The Old and the New

The Old and the New

March 25, 2017

Spring rains are always so refreshing. They behave as great magic brushes pulling bright color from the depths of the landscape to the surface. In our area, farm fields turn an almost blindingly bright green as plantings of winter wheat grow and freshen. Some fields have stripes or swathes of deep lavender from Purple Dead Nettle and Henbit, two weeds from the mint family whose many seeds have lain dormant beneath farm soil all winter.

Purple Dead Nettle in my garden

Some fields are pale yellow as flowers of wild mustard plants just begin to bloom. All in all, our area seems dressed up for Easter.

Our woodland springs to life, too, though the green and other colors are not as dense in early springtime. From a distance, light mists of green and white appeared as early wildflowers bloomed and more plants arose from the leaf layer, to bloom later.

 Spring Beauty

 Cut-Leaved Toothwort

 Blue Violet

 Mayapple just opening up

 Appendaged Waterleaf

 Prairie Trillium in bud

 Dwarf Larkspur

In and around Cottonwood Pond, many things were quivering to life after refreshing rains and warmer weather. Over the winter, it was easier to notice the older aspects of the forest, those set in place. I noticed their patterns, colors, textures, and their transformations.

In spring, they were being dressed up by new life happening in, on, and around them.

I am not one to agree with the notion that the old “gives way” to the new (or young.) Rather, I see the elder as lending support to the newer or younger, providing a foundation for it to spring forward on its own, feeding it to give it strength. Some cultures in our world have lived by this, and there are some that still do. Those that do not miss out on the value that the elder can impart to the new.

Nature constantly teaches, if we will only pay attention. There are many ways that Nature teaches about the relationship between the old and the new (and all in between,) and there are many examples at Cottonwood Pond as the newness of Spring begins to thrive on the foundation of what was there already.

From the old leaf layer, which had been enriching and protecting the soil as well as seeds and tiny animal life below it, there sprang results of the long nurturing.

 Seedlings of Jewelweed and Honewort

 Monkeyflower plants starting to grow near the Inlet 

The Mud Piles, formed by dirt gradually falling from the Cottonwood Root Ball over the years, sported a variety of young plants – Jewelweed, grasses, Cleavers, and Sweet Cicely – and had developed clumps of moss and a sheen of green algae.

 Jewelweed seedlings, which will become tall, lanky plants

Mosses had been supported by old wood all winter, and previously. With warm spring rains they had woken up, growing long, thread-like sporophytes with knobby ends containing the spores for a new generation. The leaf parts, too, of the mossy mats were turning vivid green and growing a new generation of tiny plants.

Moss on an old log over the Creek

Below the water surface of Cottonwood Pond, but floating above the old bottom layer of fallen leaves from last Autumn, mats, strands and clouds of algae had developed during the increasing warmth and sunlight. Their release of oxygen was evident by the iridescent bubbles floating above.

I decided I would gather a bit of this on another visit and examine it closely.

Dead twigs, branches and pieces of limbs had fallen during a recent storm, some scattering into the water at Cottonwood Pond.

These would eventually support other life as they lay in the water, such as algae for tiny aquatic organisms to nibble (including tadpoles,) films of bacteria and other “scum” to feed even tinier organisms, and minerals leaching from decaying wood to feed the pond in general. Large organisms would, in turn, feed on the small ones.

Some would become foundations for the attachment of egg masses, perhaps of frogs, salamanders or snails. In fact, older debris was already doing so, as I found a jelly-like mass attached to a twig in the shallow water. Leafy debris in the pond bottom wold be harboring a variety of life, from microscopic to those visible to the naked eye. This would, hopefully, be discovered during a future exploration.

I had been hearing a huge chorus of Chorus frogs in the area, so I hoped there would be egg masses in there somewhere. On that day, I was able to see, very briefly, two Chorus frogs. One hopped across the Swampy Spot and seemed to vanish – I looked closely at the spot where it must have landed but never saw it again. Another made two long hops to the Inlet and under the Barkless Log, then disappeared into the leafy, muddy pond bottom.

Old wood of the Cottonwood Trunk also supported fungi growing through its life cycle.

There were other ways that the old Cottonwood Root Ball was supporting other life, besides growing new plants.

When I went around to “little pond,” I saw fresh wood chips scattered across the ground and water below the Root Ball Top.

One or more Woodpeckers (probably the large Pileated) had been working at the rotted wood of a large root in the Root Ball, searching for insects.

It was the first time that had happened, as it had taken several years for enough dirt to fall and expose them. There large, inner roots, and the mass of smaller ones, had once been vibrant beings that anchored the mighty tree into the wet bottom soil and derived nourishment for it from the underlying soil, water and fungi.

At the same time, saplings of other kinds of trees, which had rooted from the Root Ball dirt, were continuing to grow and flourish.

I did wonder about the stability of those saplings, since they were far from the surrounding soil below the Root Ball. Would they lose their foothold and fall someday when enough dirt had fallen from the Root Ball?

 A view through the woods from the northwest – the Root Ball can be seen in the middle of the photo, between both thriving and dead standing trees. In the foreground are groups of white-blossomed spring wildflowers.

At the same time, also, animals had been using their claws to shred wood from the middle section of the Very Rotten Log near Cottonwood Pond, looking for insects and grubs.

All of the tearing up of wood will help it break down more quickly on the forest floor and become soil to support new life. Fungi, moss, lichen and other growth on the wood, as well as tiny organisms, were doing their part of this process.

The cycle continues, and it will be exciting to find out what else springs to life at Cottonwood Pond as the year progresses

The Bent Blue Beech (above) became the Broken Blue Beech, and may eventually fall to the water and ground below.

 Rain on the water of Cottonwood Pond