Dark, Green Cup-filled Core

 Fencepost of the Week #218

Mouldy Ruby Bolettes

These are ruby bolettes - Hortiboletus rubellus. They seem to be emerging from the ground already coated in a thick layer of white mould.

 Here's a photo taken at the same spot a few years ago, with less mould:

Telegraph Cable

Fencepost of the Week #153

Marker post for where the sub-marine telegraph cable makes landfall.

Slightly Crushed

Fencepost of the Week #108

Well trussed-up, slightly crushed. This fencepost isn't going anywhere, though it might disintegrate in the not too distant future.

Laminar Decay

Found this amazing piece of wood in the forest last sunday - it's not a fancepost - I think it's an incredibly delicately rotted larch tree.

It was somewhere around here...

Rotten Log Cornucopia

Just a neat little clustering of sulphur tuft and stump puffball fruiting bodies adorning a rotting log.

Hypholoma fasculare - Sulphur Tuft and Lycoperdon pyriforme - Stump Puffball. Both are common on well rotted timber.

Bark Beetles' Legacy

Fencepost of the Week #80

Bark beetle work on today’s FencepostOfTheWeek. They mostly eat living wood (which is why the galleries are in a layer just under the bark), so these marks were probably made before this tree even became a fencepost.

Grain of Truth

Fencepost of the Week #75

The fencepost might be rectilinear but the tree it came from was not.

Gunpowder Mill

Some photos of the Millhouse gunpowder factory - it operated from 1839 to 1921. The factory site had been planted up with trees to baffle the effects of accidental explosions, and it is now a beautiful, mossy woodland.

Millhouse Post Office

Here are a couple of photos of Millhouse Post Office.

One from about 1980 maybe? (I'm afraid it has no date on it)

And a second one from 2014:

You can see the results of combining the two here: Post Office

Fallen Tree Lingers

I'd just like to show you a couple of photos I took of an alder tree that fell across a river near here. The first pic was taken just after it fell - May 2003:

The second was taken in February 2014:

 I am amazed that a tree could hold on in a fast flowing burn like this for such a long time. Some of the beggest differences in the images are due more to the time of year, rather than the decade that separates the them. Hopefully I'll remember to revisit in May and get a clearer comparison...

Fungus / Moss / Lichen Fight!

Monday Mushroom #56

 Here is the wrinkled crust fungus erupting from a dead tree, smothering the lichens and mosses that already cover its surface.

Phlebia radiata - Wrinkled Crust Fungus

Phlebia radiata - Wrinkled Crust Fungus

Phlebia radiata - Wrinkled Crust Fungus

Leaf-bound Coasters

Just for a change, here is a craft project... or maybe a bit of materials research:

 In June 2010 I made some coasters by applying big leaves to the surface of old CDs. I was very pleased with the results - the thick, waxy leaves produced a lovely surface - somewhat remeniscent of leather binding, but without all the executions and flaying - and the leaf venation has a charm all its own.

Freshly made coaster - June 2010

...aaaanyway, I would have blogged about it at the time, but I wasn't sure that the materials I had used would stand the test of time. That was two and a half years ago, and I am still using the three coasters I made every day. My morning coffee is sitting on one of them right now!

Over time, the leaf texture has become more papery, and less waxy. The surface is now quite brittle, but still tough enough to be fit for purpose.

The same coasters today - notice the fungal stain just by my thumb which has not changed since coaster was made 30 months ago.

So here's how I made them, as near as I can remember:

- first find some big, waxy leaves - I chose a big-leaved rhododendron (Rhododendron suoilenhense, R. sinogrande or similar) In fact, I found the leaves first and then thought up something to do with them - they are lovely.

- Select some fallen leaves that are beginning to brown, but are still waxy and flexible, and take them home.

- Cut out sections of leaf large enough to cover your CD's with a generous margin for error. You might want to consider how the pattern of leaf veins will fit onto the CD.

- shave the main veins off of the underside of the leaf with a sharp knife or scalpel - you are aiming for an even thickness to your leaf.

- I left my leaves overnight sandwiched between heavy books to flatten and dry out a little. Leaving them for several days, perhaps a week, might be a good idea - there is a danger that if the leaf shrinks too much once stuck to the CD that it will crack or pull away from the surface.

- We will be using an adhesive to stick the leaves onto the CDs. I used black acrylic paint, but I would have used PVA glue instead if I'd had any - and will use that next time.

- Prepare the cds by sanding the side you intend to stick the leaves to. The leaves are going to shrink as they dry and will try to pull away from the CD, so the bond has to be as strong as possible.

- Apply a generous coating of adhesive to the underside of the leaves.

- Set the CDs firmly on top of the leaves and once more leave overnight with heavy books or similar on top to press them flat.

- Trim the edges - initially with scissors, but you can get a very neat finish by sanding down the leaf overhang to the CD's edge.


...and that's all I can remember! I did consider coating the leaf with beeswax - which might have kept the leaves waxy for longer, again that is something I will experiment with next time.

Nautiloid Fencepost

Fencepost of the Week #52

This is a heavily photoshopped image from 2003, when I was just starting to play with the possibilities of digital photography.

The dark-brownish bit in the middle is a long-dead toad - hung on the fencepost by an avian predator in order to extract the tasty bits inside without eating the poisonous skin.

Covered in Honey Fungus

Monday Mushroom #32

A collapsed, rather moribund birch tree being engulfed by honey fungus.

Armillaria mellea - Honey Fungus

Armillaria mellea - Honey fungus

Alder Island

Tree-fetish Tuesday #25

Alder trees seem to love water more than any other British tree. Here is an island in a sea of duckweed, made from the rotten stump of an old alder tree now with a flourishing forest of new growth.

Beautiful glossy leaves, alders grow fast colonising poor waterlogged soils. They grow quickly but are relatively short-lived trees, collapsing as the heartwood rots. Though often sprouting anew from the stump.

Alder leaves against a background of fast-flowing, peaty water - a familiar sight to many from alders clinging to river banks all up and down the country.

Clearance

Scenic Sundays #31

One of the many crofting townships that did not sourvive the highland clearances. This one is a little south of Dervaig on the the Isle of Mull. You can click on the image to get a slightly bigger version...

Fencepost of Dangers Past

Fencepost of the Week #26

The life of the fencepost photographer is full of DANGER...

23rd March 2003

13th August 2011

The H.B. at the top suggests that this fencepost may have previously been a Hydro-Board electric power-line pole, that was chopped up and used for fencing. The two photos were taken 8 years apart - not much seems to have happened in the meantime. The weather certainly hasn't improved much.

Decomposition

Monday Mushroom #17

 Fungi are the cause of much decomposition, but of course, they, too become rotted - other fungi, insects, moulds, bacteria and even vertebrates participate in the decay - in some species the fruiting bodies last less than a day before total dissolution, others can last for years.

Of course the mushroom we see is just a fruiting body - confusing a mushroom with the fungal organism that sprouted it is very much like confusing an apple with an apple tree, only in the case of fungi the 'tree' is almost invisible, while the fruits are very obvious.

While the fruit comes and goes in its season, the rest of the fungus persists, living and growing in the earth, or other substrate out of which the mushroom appeared. It is always there - but invisible - all through the year, ready to sprout further mushrooms, when the conditions are right.

Boletus erythropus - Red-legged Bolette

...and then the same mushroom again, ten days later:

It can all rot

Let the paving and asphalt break up,
Let the lofty spires fall,
Let the timbers rot and girders rust,
Concrete crumble, brick work moulder,
You need do nothing at all -
Just let it be.

Let our world fade from memory,
A bad dream from which the world awoke.