Every day on the wee homestead brings some new mystery, most of which go mostly unsolved. No need for UFOs, Jesusā image on your morning toast, or Big Foot sightings around hereāweāve got baffling bees, mystical mushrooms, and unexplained murders.
Iāll start with the most dramatic. A rancher neighbor was terribly shaken up and recounted a recent disturbing event at their place, meaning to warn us. They found two calves bleeding, one dead, one still barely alive, which they had to put down, the injury was so severe.
She had been crying, as I wouldāve been as well, and told me in their nearly two decades here they had never seen such a thing and had no idea what creature had done it. It wasnāt any kind of injury they recognized or have had to deal with before. Each one had a single tear right up its undercarriage, with the entrails spilling out, and nothing eaten. Coyotes being our typical predators around here, I inquired along those lines and she shook her head, clearly, not this time. We do hear stories about panther sightings on occasion, I myself thought I saw one once too. But again, the gnawing question, predators donāt just kill calves for the fun of it. Two calves killed, no markings or traces of a struggle, and nothing eaten. That is a mystery I prefer not to think too much about.
So, quickly, on to better stories!
I have an update on the bizarre āmushroom blobā from a recent post. Over the last weeks it has developed into typical bracket or crust fungi. While now at least it is generally identifiable, the mystery still remains, because bracket mushrooms grow on trees, not under vines in regular garden soil. There is not even wood mulch on the top of the bed where itās growing.
The fungi when I first found it above, and again today, below.
My only guess is that the mycelia network is coming up from below this raised bad. We threw a bunch of wood chunks down before piling on the soil. But, that might be a stretch, as Iāve never heard of these mushrooms growing on anything but living or dead bark. I just donāt know.
Mushrooms being my second favorite mystery after bees, we end with a sweeter little story.
This bitternut tree was all abuzz with activity this morning. Itās hard with photos to get a sense of how many bees were working it, so thereās a short video clip below for the sound effects.
We couldnāt help but think it was such odd bee behavior, because nothing on this tree is bloomingāno pollen, no nectar. Yet the bees were clearly eating something off the leaves. So, we licked the leaves, and they taste sweet! I have no idea why this would be, but the leaves seem to be exuding some kind of sap. The bees have been all over it all day, so it wasnāt just morning dew.
This sounds like the simple sort of mystery a local arborist could solve for us. If I find out, Iāll be sure and let yāall know, so you donāt loose any sleep over it! š
