Winter – Towards the Moon or To the Sun

Fleeting Southern Snow

When I was a little lad (back when they included cuneiform on multi-lingual instruction sheets), I got a sled for Christmas. Several years went by before I had actual snow to test it on, although I do remember sliding down a hill of ice. Where I live, ice is a common hazard of winter: rain followed by a cold night, or worse – rain that freezes on contact. Freezing rain is to be feared. Not only does it slicken stairs and pavement, but it weighs down tree limbs to the point of breaking. A forecast of freezing rain sends us filling the bathtub and checking flashlights in preparation against downed power lines. We seldom get winter wonderlands in our part of the Piedmont, only hazards and inconveniences.

This month, the heating of the upper atmosphere, perhaps ironically, disrupted the normal pattern of the polar vortex, sending frigid air blasting southward. Weather prognosticators warned the nation to brace for a bitter storm. Our run up to last weekend was a flurry of storm prep, with the expectation that power could be out for days. Snowpocalyse, for us at least, was thankfully over-advertised. We woke to a layer of sleet and ice, but also running water and lights. Treading carefully and driving as little as possible was the order of the week. Life went on.

“But wait, there’s more,” cried the meteorologists, declaring another wave of cold and wet was on its way. On Friday evening, we checked that last weekend’s preparations were still in place, and braced for ice and snow.

By mid-morning on Saturday, a few tiny flakes began floating down, heralding a heavier snowfall that was sticking before noon. Snow petered out around 3:30. Depending on where you looked, it lay at 2-4” deep, and powdery with that soft crunchy-squeak sound. I took some of our dogs out for a spin. They stuck their muzzles in the snow like they were searching for where the smells went.

After dark, we were treated to a brilliant full moon and a cloudless sky, which made for sharp shadows on a silver-gray ground (below). Between a decline in drivers willing to brave the roads and the muffling effect of the snow, the woods were truly quiet in a way they rarely are in the crowded spaces between cities.

Sunday dawned clear and well below freezing – rising just above freezing by afternoon. Already, the roads and driveways were clearing. The view in field and forest was still brilliant white, but patches of tan grasses and brown leaves dotted the vista.

Monday’s temperature shot up to the lower 50s. The sun ate away at the snow. By evening, the weekend’s fine powder blanket was reduced to a few coarse icy clumps huddled against the north side of trees. By mid-week, the show was over.

As a kid, I envied my northern counterparts their months of deep snow. As an adult, I can enjoy the novelty of an appreciable snowfall and still be glad to return to dry ground within the week. Probably just as well I don’t still have a sled.

Last Joro

We have a tendency to take a proprietary view of things around us. “The deer down the road are a potential nuisance, but the one that feeds on the edge of my yard is okay because it’s familiar.” “That maple by the gate is familiar as an old friend.” “Stray cats are death on toast for birds, but I’ve named the one that creeps around my hedge.” “They can’t do that to our pledges, only we can do that to our pledges.” (Yes, Ma, that last one was a movie reference.)

As I mentioned a while back, the Joro spider – an Asian arachnid making itself at home in the Piedmont – fills up the woods in late summer, to the consternation of those who otherwise love the outdoors. As temperatures drop in the late autumn, the multitude of spiders drops away and their haphazard webbing disintegrates.

And then there was the large female residing just outside the garage. I’d see her every day, along with a few smaller Joros inhabiting that corner under the eaves. She was hanging out through the late summer and into the autumn. October…November… December… the spiders on the back porch fell away. Moths, flies, and other flying insects faded out as well. Christmas came, and the large female under the eaves remained, after cold and hunger felled all her neighbors. Was her persistence due to being the largest spider on the south-facing side of the house, protected from the worst of the winds? Regardless, at this point she’d gone from an invasive cluttering up the garage to a dogged survivor. Instead of glares, she earned appreciative glances as I walked by.

The New Year dawned with a near-freezing morning. I expected her corner to be unattended, but there she was: slowly, methodically, doggedly repairing her web with golden-tinted silk. You go, girl.

Now it’s mid-January. Atmospheric disruption at the North Pole sent a shock of subfreezing winds our way. The first morning after the hard freeze revealed a ragged, empty web. Our Joro lay on the cement floor, having finally succumbed. I wouldn’t say I had an overabundance of feeling for that critter (this was a short-lived invasive, not Charlotte), but its passing received far more attention than that of any of its brethren.

Is there a tree, a stone, an animal — any normally-anonymous thing –that you have marked with your attention? Any thing whose absence would be worthy of notice and remark? Drop a comment and let me know.

The Last Leaves of the Season

Another year has cycled through, and the canopy of colorful leaves around my house is now a carpet in different shades of brown. From the mighty white oaks to the humble dogwoods, all sport naked limbs, awaiting the return of spring to unfurl new green leaves.

But one tree stands out in the forest. The American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) holds on to its withered tan leaves throughout the dormant season. This quality of holding on to dead leaves after other plants have shed them is called “marcescence”. Studies suggest marcescence is a strategy for deterring deer and other herbivores from browsing on the more nutritious twigs and buds, or perhaps for improving the tree’s nutrient uptake by delaying leaf decomposition until spring.

The beech is one of the most shade tolerant of trees, allowing it to spend decades holding its own beneath the forest canopy until a fallen tree gives it an opening to grow into the light. The beech prefers moderately moist conditions, and its thin bark provides scant protection against fire. In open woodlands of the precolonial Piedmont, oaks dominated, while beeches withdrew to the more sheltered bottomlands. With fire removed from hardwood forests, beeches, maples, and other thin-barked trees advanced into the uplands as forest canopies closed. They are firmly part of the climax forest community.

Beechnuts are a much-sought-after food for birds and mammals, from blue jays to black bears. It was a primary fall food source for the long-vanished passenger pigeon. Humans make vegetable oil from beechnuts, or roast them to eat or to make a caffeine-free coffee substitute. Unfortunately, a seedling will grow for several decades before putting on the first beechnuts, and thereafter produce at intervals ranging from two to eight years. Beeches can live for 400 years, assuming they aren’t cut for lumber or high-quality firewood, or succumb to one of several introduced disease-causing pests.

The bark of the beech is relatively smooth and pale gray, making it a tempting canvas on which folks may carve their initials, dates, or other sentiments. I don’t recommend the practice — cutting the bark allows pathogens to attack the tree, and it’s rude to future visitors — but don’t be surprised to see the declarations of love, territory or simple presence written across a trunk. Yesterday, I walked downstream a short way to a beech tree I remember from my youth; decades ago, a local with the surname Inglett took knife to bark, staking his claim on that patch of woods. I don’t know how long ago this bit of vandalism occurred, but the scars were old when I was a kid, and they have stretched to near illegibility since then.

When you pass through the woods this winter, Keep an eye out for marcescent leaves of beeches.