Yesterday we went to Saint Andrew’s Forest Farm and we had truck trouble right as we arrived, the alternator went out. All the warning lights came on and the battery died. Luckily, we were in the driveway when it happened. We troubleshooted by jumping the truck battery with the mower battery but it only held a charge long enough to get the windows rolled up. We were grateful for that much, as rain was expected soon. We called for help and my daughter came directly from work in Richmond to drive us home to Staunton. We were so thankful!
While we waited, we limbed up and cut down trees in the front near where we were trying to jump the battery. We were also able to clear out more trees from the compost toilet and shower site as well as the shipping container site which will be an office and camping site for us. It is amazing how much better the woods look with a bit of attention and care.
This tree had bees buzzing all over it and we couldn’t determine what it was. We could not find flowers or berries either. The bees were all over the leaves. After some research, it appears to be sugar hackberry, Celtis laevigata. The leaves and trunk of the Sugarberry. In late summer, leafcutter bees arrive and oval holes with a very clean edge appear on the hackberry’sleaves. These solitary bees harvest the small circles of leaf to line their nests. There are several genera of leaf cutting bees but most of them are small to medium sized bees and carry pollen on the underside of their abdomen as opposed to on the hind legs.Within a burrow, several cells are constructed from leaf pieces. Each cell is stocked with nectar and pollen and an egg is deposited. The bee uses a few additional pieces of leaf to close each cell and finally, the opening of the burrow. The larvae fend for themselves, feeding on the supplies left by their mother.
We cut down a very large black cherry tree near where we plan to place the shipping container for our office. This tree had black knot fungus. We culled a medium sized pine from the front which was growing up against another. We also culled many many smaller trees. We pulled a few tree of Heaven, ailanthus, by the roots as the ground was wet enough. We are trying to rid the farm of this invasive nonnative in multiple ways as it restricts and chokes out growth of our native species. We will save our sweet Sugarberry tree for these leaf cutter bee babies to be sure! 🐝
We went to the farm and did weekly chores. After mowing and weed whacking, we blazed a new trail which wound around from the front and followed along a new waterway we found that meets the waterway from the south through to the creek. We made a trail and connected it to chanterelle trail and then made it about half way to the north trail. We used loppers. As we culled these trees, we laid them down along the edge of the trail. We laid them perpendicular to the water flow to begin to build up a berm along the outside of paths. Where we left off, it was still really very dense with tiny light-starved trees.
We found multiple types of mushrooms. When we pulled in we found large red and yellow boletes. We have narrowed these down to several possibilities to identify. We need further testing and data but we enjoy looking at them for now and leaving them alone.
Either boletus sensiblis, hortiboletus rubellus or boletus subvelutipes. Photo credit: Chris Okay 👍🏼 The top of the unidentified bolete.Hygrocybe tops found along bottom edge of clearing. Underside with gills of waxy cap. The second time we have found a small puffball mushroom along the driveway up on top of the hill.Yellow necked caterpillar, Datana ministra. A moth in the family Notodontidae. Found along the new path we made along the south west end of property near the power lines.We saw many mosses and ferns along the edge of the waterway.Boletes popping up, Chris’ foot is pointing at another beginning to push through the layer of pine needles.Animal dens in the stumpery.
We were hard at work this afternoon, taking our Labor Day holiday out at Saint Andrews Forest Farm. After witnessing the aftermath of a rollover accident on Hwy 151 last weekend, we chose a different route today to avoid holiday traffic volume and for a micro-adventure. Our route was pretty, windy and lightly travelled, perfect for a holiday drive.
Our focus today was limbing up, trimming and thinning trees in the pine forest off the driveway. The forest near the road needs a good bit of our attention and effort. with crowding, some diseased and already dead hardwoods, and cedars, plus many dead lower branches that starved for light.
The section we worked on today.
