September 10: Sudden harvest

Artillery of acorns

pounds the roof

of the empty house next door.

August 19: In the woods

I was up on Ragged Mountain today helping with some boundary work on a property Coastal Mountains Land Trust hopes to conserve. Indian Pipe (or Ghost Plant), a parasitic flower often associated with beech trees and now in bloom, was scattered throughout the forest understory.

Mountain understory--
dropped acorns and ghost plants
haunt last year's beech leaves.

August 22: Acorns?

I keep hearing things falling through the trees out back, and had assumed they were acorns but then I realized it was too early for acorns. They don't drop till fall, when the mast crops provide protein-rich sustenance for bears, turkeys, and deer that helps fatten them up to survive the winter. So what's making all that noise? Are the squirrels getting a head start on this year's crop, or are they knocking other things down as they fling themselves through the branches?

Random artillery in the trees--
I thought it was acorns
but it's too early.