Wednesday Wanderings

Heart in Hand - "Autumn Alphabet"

I've got the alphabet almost done!  The motifs shouldn't take long to finish up.

After several days of rain, today we have some sunshine. 

So let's take a walk. 

Isn't the Sweetgum pretty?  We have three of these trees planted along the edge of the driveway.  This time of year they provide a wonderful contrast to the young Douglas Fir trees. 

With so much rain, the Blackberries are starting to mold on the vine.  And if they aren't moldy, they're really 'mushy' - Blackberry Picking Season is probably over for the year.

We don't get tons of amazing color like New England does, but this bank of mixed shrubs and trees is giving a lovely shout-out.

With the rains, the Big Creek is filling up again.  Soon the water will begin to flow.  To me that is the sign that Winter is here.

And these lovelies are Turkey Tail Mushrooms (Trametes versicolor).  The Turkey Tail is one of the most common mushrooms in North American woods, found virtually anywhere there are dead hardwood logs or stumps to decompose - and, occasionally, on coniferous wood too. The cap colors are highly variable, but tend to stay in the buff, brown, cinnamon, and reddish brown range. The mushrooms are strikingly "zonate" with sharply contrasting concentric zones of color, and the surface of the cap is finely fuzzy or velvety. Often the zones represent contrasts in texture as well as color, so that fuzzy zones alternate with smoother ones.   

More Apple Oak Galls...

This, believe it or not, is a Pussy Willow.  It's huge I know.  It lives at the corner of my Sister's Dahlia Garden and each March/April it is awash in in catkins.

The wind and rain have "cleaned" the Douglas Fir trees - lots of old, brown needles on the ground.

This is Lungwort Lichen (Lobaria pulmonaria).  It's pretty common in our shaded forest areas.  It is found on trees in humid forests, both coniferous and deciduous, at lower elevations.  

I'm not sure what kind of moss this is.  I'm leaning toward Small-flat Moss

(Pseudotaxiphyllum elegans) even though this is a clump...

It's October - and this is kinda' spooky looking!  It is Methuselah's Beard Lichen (Usnea longissima).  It is found draped over various trees and shrubs in open, well-ventilated forests; infrequent, but locally abundant.

That's it for our Walk today.  Next week I'm hoping to have some more Autumn Color to share.