We also finished clearing space for our small composting toilet/shower building. Young hickory trees, red cedars, poplars, and young black cherries remained from our preliminary clearing. We removed these, and cleaned the area of stumps and branches left laying about from the cutting. Once we neatened up, we located and marked the approximate corners with stakes, then we squared the stakes up by measuring the diagonals, and adjusting a little as needed.
We enjoyed a taco salad break, and drank a lot of water to rehydrate, with the temperature around 92. Feeling refreshed, we were up for more tree up-limbing along the driveway, and we spent additional time on the commode building.
We found our grade and leveled each corner with the 360•laser level, marking each stake in pen at the level marks. We began digging the post holes, but called it an evening, with a much neater forest and the start of a building site under our belts!
Honey fungus found 8/31/23 at bottom of slope near creek on southern end. Cinnabar Chanterelles on southern end of creek A red RussulaMolly got a picture of us.Polypore Russula cyanoxantha or charcoal burner. Found numerous specimen by southern end at bottom of property near creek.
We mowed and planned our swales in the clearing. We walked down the north trail to creek and followed it to the south trail and up. We went down chanterelle trail.
The cooler weather is wonderful. We heard a hawk. We saw toads in the water.
Molly took all of the photos. It was wonderful to walk around the woods with her today. There’s a crispness in the air and moving into the new season at Saint Andrews Forest Farm is exciting with so much to look forward to!
A big thank you to Judy for beginning this list after a walk around SAFF. She found and identified these plants and we hope to keep adding to this list as we continue to identify others.
Wild yam vine
Common names of Dioscorea villosa include wild yam, Atlantic yam, common wild yam, wild yam-root, yellow yam, colic root, and rheumatism root.
Deer Tongue -Day flower commelina communis
In early homesteads, deer tongue leaves were placed in bureaus to impart a pleasant smell to clothing or hung in bundles in rooms to freshen the air. Deertongue also has medicinal properties; Native Americans and the earliest settlers made a tea that was believed to be an all-purpose cure and tonic.
New York Fern provides ground cover for shady woodland gardens and shelter for toads.Sensitive Fern, chain fern, the young fiddleheads are eaten as vegetables. However it is poisonous to cattle. Requires moist, shady environments.Cinnamon Fern The young unexpanded fronds are eaten as a nibble or cooked in soups. The taste is said to resemble asparagus. The young shoots are seen as a “spring tonic” to cleanse the body with fresh green food after a long winter eating mainly stored foods.Galium – Bedstraw somewhat clinging Striped wintergreen, insect pollinated and tolerant of acidic soil. Lives in oak-pine woods. “The Creek Indians called it ‘pipsisikweu’ – which means ‘breaks into small pieces’ – after the supposed ability to break down gallstones and kidney stones. … Native Americans used its leaf tea to treat rheumatism and stomach problems, and crushed leaves were applied as a poultice to sores and wounds.”Solomons seal Solomon’s seal is an herb. It is sometimes used to make medicine. Solomon’s seal is used for lung disorders, swelling (inflammation), and skin conditions such as bruises, boils, and hemorrhoids. But there is no good scientific evidence to support any use.Spotted knapweed, this is invasive from Europe and will need to be pulled when seen at minimum. No reseeding! The flowers are edible. The plant has medicinal properties. Red or black chokeberry, edible but astringent taste.
The high-antioxidant fruit is used in baking and to make jams, jellies, syrup, tea, juice and wine. Fruit can persist into winter and serves as a food source for birds and other wildlife.
Wild pink. This charming wildflower is native to dry forests, barrens, and outcrops throughout Virginia where it tolerates a range of soils. Its rose-pink flowers, which somewhat resemble those of phlox, bring bright color to the spring garden, and it remains evergreen in winter.Showy trefoil
Several Desmodium species release organic compounds, aerially and into the soil, which make them useful for agriculture: Allelopathiccompounds are used there via push-pull technology. Tick-trefoils in agriculture can also be used as living mulch and as green manure, as they improve soil fertility via nitrogen fixation.
