3:00 snapshot #1003: A few hours in Granby.

[urbpan]

Here's my brother and I after an impulsive walk in the woods turned into an extended adventure.




Hours earlier, at my dad's house, I noticed this row of antlion traps. That's a pretty high density of predators when you think about it, but then again, ants are provided in very dense and renewing populations.


We drove away from Suffield and found quaintness just away from the official borders of the Connecticut River Valley, in Granby Connecticut, at Old Mill Pond Village.


A short distance away we stumbled upon the McLean Game Refuge. This painted raccoon seems friendly, let's go in!


We crossed a footbridge and looked at the shallow stream. Shall we go in?


We shall. And I shall attempt a rock balance (poorly).


The balance didn't work out, but I did find these nifty insect eggs on one of the rocks!


Up on dry ground I found a friendly daddy long-legs.


After I handled it, it had to clean all the dirty human germs off.


My brother took some shots of an open cabin. A CCC project?


A mysterious black ball fungus on a dead tree. I thought it might be carbon balls, but an expert I consulted identified it as "could be anything."


These are more my speed. A beautiful collection of oak maze-gill mushrooms.


And then a very nice collection of what is probably violet-toothed polypore Trichaptum biforme.


Here the little Trichaptum mushrooms are hanging around with a big ol' tinder polypore Fomes fomentarius. This species produces a perennial mushroom, adding a new spore-producing layer each growing season, which gives it a hoof-like appearance. The ancients would set it alight, and it would smolder for a very long time, allowing them to carry the ability to make a fire around with them. The ice man found in the Italian alps was carrying some with him when he died.


Notice the marks etched into the surface of the tinder polypore--those are the marks made by slugs or snails grazing away.


We came across a pond. Anyone know what this plant is?


My brother saw a sign that he just HAD to disobey.


I felt an ant crawling on my hand, but it wasn't an ant, it was an ant-mimic spider! (This caption by Fred Schneider.)


This was an important turning point. We figured out where we were, and how to get back, but took a picture of the map just to be sure. It wasn't enough however, and we spent the next long while trying to find our way back to the entrance. At one point my brother walked blithely through a stream wearing his dress shoes. At another point we said the heck with it and walked through two farm fields and a back yard to a road, which we went up first one direction then figuring it was wrong went the other direction. A couple of ladies on horseback eventually pointed us toward the right way and I've never been happier to see my car in my life. Sorry no pictures from the end of the walk, I was too tired and dehydrated and focused on getting back! I've had a certain J Geils song in my head ever since.

Comments

blue vervain

[dedhamoutdoors.livejournal.com]

I heart blue vervain!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Is it a trick question? It looks an awful lot like that omnipresent invasive, purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria).

On the other hand, it's right by the water, and there are some large spade-like leaves in the foreground, so possibly it's pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)--though that's usually a bluer purple, and only grows one set of flowers per stalk... so yeah, I don't think that's pickerelweed.

My vote is purple loosestrife.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

There was something about the inflorescence that didn't make me think of loosestrife. I considered pickerelweed and blue vervain (which dedhamoutdoors, above, seems to agree with) but I'm still not positive.

I looked through my old entry on loosestrife to compare and I'm pretty sure that's not

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh blue vervain! Yeah, it definitely looks like that--and I love that stuff too.

[dedhamoutdoors.livejournal.com]

do you have a high resolution picture? blue vervain has a square stem, could be visible if you zoom in.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I zoomed into the original and it's still hard to tell. I just checked my Peterson's wildflower guide, and it meets other characteristics for blue vervain (tiny five-petaled flowers blooming from the bottom up, toothed leaves) so I'll go along with you.