October 21

Last Friday, while my wife, Caroline was attending a conference in nearby Charlotte, Remi and I hiked in the 540-acre Burchfield Park, located on the Grand River, 10 miles south of Lansing. The early morning weather was mostly cloudy with a temperature of 41 degrees and a light variable breeze. We left the parking lot and hiked east on a path that was barely visible under a thick layer of fallen leaves. Soon I arrived at the bank of the Grand River where I paused to watch the water drift slowly as a gentle breeze swayed the leaves of an overhanging oak. From here the river flows north to Lansing and then curves west through Grand Rapids and onto Grand Haven where it empties into Lake Michigan. Turning north along the river’s edge, I could hardly make out a Great Blue Heron, standing motionless on the far shore. Continuing north, the leaf litter revealed a variety of proximate trees including: Sycamore, Tulip Poplar and even Pawpaw. Next, I came upon an unfamiliar, late-blooming plant that I guessed to be Parry’s Wallflower. Turning west away from the river and following a trail through a mature forest, I noticed, as with many of my recent hikes, a variety of fungi including: Rusty-gilled polypores, some type of Stereum and Funeral Bells that contains deadly poisonous amatoxins - the same kind of toxin found in the Death Cap. These toxins cause sickness and vomiting followed eventually by liver damage and, if not treated promptly, death. Further ahead, on one tree trunk I spotted Whitewash fungi and on another, Christmas wreath lichens. Looping back toward the parking lot, I paused to scan the forest landscape where the understory, dominated by Spicebush, was ablaze in yellow. Finally, we found the car and headed back to Charlotte to pick up my wife before heading home.

Showy leaf

Autumn day

Won’t last

Won’t stay

Red to yellow

Fades to gray

Brown to black

Mold and decay

Disintegrates

Without delay

Joins the soil

Nature’s way

D. DeGraaf