Crane fly orchid, perennial terrestrial woodland orchid growing in moist soil. Potato like edible corms.
Tipularia discolor grows a single leaf in September that disappears in the spring. The leaf top is green, often with dark purple spots. The leaf underside is a striking purple color. The flower blooms in mid-July to late August. The roots are a connected series of edible corms. This orchid is pollinated by Autographa precationis, Ctenoplusia oxygramma, Cucullia convexipennis, Protoboarmia porcelaria and Pseudaletia unipuncta. The moths visit the flowers and insert their proboscis into the nectar tube, if there is little nectar left the moth will force its proboscis in deeper and increasing the chance of their compound eye coming into contact with the viscidium and removing pollinaria. The stigma is not exposed until the anther cap falls off, which might serve as a barrier to self-pollination. https://goorchids.northamericanorchidcenter.org/species/tipularia/discolor/
Mountain laurel
The Cherokee use the plant as an analgesic, placing an infusion of leaves on scratches made over location of the pain. They also rub the bristly edges of ten to twelve leaves over the skin for rheumatism, crush the leaves to rub brier scratches, use an infusion as a wash “to get rid of pests”, use a compound as a liniment, rub leaf ooze into the scratched skin of ball players to prevent cramps, and use a leaf salve for healing. They also use the wood for carving. Mountain laurel is poisonous to several animals, including horses, goats, cattle, deer, monkeys, and humans, due to grayanotoxin and arbutin
Young eastern box turtle on north trail after rains.
We went out to SAFF yesterday for mowing and checking on those cinnabar chanterelle pins. We harvested a few and followed the waterway from bottom left of property and moved past the midway point. We found cinnabar and golden chanterelles all along the way. Also, other types of mushrooms and we saw a toad and a box turtle right along the north trail. No sighting of our pileated woodpecker friend. Most of the mature cinnabar chanterelles were along the deep sides of the waterway with moss and ferns. Many that we could reach still hadn’t matured. There were so many down in the creek bed along the sides we couldn’t reach! We’ll need a plan to harvest these next year. We brainstormed a few ideas that all seemed to be ridiculous. We will find a way down there!
We have made it a little more than halfway to our south trail via the waterway. We were on the other side of creek. Next time we work on paths at bottom of property, we want to trail blaze along the slope side and continue to take out over abundant trees that have only inches to grow instead of the 10 feet necessary for them to flourish.
Chanterelles harvested yesterday along waterway.
Unknown fungi
A young toad found hopping along the North Trail.
We got the mowing finished just in time for an alert for a tornado watch in Dillwyn. We drove home. Staunton had a tornado warning with hail. We hope to go back out in the next few days. Our plan is to go on Friday after the thunderstorm Thursday.
We are planning our initial structures and crops. We hope to use the resources we can find to help shape the farm to become more of a food forest than it already is. Currently, we have blueberries, deer tongue (flowers young leaves and stems) and wild yams (great eyes, Judy) edible mushrooms, cranefly orchids edible corms, several edible fiddlehead ferns, and black cherries. We also hope to find pawpaws.
Scarlet elf cups
Unknown Amanita. Possibly amanita gemmata. Not a beginner mushroom. So far, anything that looks as though it’s an Amanita, we don’t even touch usually. There are 600 species of agarics (Gilled mushrooms) which includes some of the most deadly. This species is responsible for 95% of mushroom deaths. (If we are in doubt, we throw it out: Or better yet, don’t even pick it. )
The waterway floor with rocks and sticks and roots. Mosses and plants along the banks. Mountain laurel along the waterway.Potentially Hypomyces chrysospermus or Tylopilus or H. Melanocarpus. More information is needed. Finally! We thought we found a bolete that could potentially be a king bolete, bolete edulis, porcini. Found along driveway up on top of farm near pines. We have been searching all summer. However, it appears as though it could be a bolete with a fungus. Hypomyces chrysospermus, the bolete eater! A parasite turned the bolete white. Not at all a king bolete. Narrowing down identification still. We continue our search for porcinis and are glad for our chanterelles. We will not eat these!Tipularia discolor, the corm is potato-like and edible. Cranefly orchid is found all along the banks of the waterway and in the forest at SAFF.
