Birthday Walk

Birthday Walk

Ouabache Trails Park

November 22, 2013

November is my favorite month.  It is my birth month, but that is really a minor factor.  I love the steely, overcast skies, and the bracing cold air, a prelude to winter that feels exciting to me.  We begin the season with dark, bare trees, standing like pillars in a dark cathedral.  So much becomes obvious now:  birds' nests, woodpecker holes, hawks and owls sitting on branches, the bend of tree limbs, and the true structure of trees.

What better way to celebrate the morning of my 58th birthday than a walk in the woods through cold, fresh air, in one of my favorite local places?

I head out to Ouabache Trails Park on this wet, gray morning, with a determination to just saunter, pay attention, and to look at the “big picture” as well as the tiny things.  My plan, if it is a plan, is to take my time and cover very little area, but cover it well, enjoying it all.

After winding my way through the country and through part of Vincennes, the last road I drive is Lower Fort Knox Road, a long road that runs parallel to the railroad, in the Wabash River floodplain, ending at the park.  The Wabash River also winds its way toward the park, curving to run parallel with the road and railroad near my destination.

There is an opening in the trees where the river nears the road, and the view is straight up the river.  I have been taking this road to Ouabache Trails since the park was established in the early 1980's, and that opening scene causes a leap in my heart every single time.

 The Wabash River, just north of Vincennes, Indiana

When I get to the park entrance, I wind up and around to the upper loop of the park, leave my truck at the office, and set out on Trail 1.  The forest floor is covered in one great, complete carpet of gold and brown.  Looking closely, I see so many textures and shapes, with dashes of straight-line leaf stems among them.

I come to this old tree stump, where I always stop on this trail.  It always has something of interest.  Once, it was covered inside and out with snails, their spiraled shells in contrasting cream and brown patterns. 

Today the stump is a study in swirling, curving lines, interspersed with streaks of black.  I would love to try painting a watercolor of this.

Winter is a time of glory for the young American Beech trees.  Among the bare stands of other trees, the young Beeches hold onto their leaves.

I find the long, glossy seed pods of Honey Locust, like burnished leather.

A great medallion of blue-green lichen decorates another tree.

Leaf of Chinquapin Oak, a tree of the higher places.

                         A leaf of the Paw-paw tree, abundant in the understory along Trail 1.

 

                      

I continue along Trail 1, as it winds further from the park road and deeper into rolling hills.

At the beginning of Trail 2, there is a distinct change, an opening.  In the summertime, after walking through the shade of Trail 1, you walk into a very sunny spot.  Years ago, a great old tree stood here, casting a great deal of shade.  This section was like most of the woods:  rich with wildflowers in the early spring, then almost bare of forest floor plants after the canopy filled out in the summer.

Eventually, a great storm caused the old one to topple.  I remember seeing the horizontal trunk freshly cut into huge sections and rolled to the side of the trail, and the piles of fresh sawdust.

With this new, sunny opening, new plants took hold and flourished, such as Pokeweed, Elderberry and Beardtongue.  Seedling trees, especially of Sassafras and American Hornbeam, sprouted along the left side.  They have become strapping saplings competing for light.

A little way down the slope lie the remains of the cut-up old tree.  It has been a long time, and this tree seems relatively resistant to decay, but I have watched over the years as nearby plants and fallen leaves have been enveloping the old tree.  In the summer, it sports one huge Common Mullein plant, larger than any I’ve seen elsewhere. 

Here in late November, it looks like there is not much growing, but I explore the old wood pile. 

 

 A garland of small puffball mushrooms sweeps over the gnarled surface.

Yellow jelly fungus 

In November, the old logs bloom with various forms of life.

Turkey Tail Mushroom

   Young ferns in a bed of moss

The purple leaves of Beardtongue, which bloomed in the summer, are still vibrant and shining…

…while a brown tendril and accompanying leaf are reminders of the Grape vine that was growing here.

Here and there I find clusters of dried Grapes.

Leaves of Wild Ginger still decorate the brown forest floor with bright green, though some have become frost-bitten around the edges.

Swirls of black fungus lace through an exposed burl in the old tree.  A seed, the new generation of Tulip Poplar, rests on the surface.

Where one log rests on another, barely tucked into the side of the slope, I find a cozy little hiding place.  When I was a child, growing up with woods and fields behind my house and with many neighborhood children, this would have been claimed as a choice “fort”.  Some children probably would have covered one side with leafy branches.  At age 58, I am still very inclined to climb into “hidey-holes’ such as this.

I continue along Trail 2, back into the canopied area, and across one of the Trail 2 bridges.

At this time of year, it can be difficult to distinguish the trails, and I sometimes find myself veering off the trail somewhere.

I find a huge Black Walnut, still in a dark hull, and am glad I wasn’t standing in the grove of Black Walnut trees when these were falling.  I also find walnut shells with holes gnawed by wildlife going for the rich, oily nutmeat inside.

After a sharp curve and a slight uphill grade, I come to another favorite spot.  Years ago, as I rounded that curve, I would come upon a huge Maple tree on the right side, with a great maw in the bottom of it.  I would check the hole for evidence of wildlife and admire this giant of a tree.  Finally, it succumbed to the inevitable and fell to the side, landing on the slope.  From then on, I called it The Fallen Giant, and I have watched it gradually melt into the forest floor.

