6/4/24 ~ Esopus, NY: To find these golden oysters (Pleurotus citrinopileatus) fruiting on the one year anniversary of writing my first Oyster Log felt pretty apropos! Although as far as phenology goes, it’s worth noting that this is at least their second, very possibly third fruiting of this year—and the season is just getting started. This superabundance of spore-dispersing mushrooms exemplifies a main reason that golden oysters pose a serious and understudied problem to our ecosystem. While only around ten percent of species introduced to a new region will survive at all away from their evolutionary niche, and only around ten percent of those survivors ascend to the wild heights of success sufficient to deem them “invasive” by any metric,1 golden oysters appear to be the first fungi to beat those odds. This year I'll be collecting recipes for a golden oyster cookbook zine (more on this soon) so if you forage these babies, start recording your best cooking concepts please!
6/4/24 ~ Esopus, NY: This observation is pretty much unavoidable to anyone who lives in affected areas, but it is notable… The spongy moth (Lymantria dispar) caterpillars are REALLY AT IT this year, chewing up our hardwood leaves in record numbers2 and literally raining down frass (aka caterpillar poop) in such quantity that it sounds like an ever-present, gentle rain is falling in the forests. If it’s challenging for you on a sensory level (it definitely is for me!), imagine being a tree. :( The good news is that according to the National Phenology Network’s forecast map, the munching-crunching-pooping phase of L. dispar’s lifecycle is almost past for us here in the Hudson Valley. We’ll get a brief reprieve while they pupate and then it will be moth o’clock. If you’re looking for resources on preventing or coping with spongy moths on land you steward, this is one place to start.
6/2/24 ~ Kerhonkson, NY: I’m of two minds flagging this one. On the one hand, the blooming of the mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) in the Catskills each year feels like the event of the season. On the other, I feel weirdly possessive over it —not my usual M.O., obviously—and fearful that if word ever got out how incredibly special this moment is, it would blow up like Stonehenge. While I realize on some level how ridiculous that sounds, I really can’t overstate the beauty: From the close-up scale of the highly geometric buds that appear to have been folded by the deftest origami practitioner, zooming out to a 360 panorama of elegant, spindly shrubs with deep green, evergreen leaves all but exploding with white-streaked-pink blossoms rippling out as far as the eye can see in the forest’s understory. Miles and mountainsides of flowers… If you worship at the splendor of nature, this is without question a cathedral.
6/3/24 ~ Esopus, NY: The other fluffy white flowers I’ll be drawing your attention to today is the heavenly catalpa (Catalpa speciosa). Though often disparaged as a weedy tree owing to its fecundity (one need only glance up the immense tower of cloud-like flower clusters of a full-grown catalpa in bloom to understand) and the “mess” its elongated seed pods leave behind, it remains one of my favorites. The huge, heart-shaped leaves remind me, in a bleary kind of way, of the many fabulous trees I never learned to identify over the years I lived in New Orleans. And the flowers…lofty clouds, minimalist paintings, rumpled bedsheets streaked with the gold of dawn…who could possibly resist the beauty of the catalpa in bloom?
https://www.epa.gov/watershedacademy/invasive-non-native-species#:~:text=The%20%22Ten%20Percent%20Rule%22%20is,of%20species%20released)%20become%20invasive.
https://grist.org/health/whats-behind-the-record-outbreak-of-spongy-moths-in-the-eastern-us/
Mountain laurel is my favorite bloom here too. So much I thought about naming my daughter Laurel as an homage when I was pregnant! I agree, the Stonehenge of the Catskills! My personal cathedral 🤍🕯️
"munching-crunching-pooping"
"moth o'clock"
Love it! 😆