While doing trail maintenance I noticed something orange in the woods off the trial. It looked like someones Kubota from a distance but as I got closer I recognized a log with some 30 pounds of chicken mushrooms. These mushrooms are choice eating and unpredictable to locate. Finding them in May is very rare.
The town forest trail has 360 feet of newboard walk
This walk is 132 feet long protects the wetland echosystem and keeps your feet dry.
Turtle heads are profuse in August in the Town Forest.
More Turtle Heads
This Beech grove is close to the trail and features numerous beeches that have been climbed by black bears regularly. The claw marks vary in age from the current season to many years back. They show up as 4 or 5 parallel scratches. A large bear will have a 5 inch or more span between the 5 scratches or punches through the bark. They go up for the Beech nuts when in season.
The bears go into the Beech tree tops and bite off branches and harvest the nuts. They then either jam them in a crotch or drop them. The crotch becomes stuffed with branches they can then stand on and work from and are known as bears nests. This tree has two which is highly unusual. It is about 20 feet off the trail. Bears nests also are left where bears have been feeding on buds or catkins.
When feeding happens late in the summer while the leaves are still green they stay on the branches making the nests easier to see later in the season. There are piles of branches at the base of the trees as well.
On the town forest loop this tree got some serious abuse from bears over the years.
Send me a shot if you have a picture of interest taken on the Strafford Trail System and where it was taken. I'll add it to this page. mhebb1 at yahoo (period)com
Vermont wild Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius)
If your eyes are sharp you might find some of this rare and valuable root on the trail.
High water kissing the trail bridge April 26, 2011
Left: Porcupine highway leads usually from their rocky hole to the nearest hemlocks where they feed on the branches.
To the right is an unusual lichen. It is an epiphytic 3 way symbiote . It consists of a blue green algae, a cyano bacteria and a fungus all of which are in different kingdoms! Lungwort is named after the Docterine of Signatures and is used to treat airway and breathing problems. Growing mostly on maples, its leaves resemble lung tissue. It is an air quality indicator since it grows only where the air is especially pure. The techinical name is Lobaria Pulmonaria.
Bears have been leaving scent signs on the trail signs.
This oak makes all the other trees look like bushes! Can you find it? It split and fell in 2014.
A beautiful bit of art in soapstone in PWMA for Ester Bacon 1842