Eastern box turtle 3/4 of the way down the north trail after rains. We thought it was a baby. A young toad. Fowler toad or American toad. Found at bottom of north trail after rains. Farm cam deer sighting. We think they were eating black cherries. August 9, 2023 Farm cam Any ideas on what this is? Appears to be a cat tail? A possum? The camera is about 10 feet up in a tree. It could even be a spider leg or mouse tail that looks big because of the camera and angles. This week we’ve seen deer eating black cherries daily from the farm cam.A fox? 🦊 What insect is this?
Chris and I excited to be at our newly christened Saint Andrews Forest Farm late spring 2023
On April 13th 2023, Chris wanted to go to Buckingham County to look at a property with forest covering most of the 13 + acres. We drove to Afton, over Route 29 and into Buckingham County going deeper and further into beautiful and old woods. Magical seeming forests with giant trees arching over the roadways creating a canopy of green. Little moss covered hamlets of yesteryear with giant boulders covered in greenness and ferns sitting in a creek bed. Gorgeous vineyards and farms. We also saw forests recently violently cleared by loggers. Jagged and torn and pillaged. The roadways beaten and abused by giant trucks full of timber. We saw what looked as though the forests had regrown a year or two after being cut, and also stands that appeared to be five to 10 years on. We began to see ages and stages of development. It was an incredible journey for us because of its unique beauty as well as other circumstances. We both really needed to be in the woods again. We had been away too long. When we arrived and saw the pines and poplars, we both immediately fell in love with our forest.
Chris walking down the driveway in the shade of the black cherry tree.
Our guess was that it had been cleared about 20 years ago. Water had made paths through the woods. Right away, we began to find interesting mushrooms with our exploration mostly limited to the top of the hillside and the edges of the clearing.
Orange waxy cap: The first mushroom we found at St Andrews Forest Farm on May 19. We narrowed this down to a hygrocybe species maybe conica group. (Thank you Reddit mycologists. ) We found it in the clearing near a tulip poplar and black cherry tree. We became hooked on determining the types of fungus we had growing on the farm. We could not wait to get into the woods and down by the waterways to explore the interesting features down there.
As summer came, we began to realize we had a sizable tick population to deal with and thought we would be kept from our explorations of the woods until winter. Glad that was not the case. As it stands, there are still several areas that are infested with nymph ticks as evidenced by when we walk into that area we immediately see between two and twelve on our shoes and socks.
Right now, we are aware that the ticks appear to like moisture. The drier it is, the safer we are. We always wear our permethrin coated shoes and socks. We wear light colors so we can see them more easily. We watch out for each other’s backs. We want to stay safe. Chris has had several bites this summer. He has removed the ticks immediately and cleaned the area well. So far, no symptoms or side effects. When we camp, we will coat our tent and appropriate supplies with permethrin.
The other note I have about ticks is that it is tall grasses and weeds that they are able to attach to our socks and shoes and then climb up to find skin. Stay out of tall weeds and grasses. If you must walk in, look at the tippy tops and you will see the ticks with their legs out. I’d only do this with a mower or weed whacker in front of me. Anyway, they do not fall from trees. They do not fly. They are opportunistic. (However, they can fling themselves out onto you using static electricity. Look it up. Here https://www.science.org/content/article/watch-ticks-fly-through-air-power-static-electricity or on YouTube). This was all helpful for me to learn in order to determine best practices to avoid them.
