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snail shell in the bluestone forest
Tuesday, July 23 2013
Rain had fallen most of yesterday and it continued through the night. When I walked the dogs this morning, the forest was full of mosquitoes, and the repellant I'd liberally sprayed on myself did little to stop them, partly because I couldn't spray it directly into my face.
Today's walk took me through parts of the woods I'd never been through before, something I could tell because of the human artifacts I found that I'd never seen before. They were worthless, of course, but they stood out in a way that would have caught my attention. One was was plastic material from an old lawn chair and the other was a five gallon HDPE bucket with cover. The bucket closed, but it was light and seemed empty, and I didn't want to open on the chance a hunter had used it as a latrine.
Earlier in the walk, I'd come across a light-colored glacial erratic, something any rock must be if it not either shale or bluestone (shale never survives being dragged any distance by ice, and bluestone erratics, which can be as big as a minivan, are too common to be remarkable). This erratic, though, was odd in that it wasn't comprised of the usual standout erratic material, granite from the Adirondacks. Instead it looked to be some light-colored fine-grained non-translucent rock, perhaps limestone. That would explain a snail shell I found nearby; normally the rock in this region is too lime-poor for snails to build their shells, and so all the gastropods end up being shell-less slugs.
a map of today's walk
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My tea cup next to the possibly-limestone glacial erratic. Click to enlarge.
Moss on top of a bluestone boulder (which is also a glacial erratic, but not from far away).
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Eleanor in a blueberry patch.
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Lactarius(?) mushroom.
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Amanita mushroom.
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Pink variety of Indian Pipes along the Stick Trail.
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Fallen pines along the Stick Trail. The shadow of sawdust underneath them is probably from Carpenter Ants (which make quick work of fallen pines in the forest).
Click to enlarge.
Moon rise from the dining room this evening.
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Covered in plastic.
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Gretchen returned from the city this afternoon just as I was serving as a sandwich artist for myself. She had a sandwich of her own she'd bought at some fancy vegan place and I had a half of it later this evening. It was actually a bit too "meaty" for me.
The latest copy of Make Magazine had arrived today, we had tank full of solar-heated water, and the weather wasn't too hot, so I took a nice leisurely bath, which is my preferred environment for reading things that are not on glowing screens.
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