lichening

All photos Assiniboine Forest, Winnipeg, MB. February 26, 2010.

* * *

After a week and a month where I just got tired, it was good to wear myself out in the forest this morning.

I got well and truly lost (such. a goddamn. luxury) following deerpaths.

By which I mean a trail broken by deer as opposed to the foot trails that spring up every winter in the forest, broken by people and their dogs.

Which is not to say that deer don't use the people-paths, because they do, but it was neat to see deer traffic patterns, even while a train wailed thru, even while planes began their approach overhead.

When I finally got to a people-path, at the other end of the forest, I saw a stand of downed trees beyond that I'd never noticed before. Downed trees being primo mushrooming territory, I was tempted to go see.

But I was also tired from breaking people-sized holes in the snow where there had only been deer-sized ones, so I nearly kept going.

But something about the sun and something about the day turned me around. And I'm glad, because they were old old trees with old old mushrooms on them.

And it was some thing I'd never seen before, in my dear old forest.