EASTERN HEMLOCK - (this blog was prepared for use as a presentation at the Creation Appreciation nature center)

The hemlock tree is the giant of the eastern forests,  It can grow nearly 200 feet tall and almost 60 inches round.  The Eastern Hemlock is the state tree of Pennsylvania.

 The Hemlocks natural area in Perry County is a 140 acre stand of "old growth" hemlocks.  I have fond memories of the late 1960s and early 1970s when  I spent many days hiking there, among some of the oldest and largest Hemlock trees in the country.  This experience is one of the most pleasant memories I have of those days.  Today the Hemlocks Natural Area is a "ghost forest" full of dead giants laying on the ground or standing bare of needles and ready to fall.  It is not safe to hike among them . especially on windy days.

I visited there several times recently and shed tears.   Soon most of the hemlock trees in America will be dead,  Only those treated with insecticide will survive.  Nothing stands the test of time but JESUS.

The Woolly Adelheid - a tiny insect, so small that it can barely be seen with the naked eye.
These adults and their larva kill the tree by sucking the "juice" from the needles.

The ege sack of the Woolly Adelheid (were the name Woolly comes from).
Notice the very tiny larva called a crawler.

An adult insect laying eggs.

The "woolly" egg sacks are located on the underside of the branch where the needle attaches..

OSAGE ORANGE - THE HEDGE APPLE - (this blog was prepared for use as a presentation at the Creation Appreciation nature center)

Folks who visit the nature center on Tuesday November 12 will find an Osage Orange fruit in the treasure box.  This was brought into the center by one of our families who visit weekly.  The following pics will be shared with each person who opens the treasure box.

Last week we had a piece of American Chestnut wood in the box (see last weeks blog for more info).

Osage orange in a native plant that has quite a history.  Often called bow wood because of the Native Americans using the strong, straight grained wood for bows.  It is also called the hedge apple because when planted close together in a row it became a natural fence to keep cattle in the field.  The large thorns on the branches made in almost impossible to pass through.

The fruit is quite unique looking and does have a bit of a citrus smell (my opinion).  It is said by some to be a natural insect repellent.  Although some scientists have said that is an "old wife's tale"; the US Patent Office has recently approved a patent for an Osage Orange insect repellent formula.  Maybe some of those old wife's were smarter than folks think they were.

The Osage tribe of Native Americans lived in the same areas where this tree is plentiful.  Which is named after which?

When planted in an open area,  the Osage Orange tree spreads it's limbs
becoming almost as wide as it is tall.

Leaves and fruit of the Osage Orange tree.

Large thorns cause some people to call this the prickly pear tree. 

A closeup of the thorn - 3/4 to 1 inch long (ouch).

Osage Orange trees planted in a row form a natural fence.
In the 1930's a government program planted thousand of Osage Orange trees in the
 mid west as a windbreak to prevent soil erosion and to provide jobs for many

Bow and arrow both handmade from the Osage Orange wood.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE AMERICAN CHESTNUT TREE (this blog was prepared for use as a presentation at the Creation Appreciation nature center)

Hello again - I have been doing some research on the American Chestnut tree and have posted this here for you and for the nature center at Root's.  Our theme for the nest month or so is trees and the loss of the chestnut is a story we all ought to know.

The American Chestnut tree was once the predominate hard word tree in Appalachia.  It was a great source on lumber for furniture and buildings,  chestnut fence post resisted rotting in the ground better than any other wood and, the chestnut were an important food for humans and cattle.  Many Appalachian families derived much of their income from harvesting the nuts every year.

In 1904 the New York botanical garden imported an Asian chestnut tree and with it a fungal disease  called chestnut blight.  By 1916 the blight spread to every tree in our forests and by 1950 the trees were gone.

Today there is hope to bring these giant trees back to our land by interbreeding blight resistant trees from overseas with American Chestnut trees - the result will be a tree similar to the original American chestnut tree but immune from blight.  This effort is working but it will take years before results will be widespread.

The range of the American Chestnut tree circa 1900

These trees were forest giants.

"under the spreading Chestnut tree"
(from a famous poem)

I told you they were big!

Many chestnut trees were very straight with no limbs for 40 or 50 feet making them great for lumber.

Some chestnut trees were so large than the lumber from one tree could completely fill a railroad car.

The chestnut blight appears like this on the outside of the bark, but the real damage is underneath.

Many old stumps are still left in our forests over 100 years latter,
but the new shoots that come from them die of blight in a few years

Entire forests died - thousands of acres.

The American Chestnut fruit was a highly valued food for humans and livestock.  It was know for its sweetness 

THE HERMIT OF FOWLER'S HOLLOW RETURNS TO CIVILIZATION

Hello friends

Yes it is sad but true I am now living in a house in a development in Lancaster County.  My how I miss my tent in the Tuscarora Forest of Perry County.  Last Friday night it was 25 degrees in the tent but I was snug and warm under the covers.

Here are some pics of the camp site and another neat spider that I found in the park.

It will take me months to process all the pics I took and I will share the better ones with you here on the blog or at the nature center every Tuesday.

One of the many spiders that I found.  I am becoming very interested in Spiders and do not have a good field guide yet but hoping

My tent and fire ring.  Some of you may remember the tent as it was our butterfly house
 at Nature Club the last several years

A new addition to my camp this year was a 10 by 20 awning to replace the "make-shift" tarps of past years.
It proved to be a vary welcome addition as we got 12 inches of rain in the first two weeks of October.