Keeping our clearings mowed and weed whacking our paths has been extraordinarily effective. It has become easier now that we have the truck and tractor. Lastly, I’ll add that ticks dislike hot and dry. The clothes dryer kills them after 10-15 minutes. This was also helpful for us to know.
Honda Ridgeline and ancient Husqvarna with a v-twin engine – they don’t make these like this anymore. Lots of steel! Our gate to keep out the neighborhood dogs (and any other riff raff or unwanted mushroom bandits. )Unknown Russula species
One of the best things so far has been looking forward to rain out in Buckingham County. We get very excited and wait as long as we can afterwards to go and see what new mushrooms we can find. We have been surprised and delighted every time with new finds. Mushrooms love moisture. So far SAFF has been moist! We’ve been astonished by the diversity of life and can’t wait to see more.
We will add to this list as we find more mushrooms. Always assume they aren’t edible. We have more data to collect to determine many identities. If we ever do! We are beginner mushroom foragers, we’re not planning on eating anything we’re not 100% sure about.
Red capped, blue staining boletes found near the road under the realtor’s sign growing directly from the red clay. These slowly turned blue when bruised, sliced and cut. We composted them as their identity was indeterminable to us at this time. They were suspiciously untouched by insects and animals which leans us toward either bitter taste or poisonous. Another red capped, blue staining bolete. It turned blue quickly. Found along driveway. It was also in great condition for a bolete lending us to be dubious of its edibility.
Entoloma murrayi inedible. We found multiple large patches of these in spring and early summer. Our hat has a little flop in it for every single mushroom fruit. The pics for entoloma murrayi did not show this flop. Could be a different species? Lactarius indigo – the indigo or blue milk cap mushroom, an edible member of the Russula family. Goes great with the big flavors of a whole wheat veggie pizza. Because there is nothing else that looks like it, it’s considered a great beginner’s mushroom. Indigo milk cap from the ground level. All foraged mushrooms need to be thoroughly cooked.These grow on the ground in mycorrhizal relationships with trees. When sliced, the gills ooze blue latex.Another red capped bolete. Red pores and did not stain when bruised. Old Man of the Woods, strobilomyces strobilaceous, found on multiple sites of Saint Andrews Food Forest, singularly and in groups. It is also a bolete and is edible. We’ve not tried it yet. It is mycorrhizal in both deciduous and coniferous forests. We have heard it tastes similar to a button mushroom and will turn other foods cooked along with it gray. Since nothing else looks like it, it a good beginning mushroom foraging find.Golden Chanterelles are a choice edible. They were the most delicious mushrooms we’ve ever had. Full of nutrients. We cooked them in a dry skillet on med high for 20 minutes then added olive oil and garlic with salt and pepper and sautéed about 6 more minutes while deglazing the pan with a little wine. They had a silky mouth feel. They are a great beginner mushroom as they have no poisonous lookalikes.Cinnabar chanterelles found pinning all along the sides of the creek bed growing near mosses. The red color stands out. Another choice edible and a great beginner’s mushroom. Presumed Amanita Vaginata considered inedible to beginners as there are multiple poisonous lookalikes.
Phylloporus rodoxanthus, the gilled bolete, top above and bottom below. Considered edible but we’ve not tried it. We are only eating what we are confident is safe and accurately identified. Bolete identification is complicated although there are no deadly boletes, some can make your gastrointestinal system feel terrible. We will take our time to get to know these mushrooms.
Bright yellow gills. Found alongside the creek bed. Splash cups, cyathus striatus, or fluted bird’s nest. The white inside of most of the cups are spores. Note the black eggs inside the one. Water droplets will hit the egg and the the spores will drop when wet. Growing along the back left bottom of property on a dead stick next to road in back bottom of property.Hypomyces chrysospermus, bolete eater fungus turns bolete white, tan or golden yellow. Poisonous. Sarcoscypha dudleyi scarlet elf cup, found along the back bottom waterway on a fallen limb.
Saint Andrews Forest Farm 