Though this happened months ago, I finally thought I'd post this since I think people might be interested.
Earlier this spring I was walking around in my back woods for pretty much the first time. In the two decades I've grown up on this property, I had never ventured into the rear of our 50 acres since it was nothing but forest land. I went back there to dump off a guinea fowl the dog had killed so the dogs wouldn't eat it, (the ground was still too frozen to bury it). After a couple dozen feet into the woods I saw a little patch of sphagnum. I was quite surprised, as I had never seen any on our property before. I decided to walk a bit farther into the woods, and after nearly an hour of exploring I had found masses of sphagnum growing all over. I snapped a bunch of pics of what I could find, but I barely ventured more than an acre or two into the wetlands. The wetland area extends many more acres into our woods, so there's probably a lot more out there. I might go explore more this winter after the ground freezes, since when I went back again in the summer I kept sinking into all the muddy areas.
I looked on some old land records for the property and I found a photocopy of a paper the previous owner had had. It was a written up plan for future use of the land, and in one section it stated that the 8 acres of forested area in the back should be logged and the wetlands drained to make new pasture land and crop fields. I'm happy the guy never got any of those plans done since it would have meant the loss of this lovely sphagnum land.
Here's some of the nicer pics I took. Most of the rocks were covered in in other species of moss, but some of them were completely coated in sphagnum. In other spots there were just large patches of sphagnum on the forest floor. There were probably a lot of spots I didn't even see due to the leaf litter on the ground. I found nice reddish brown sphagnum in a few areas and a couple other types as well. Unfortunately, i didn't see any CPs, but it was mid February so I wasn't really expecting to find any. I should probably go back next spring and see if I can find anything interesting. When I looked this summer, all I found was some nice flowers. There was a bunch of tiny violets all over and some marsh marigolds, and probably some others that I can't remember.
Earlier this spring I was walking around in my back woods for pretty much the first time. In the two decades I've grown up on this property, I had never ventured into the rear of our 50 acres since it was nothing but forest land. I went back there to dump off a guinea fowl the dog had killed so the dogs wouldn't eat it, (the ground was still too frozen to bury it). After a couple dozen feet into the woods I saw a little patch of sphagnum. I was quite surprised, as I had never seen any on our property before. I decided to walk a bit farther into the woods, and after nearly an hour of exploring I had found masses of sphagnum growing all over. I snapped a bunch of pics of what I could find, but I barely ventured more than an acre or two into the wetlands. The wetland area extends many more acres into our woods, so there's probably a lot more out there. I might go explore more this winter after the ground freezes, since when I went back again in the summer I kept sinking into all the muddy areas.
I looked on some old land records for the property and I found a photocopy of a paper the previous owner had had. It was a written up plan for future use of the land, and in one section it stated that the 8 acres of forested area in the back should be logged and the wetlands drained to make new pasture land and crop fields. I'm happy the guy never got any of those plans done since it would have meant the loss of this lovely sphagnum land.
Here's some of the nicer pics I took. Most of the rocks were covered in in other species of moss, but some of them were completely coated in sphagnum. In other spots there were just large patches of sphagnum on the forest floor. There were probably a lot of spots I didn't even see due to the leaf litter on the ground. I found nice reddish brown sphagnum in a few areas and a couple other types as well. Unfortunately, i didn't see any CPs, but it was mid February so I wasn't really expecting to find any. I should probably go back next spring and see if I can find anything interesting. When I looked this summer, all I found was some nice flowers. There was a bunch of tiny violets all over and some marsh marigolds, and probably some others that I can't remember.
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