The Gift of Awe

 Despite my love for our critters and gardens, I find with Time's passing, that I am becoming less a farmer and more a naturalist.  

Yes, I love to cuddle all of our four-legged friends, 

and am constantly amused by the two-legged ones (both feathered and otherwise).

They have all taught me lessons about love, about loss,  and about the cycle of life.

My garden is a constant source of inspiration and hope.  But it's the natural world which continually leaves me wonderstruck.  To observe vast nature on a grand scale humbles us.  How wondrous it is to be but a tiny piece in something so magnificent!

Nature's true wonder lies in the truth that her beauty doesn't only exist on a grand scale, but also on an infinitesimally tiny scale (and at every point in between!)   Throw in the idea that everything is connected, and how can your heart not be filled with awe?  Now, add to that the fact that at the sub-microscopic level, everything (ourselves, included) is made of the same substance - stardust, in essence - this Earth of ours is nothing short of miraculous!  How lucky are we to witness these wonders!

Though it's been a drizzly week here on the farm, we try to take a walk in the woods every day. (sometimes between showers and sometimes during showers)

Our walks are less about exercise, and more about exploring.  

Though for some of us, the four-legged ones, it's about both.  As we explore with all of our senses, the dogs mostly explore with their noses... chasing down scent trails from animals that have passed through our woods.

I have come to realize that for me, the more I learn about something the more I appreciate it.

orange jelly fungus

Some days, we follow deer trails, rather than the man-made trails that wind through and around our woods. 

 Going off-trail at a meandering pace opens up to us the world of the rarely seen.

Wolf's milk slime-mold (much pinker than orange jelly fungus)

We keep our eyes peeled for changes in color and pattern, and find all sorts of life that might otherwise go un-noticed.

tiny mushrooms scattered across the forest floor

those same mushrooms, up close

We find the obvious...

Reishi mushroom, past its prime

and the minuscule...

what is the tiny white thing inside the pink circle?

and with the help of a good lens, get a glimpse of tiny life on a grander scale.

fungi so small, you could easily miss them

As we walk and discover, I find so many things that I want to share with you.

For example... the incredible way that nature reclaims that which has died.  Take for example this fallen log.  Thanks to bacteria, fungi, insects, birds, rain, moss, lichen (and so much more), it decomposes into a substrate from which new life springs.  Just on this piece of rotting trunk, three birch, one white pine, and one hemlock - all tiny saplings - have sprung forth. 

 Many years from now... where one tree fell, several will have replaced it... and all with no human intervention.  Nature, in her perfection, turns death into new life.

Old rotting stumps are a microcosm unto themselves - supporting all manner of life.  

(see below for an up-close look)

Some, so tiny that you would easily miss them - if you weren't consciously searching.

It's these tiny, rarely noticed, worlds that I love to bring you!

Tiny things, magnified...

Tiny bird's nest fungi...

complete with tiny "eggs"...

Even before a dead tree falls to the forest floor, other organisms are helping to break it down...

Crowded Parchment fungi - an appropriate name!

Even those responsible for demolition...

come to their own demise, eventually

We found a couple of plants that we had never seen before.  Like, this Rattlesnake plantain.  This tiny plant produces a flower in summer that is only a tenth of an inch big.  No wonder we've never seen it.  Now it is something we will look for next summer.

And these Beech Drop plants.  They have no chlorophyl and thus live parasitically off of maple tree roots.  There were hundreds of them in this one particular area of the woods.

It amazes me that after so many years and so many walks in these woods - that we still find things we have never seen before!  The more we see, the more we learn.  The more we learn, the more we love.