 Looking upwards toward the crown of the tree, which provided shelter and food for many, and provided shade under its sprawling limbs and branches.

  Fallen Giant, looking down, with puffball mushrooms

Puffball mushrooms find nourishment and a good growing surface as they help break down the wood.

Not long ago, The Fallen Giant was still a great, long, hollow log.  A couple of years ago, I peered into the chamber to find large, white, stemmed mushrooms standing inside, eerily illuminated by light seeping in.

I have found many interesting mushrooms here, and today the tree is covered end-to-end with puffballs.  In the lower end, a shiny black fungus reminds me of pahoi-hoi rock, formed by lava flows in Hawaii, something I learned about a little less than 40 years ago in Geology class.

The base of the tree is turning to soil, and is one of my favorite “teaching spots”, where people can easily see the wonderful transformation of a tree into rich humus. 

Someday, the whole tree will become soil, and future generations will not know The Fallen Giant ever existed.

Further along on Trail 2, I come to another favorite that I have watched over the years, The Gnarly Maple.  There are holes where limbs used to be, and I am sure that wildlife have made  good use of them.

As I near the lowland, American Beech becomes more numerous…

…and so do the ghostly upper branches of Sycamores.

I come to the rise of Trail 2.  I call this space “The Sassafras Grove”.  Sassafras trees seem to be a favorite of various woodpeckers.  I hear a Red-Bellied Woodpecker call.  In the distance, the rhythmic squabble of a White-Breasted Nuthatch permeates the cold air.  Wrens hop in the underbrush and snags, scolding.

 Sassafras tree with holes drilled into bark by woodpeckers

 Stately Tulip Poplar and old Grape vine

Shagbark Hickory

I go to the hilltop and look down at the “big creek”, with its sandstone overhangs.  Last winter, I took a photo of this same view, all in snow, when huge icicles were hanging from the rock ledges.  When I checked my photo on the computer screen later that day, I discovered that one of the white spots under the rocks was a Great Blue Heron.

The view downhill to the left, with so many smooth, light gray trunks of American Beech.  Beechnuts cover the ground thickly near the “big creek” in fall, and curious-looking Beechdrop plants can be found near the bases of some of the trees.

In the earliest years of Ouabache Trails Park, there was a picnic table placed on this hilltop.  It is a perfect spot to rest after a walk, taking in the variety of views around it.  Eventually, the table fell apart and was removed.

 There is a knob of land at the top of Trail 2 that I call Green Violet Hill.  In this place, years ago, I came to know the Green Violet (bot. name?), which is numerous here.  This is a good wildflower spot in general, and an especially good spot to find the Puttyroot Orchid.

Now, and all winter, the elegantly pin-striped single leaves of Puttyroot stand above the brown leaf litter.  They will gradually fade and shrivel through the following spring, and, and early summer, some will be replaced by a dark stalk of tiny orchids.

The tops of the trees sway in the wind.  It is five days since a great series of tornadoes ripped through the Midwest, including the southern part of our county.  That day had become full of roiling, dark clouds and fierce, moist wind.  Today, the wind is steady, cold, dry, and pleasant.  The sky is completely overcast and gray.

I sit myself down in another favorite spot, next to Green Violet Hill, at the top of a long row of wooden steps that go downhill to a small bridge in the valley, then up the other side.  I don’t know how many times I have taken those steps, up and down, over the years, but they have been here as long as the park has existed.  In springtime they are lined with wildflowers.  Now they are barely visible through the layers of fallen leaves.

I close my eyes.  After a while, I realize that the forest is breathing.  Wind comes from the right, through the tops of the trees, sounding in the upper register like a sharp inhale.  Then from the left, a different wind comes through the lower part of the canopy, sounding in a lower register like a long, slow exhale, calm and broad.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale.

I hear the faint rustle of young Beech, their dry leaves rubbing together like the wings of a cricket. 

I open my eyes.  The Beech leaves are a blaze of every color between yellow and brown; goldenrod, auburn, tawny, umber.  Some are the color of yellow topaz, my November birthstone.  Some are the shades of amber, a gem found in Poland, a place where some of my ancestors started their birthdays.

I am thinking about other women naturalists, whose writings I have enjoyed, some who had outdoor adventures in various parts of the world, and those who, like myself, explored any natural place they came to,  including places close to home.  Some of those writings were from many years ago, or 20 years ago, or 10.  I wonder how old those women are now, how much longer they had traveled, walked, climbed, rowed, camped, explored, wrote, taught. 

I wonder how they felt when (and if) they came to a place in their lives when they could no longer do those things.

I am very fortunate to be healthy and agile at 58 years old.  I realize I must keep walking trails, climbing hills, jumping creeks, and crouching low to explore the little things, as much as possible, as long as I can.  I must listen to the birds, frogs, insects, to running streams, to deer dashing away in the woods, and to the forest inhaling and exhaling, as much as possible, as long as my hearing allows.  I must cast my eyes to the vistas and look deeply into the tiny things as much as possible, as long as my sight allows.  I must take in all the scents deeply. 

Though I am able to spring lightly along these steps, I do not take each step lightly. 

I inhale, exhale, and enjoy every one of them.