An End to Peaches

2011 was a sadly inauspicious year for trees on our ridge. The stag-horn sumac trees did not fare well in the summer, and this happened in the spring. This poor peach tree has been struggling for years, but every once in a while it would produce a small crop of flavorful (gnarly-looking) fruit. This spring, the wind took it down. I'm saving the last freezer-bag of peach pie filling for a special occasion.

Tree Year 2011 Recap: Sumac Season

My blogging habit crashed and burned last year, but I continued to take sumac pictures for Tree Year 2011, at least until summer's dry weather killed the small trees I was photographing.

I waited until the end of April to see the buds relax and swell.

These leaves were unfolding on May 21.

By June, most of the trees were leafy, although some new shoots were still growing.

The inflorescences are not as pretty as the red winter fruiting bodies. This is full bloom on June 21.

I had never looked close at sumac inflorescences before.

And then, they all dried up and died--the small, reachable sumacs, that is. Around here, sumacs are adventitious woody shrubs that pop up in old fields and die back after a short time. I had hoped for a series of fall foliage colors, like we had in 2004. I was going to finish off the year with this:

When we read Indian Summer in school, the whole concept of "crimson forest" was a mythical thing in my mind, like dragons and fairy godmothers. Yes, sometimes a leaf might turn yellow or red, but mostly, they turned brown and blew away.

Along the line of smoky hills
The crimson forest stands,
And all the day the blue-jay calls
Throughout the autumn lands.

Now by the brook the maple leans
With all his glory spread,
And all the sumachs on the hills
Have turned their green to red.

Sometimes, I knew, trees could blow away. The Kansas part of "The Wizard of Oz" was all too real--I was in high school before I could bear to watch it on TV. But "sumachs on the hills...turned their green to red" was some sort of literary conceit. Boy did I get a surprise when I moved "back East." I believe sumac sometimes glows in the dark come autumn.

Snowy Setback--2011 Tree Year

After several warm days that made the lilac and rose bushes pop new leaves, winter weather returned.

This is the same snowstorm that caught Sherry on her way home from West Virginia. Bourbon County had a sunny, snow-melting day today, but here on Droop, the snow persists.

Dormancy--2011 Tree Year

It's snowing again today, and the sumac buds are tight shut still.

Like other smooth-barked tree species here, the sumacs have lots of lovely lichens.

Late Winter Sumac--2011 Tree Year

Yesterday's sky did not promise spring, and this morning we had snow and sleet. Robins have been visiting the sumac fruits, but the main customers there are our red-bellied woodpeckers.

Lately, they have been rather rough in their foraging, and pieces of the fruiting bodies are scattered on the ground under the trees.

I wonder whether they enjoy these dry, furry fruits, or if they're the last choice here at the end of winter.

State of the Sumac--January 2011

Here's my latest post for The Tree Year. (I think Das Baumjahr has a better ring to it...I may switch.)

The sun came out to make the trees sparkle this afternoon, so I thought it would be a good time to document the State of the Sumac for January, 2011. This particular stag horn sumac has its lowest fruits 12 or 15 feet off the ground, and it's at the bottom of a snowy, icy, steep hill, so the best I can do today is this full-length portrait, complete with plenty of snow-coated red fruit clusters.

Like Sherry's dad, folks around here call this small tree/large shrub "shoe-make." They regard "sumac" as an affectation. It really isn't a case of me "getting above my raisin'" though, because my raising on the prairie didn't include this peculiar tree. I only know its name from field guides and botany classes.

This smaller, distressed sumac has been growing by an abandoned gate for many years, but it hasn't gotten more than 15 feet high. It has some lovely lichens, and I can get a bit closer to those peculiar clusters of fuzzy red sumac fruits.

Here you can see that the birds have been working on the dried fruits. One of the clusters is picked nearly clean.

Ice Storm, Iowa, 1954

Here are more surprises from my mom's box of Kodachrome slides. 1954 is a guess--my parents lived in this house from about 1952 to 1956. You can see why southwestern Iowa winters are so hard on trees.

2011: The Year In Trees

Marvin and Sherry clued me in to this interesting project, The Tree Year. Here's how it works:

How to start:

1. Pick a tree – either one you like a lot or one that you see every day on your way to work or that happens to live on your balcony.
2. Observe it: every day or once a week or less. What grabs your attention? What kind of animals are and what kind of plants grow on it?
3. Write about your observation, make sketches or take photographs and share it with us.

Now, I could get totally hung up at step 1, "Pick a tree." I am overwhelmed by my choices here on Droop Mountain. I was feeling a little panicky about picking a "good one." And what if my tree blew down in a high wind, or became firewood? However, the FAQ's inform me that we can "change the project idea [so] that it fits you." In fact, I see on the Tree Year site that Marvin has picked both a persimmon tree and a sweet gum tree.

Sherry has chosen a dogwood, another awesome tree. Before all the "good" trees are taken, I'm gonna call Staghorn Sumac! There's a stand here close to the house, and it does so many interesting things. Check these lichens on a sumac branch (from a post here in February, 2009). I'll probably never get a photograph of the pileated woodpeckers eating sumac fruits, but they do dine there regularly.

Thanks, Marvin and Sherry, for alerting me to this, and thanks to The Tree Year for the idea.