It was a very mast year

Last year the red oaks in our forest produced a bumper crop of acorns. The trails were littered with acorns and you would often get bonked on the head by one as you walked. Bluejays were plentiful and spent their days arguing and tapping acorns against tree branches. It made for an interesting soundtrack to the late summer and early fall. These years of abundance are called mast years and they are a pretty interesting phenomenon with a cascading effect on the ecosystem.

No one has yet been able to predict which years will be mast years for a given species. The theory is that normal years provide just enough food for a smallish population of animals to survive. In a mast year, such an overabundance of food is available that lots of acorns are left to germinate and grow up. Of course, the quantity of food available also results in larger populations of deer, squirrels, and mice, which have their own impacts. For example, all those extra mice are hard on ground nesting birds and also on gypsy moths, but good for owls and other predators. Life isn't easy, though, and the charitable oaks revert to their stingy ways the next year. No one seems quite sure what triggers all the trees to participate in the mast, as by doing so, they have to allot resources which would otherwise be used for growth.

One of the visible reminders of last year's amazing acorn production is the large number of red oak seedlings scattered throughout the woods. Now that everything is brown and bare, the bright red leaves of the tiny red oaks stand out like little beacons.

A great article on the subject was published in American Scientist magazine in 2005.

In which I demonstrate that I cannot be trusted with endangered species

This little sapling is my contribution to saving Butternut trees from extinction.  Butternut trees are an endangered species in Ontario because of butternut canker disease, which is affecting Butternuts across their range. Seed is being collected from apparently resistant Butternut individuals and grown out to seedlings for distribution to volunteer landowners. One rainy Saturday this spring I was given 10 little trees to plant by the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority Butternut Recovery Program. Seven months later, six of them are still alive, and Tree 6 here is the healthiest of the bunch.

With the best of intentions, I made a huge mistake when I planted them. I thought the soil I was planting them into was likely rather lean, so to give them a little boost, I thought I would add some of my homemade organic fertilizer to the planting hole. If you have read Steve Solomon's Gardening When it Counts, you will know about the fertilizer formula. My version has soybean meal, bone meal and kelp meal in addition to the other ingredients and you may be able to see where this is going, but I didn't.

When I went for my walk the next day, I was surprised to see the first of my new plantings completely uprooted and lying some distance from where I'd left it, with a large hole in its place. I was horrified to find that 5 out of 10 of the trees had been similarly beset. I replanted the trees and held my breath for the next few days when I checked on them. I never found any clues as to the identity of the vandal, but I suspect he was a creature with a sensitive nose and a discerning palate.

I was blaming the early mistreatment of these seedlings for the high mortality rate, but now that I've actually done the math - 2 of the dug up trees and 2 of the unmolested trees died, it appears their survival was unaffected by their youthful adventure. So there is no moral to this story after all, except that it will be a lot easier on your nerves if you don't entice wild critters to dig for goodies underneath your newly planted endangered trees.

Trees will begin to die from the top down

We've had a lot of strong wind lately which has knocked over a bunch of trees in the forest. Sadly, many of the downed trees are young sugar maples which snap off a few feet above the ground. Most of the sugar maples on the property are small and not very vigourous. The bark has an unhealthy silver palour and the tops are thin and have lots of dead branches. The wood of this tree is kind of punky and I fear that the rest of the maples are similarly doomed.

The fact that the sugar maples on our land are in such bad shape is rather sad given that there used to be a sugar bush here. There is the outline of the sugar shack still visible in the woods. (Perhaps not visible in this picture. You'll just have to believe me.) I suppose at some point someone decided sugaring was too much work and sold off the trees for firewood. No doubt this was the economically sensible thing to do at the time. Unfortunately, with all the large maples gone, there isn't a good seed stock to replenish the forest. I don't know whether all our sick young maples are suffering from environmental stress or perhaps they just lost the genetic crapshoot.

There are Algonquin pictographs warning of environmental catastrophe that say there will be a time when the trees, the maple trees, will begin to die from the top down. This would have been inconceivable at the time, yet here we are, witnessing exactly that.

Forest bathing

One of the first things I do every morning is take a pretty leisurely walk in the forest with Meg (leisurely for me - Meg tears around the trails like a bullet). This is a very pleasant thing to do and intuitively, it feels like it should be a pretty healthy thing too. This summer I read Arboraetum America by Diana Beresford-Kroeger. She talks a lot about the health benefits of being in the presence of trees because of the chemical substances they emit as they go about the business of defending themselves against insects and decay. Later this summer there were articles in the New York Times and Globe and Mail about the Japanese concept of shinrinyoku, or forest bathing. In Japan, people are encouraged, as a matter of public policy, to take in the forest air because of the proven benefits for the immune system and stress reduction. I love the idea of being in the forest as a cleansing, immersive experience. I certainly didn't need to have this kind of confirmation to know that walking in the forest is a great thing to do, but it's nice to have your intuition validated.

Knowing that in addition to the environmental and aesthetic qualities of forests, there are direct benefits to human health, makes their exploitation that much sadder. On that note, have a listen to Joni Mitchell singing Big Yellow Taxi, getting it right all those years ago:

Early morning walk in the forest

Most mornings, Meg and I take a walk through the woods on our new property. These woods have seen a lot of change over the years. They were no doubt burnt in the Great Fire of 1870 which destroyed much forest and property in this area. A neighbour tells of finding burnt cedar stumps several feet in diameter, now hollowed out, in these woods. There is evidence that there was a maple syrup operation, and like much land around here, it was probably pasture for a while, too. Most of the trees aren't all that big, but they are straight and tall and appear to be healthy.

The sky is revealed through gaps in the trees. The early morning clouds are breaking up.

An old road which was used to haul maple sap and firewood makes an inviting trail through the forest. The sun is now shining beautiful dappled light everywhere.

Our 25 acres is a small part of a larger forest that is unfortunately threatened with development on all sides. There is a 153 house subdivision going in on adjoining land and 400 homes are scheduled to be built less than a kilometre away. We are privileged to live here on such beautiful land and so close to town, but the price to pay is the heartbreak of witnessing the destruction of habitat and biodiversity all around us. It's heavy stuff to contemplate so early, so I do my best to appreciate what's here right now.