says people are still waiting.  Last year the butterflies arrived early –in June. Now, at July’s end, I am the lucky one. Two weeks ago I found two monarch eggs.   Others have found none.  Now I have two chrysalises. Hopefully their metamorphosis into butterflies will be successful.

 Monarch Watch, http://www.monarchwatch.org, reports the late arrival of the butterflies to Kansas and they worry that there will be little time for the usual four generations before it’s time for them to return to their winter quarters. They say that fewer –acres fewer—arrived last fall in Mexico. They attribute the reduced numbers to wet weather. And a very wet and chilly June may have delayed their return to New Jersey. But we’ve had a warm (too warm) July. Where are they? 

Environmentalists have long worried that the numbers of pollinators are greatly reduced. That’s one reason for breeding monarchs; in the wild, 98% of them don’t make it. Some think pesticides are killing them off –as well as genetically engineers crops which have a pesticide incorporated into their DNA. Even the pollen of those plants contains the pesticide!

To quote Trina Paulus’ book , Hope for the Flowers, “Without butterflies the world will soon have few flowers.” There are many fewer bees too. Without them and the butterflies, there will also soon be no food crops. Isn’t it time to examine our use of pesticides and pay attention to the interactions within nature?

Dragonfly Season

It’s dragonfly season again.. These gorgeous creatures flit around the dock and the shoreline of the lake. I’m disappointed that there are fewer this year but there is an obvious reason for that. There’s a scarcity of lake weed floating at our end of the lake. Dragon and damsel flies lay their eggs upon floating weeds.

I spy a small section, only about 12 square inches of weed floating near the cattails growing between our dock and the one next door. I suppose that explains why most of the dragonfly activity is centered there, with the insects often posing on the jewel-weed by our dock and the broad leaves of the cattails. When I take a canoe down the lake I am relieved to find larger patches of floating weed, a couple about a square yard in area. The weed is dotted with little bubbles. Good. The dragonflies have been laying their eggs. I would hate for them to leave our lake for lack of a breeding ground.

 

Dragonfly nymphs- the early stage that lives in the water—do us a great favor by eating mosquito larvae. They also eat other aquatic insects and worms. When they become beautiful airborne adults they continue to eat mosquitoes and also dine on ants, termites, gnats and other small flying insects.

But this time of year, I don’t see them eating. Rather they are chasing each other at great speed, rapidly changing direction like UFOs or the helicopters that must be styled after them. Occasionally they land on us. A pair of electric-blue damselflies land on my husband’s nose as he floats on a plastic noodle in the lake. I rush out of the water to retrieve the camera but, predictably they take off just as I line up the shot. Guess that’s the one that got away.

I remember reading, from when I was a Girl Scout leader, that dragonflies are one of the first insects to leave a place when it becomes polluted. Another reason I want to keep these indicators nearby. But even if they neither ate the nasty bugs nor told the quality of the water, I love to see them around. My favorites are the large ones whose dark brown wings sport a large patch of baby blue. When they fly, their wings look fluffy. I also love the electric-blue damselflies. But even the tiny amber dragons are fun to look at. They fearlessly land on my hand. The sun, filtered through their wings, shows as long orange ovals on my skin.  MY camera is totally misbehaving. I put in new batteries but it insists on telling me they are exhausted. So I have to use images from the Internet to show the gorgeous creatures flying about.

Heat Wave

               To escape the hazy, hot and humid wave in our New Jersey suburb we drove out to Sussex. Yes it is cooler out here –by about 5 degrees—outdoors. Indoors here is hotter since the cottage welcomes sunlight all morning. The only remedy is to jump in the lake. But today the lake, basking for an entire week in heat, feels like a warm tub; and there are no waves. No breeze to make any kind of wave but heat. I speculate that fish caught here today may already be half baked. At least the few cool spots I swim through are refreshing. Real cooling happens only when you get out of the water and sit in a wet bathing suit. Still, it’s much more tolerable than the 20 minutes I spent weeding and wilting in my garden this morning.  

                My garden! I am flattering it to call that plot of earth a garden this year. The zucchini borers finished off one plant before it produced a single squash. And each time my string bean plants recover from an attack, a groundhog finds his or her way past, under or through the fence to eat it down to the stalk. They ate the leaves off the other two zucchini plants too, making their production questionable. Most summers, we can count on our garden to supply lettuce and arugula for a nightly salad, this year other creatures have enjoyed it.

                At least the small garden by the lake is supplying salad greens and it gave us an abundance of snap peas before the heat wave finished off the plants. We are expecting tomatoes soon from both gardens. Groundhogs eschew tomatoes.