With the gardening done for the year, I have started walking to get my exercise. I hadn’t been around the edge of the property for months. I was surprised to see a volleyball by the asparagus bed. When I got closer, the volleyball changed into a giant puffball. We don’t see many of them these days. It was especially remarkable because of the long drought we’ve had. Fungi like it wet when they sprout their visible growth.

Giant puffball disguised as a volleyball

A shelf fungus has invaded a bald cypress. Bald cypress lose their needles each year, although I have my doubts about this one growing needles back next year. A tree is often mostly dead by the time a shelf fungus can invade it. The trunk had many “shelves”, which are the spore producing bodies. Shelves are at tiny part of the whole fungus, which is now growing throughout the tree.

Shelf fungus on a bald cypress trunk

In fact, a shelf had sprouted right out the end of a broken branch. I don’t recall ever seeing that before. This tree is in bad shape.

Shelf at the end of a branch, indicating total fungal invasion

Terry’s Osage orange trees are fruiting, in spite of their small size and relatively young age. 

Osage "oranges," which are actually green

The trees are wickedly thorny, which made them valuable for fences back in the day. A bird took advantage of the extra protection by building a nest in one of the trees. I’d guess it was a small bird that could slip in and out without impaling itself.

An extra-safe nest among the thorns

In the brush that borders the creek, the skeletons of numerous wild cucumbers hang on their vines.

Wild cucumber skeletons on the vine

The red maple forest turned yellow rather than red, then all the leaves blew off. Maybe it will be red next year.

The mostly leafless red maple forest

The river birch and bur oaks have lost almost all their leaves. The apple trees are still hanging on.

Leafless bur oak, right; naked river birch, back left; apple trees still green in front

Our bees disappeared in September along with the honey. We had pulled a few “supers” before the exodus. We spun them down on a warm day and got a big bowl of honey.

Over 10 pounds of unfiltered honey

I filtered it through an impeccably clean soil sieve

Filtering the honey

And poured it into 12 canning jars. The last jar was only ¾ full. Still, it had to be a good 10 pounds of honey. Terry suggested taking next year off, since we probably have a lifetime supply.

So many jars of honey!

Jane came up for our annual Halloween burn on Saturday. I invited others, but it was a busy weekend for everyone. Jane wanted to make pumpkin sugar cookies (contain no actual pumpkin). Jewel had Halloween-themed decorative sprinkles on sale, and we had to try them out. There were two kinds of jimmies, black sugar, orange sugar, and mixed ghosts, pumpkins, bats, and green circles (ectoplasm? Snot?).

Pumpkin sugar cookies with decorations

“The bats look like mouse turds,” Jane remarked. So did the black jimmies. 

After lunch, we went back to the fire ring. It was a perfect day for a fire. The wind was just strong enough to keep the fire burning, but not so strong that it lit the whole woods on fire. Good thing, as dry as it’s been. Terry started the fire with gasoline and a lighter. Whoosh! In a few minutes, we removed our coats and moved our chairs back to keep the knees of our pants from burning up.

The fire

There is a half-dead box elder near the fire ring. Various parts of it have singed our burned outright over the years. The wind was blowing the heat in that tree’s direction. “I’m surprised that tree hasn’t caught fire,” I said to Jane. “I thought it would.”

Half-dead box elder tree near the fire ring

As I continued to watch, however, I saw smoke rising from the side of the stump. I said, "Wait. It is on fire. Or there's a squirrel over there having a cigarette break."

Smoke rising from the stump

I got up to inspect it. Sure enough, it was smoldering. I called to Terry, “This tree is on fire. Should we be concerned?”

Smoldering center of the dead part of the tree

“No,” he replied from a distance. “It’ll be fine.”

After he walked over to where I was standing, he changed his mind. “Oh. Yeah, you’d better put that out.”

“On it.”

I got the water sprayer and went at it. The smoke was coming not only from the part that I could see but also from a deep crack. I gave it a good soaking as far down as I could manage. We didn’t see any more smoke.

Spraying down the fire with water

Years ago, Terry carved a chicken with his chainsaw. As time passed, the chicken developed lichens and cracks. Terry moved it to a stump by the fire to await its eventual incineration. Jane thought it looked like an ancient statue, Chicken God of the Fire Ring.

All hail mighty Chicken God!

We put on as much brush as we wanted to get rid of. When it burned down, Jane and I returned to the house to do a jigsaw puzzle while Terry stayed back to turn the fire and be sure “it wasn’t going nowhere.” 

It was a beautiful and relaxing afternoon.