WHAT WATER AND SUN RAYS WILL QUICKLY DO

Water Closet for August 7, 2015

[pullquote]”The new oaks in the clear-cut are a healthy six to twelve feet high with patches of productive berries and a score of other plants, many fruiting or flowering, in between”[/pullquote]In the cold months of 2011 and 2012 two loggers, a husband and wife team from Salisbury, with huge machines, selectively cut from 50 acres and clear cut about 15 of New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) and Prichard-Cudhea land in Middleton between Pond Meadow Brook and Cudhea Crick. The rough terrain is pocked with exposed ledge and boulders deposited by the glacier. The loggers were mainly after red and white oak for lumber, firewood, and chips. Much of the fine mature forest became a maze of raw skidder trails leading down to a log yard on Cudhea land near Prichards Pond off North Liberty Street. Stumps and some slash not chipped were left behind. Old timers had a tough time hiking place to place on once familiar land.

Fukiko Cudhea picks blueberries on a New England Forestry Foundation lot where there were few four years ago before the land was clear-cut. Her family owns woodland just to the south. After loggers took the shade away many new plants grew. – Judy Schneider photo

The high tech loggers following an NEFF plan and marks on trees put there by foresters knew what they were doing.   Diagonal berms across main skidder trails kept sediment in runoff from the wetlands which also had no-cut buffers of fifty-feet around them. Alas, to the uninitiated much of the logged area appeared as a long term mess. Modern logging is not done with two-man cross-cut saws, axes, and horses. Great head-high skidder wheels are at times dressed in earth-ripping steel chains instead of horseshoes. We octogenarians on visits watched large oaks cut in seemingly an instant compared with our childhoods when grandpa was at the other end of a motor-less saw. Members of the modern team we marveled at didn’t get down from the cabs of their machines.
They left in early spring 2012. The cleared log yard, the Cudheas call “Log Landing”, was empty of machines and visiting trailer trucks. The lacerated woods were silent. The loggers, who now and then kindly stopped their engines to answer old visitors’ questions, were gone, probably never to be seen by us again.

After mature hardwood forests are cut increased light and heat is absorbed by soil, acorns and stumps. New shoots grow forth from them. These young oaks 6 to 12 feet tall arose after a logging operation was completed in early spring 2012. A few mature oaks were left in this otherwise clear-cut as seed trees. – Judy Schneider photo

What was seen there on the forest floor during the days that April, May and summer was full sunlight, the first in 50 years. Cells within seeds, microorganisms, roots of damaged huckleberries, and newly cut stumps rapidly divided making more cells, fungal hyphae, and new woody shoots. Seeds long dormant followed light stimulated DNA instructions and peeped forth. By mid summer various shades of green covered patches of the disturbed ground. In the fall leaves from surrounding trees blew in and were caught by herbaceous plants that so long had waited in the wings. The scars were thus softened. The ground froze, erosion stopped. There hadn’t been much; our area’s rocky coarse sandy soils are not so prone to quickly move as are older soils with more clays and silts. The land’s surface, although roughed up, was still surprisingly intact. Snow soon covered all, protecting new tender growth. The deer did dine on new shoots coming up from hardwood stumps. On winter visits we saw where they had browsed the tips.

After a crop of oak was harvested many plants thrived such as these blueberries. Blackberries and many Huckleberries are also found where once tall trees stood. – Judy Schneider photo

The following spring of 2013 after the shielding snow was gone all seemed starkly damaged again until muted shades of greens, reds, browns peeped forth from tree shoots, grasses, sedges and a dozen more soft plants along the trails. By June what some call weeds (we never do) were everywhere, some ankle and knee high. We marveled at birds seen and signs of mammals along the just-a-year-before naked trails. They like the openness of places full of sunlight where tender plants and prey are found. The once complete canopy of the mature woods had been thinned allowing light to reach the ground. Little pines, oaks, and berries were peeping forth here and there. Patches of light-green hay scented fern and New York fern invited old timers tired from the steep ups and downs to take a nap. They resisted, Yankees don’t openly snooze during the workday even when retired, and then there was the practical problem of getting back up. So they stood, some leaned on walking sticks, all delighted in the changes.
The transformation came fast, surprising even old timers who had seen such before and had forgotten. After two years the shoots from stumps and acorns were waist high. Low bush blueberry patches filled spots around resurrected black huckleberries. Witch hazel and blackberry had also found niches. The deer were still browsing but doing little overall damage; there was just too much. Stumps, branches and log fragments left behind were tripped over, but by mid-summer of 2013 could hardly be seen. Many birds were spotted; they came for insects and a dozen fruits. A new forest was underway. If all organisms were considered it was probably the life cycles of the trees most productive time.
Not yet. The late spring of 2014 showed a riot of growth chest to head-high across the 15 acres that had been clear-cut. The few straight mature oaks and pines the loggers left for seed trees made the scene savannah-like above bushes, not prairie grasses. The Indians knew of this when they cleared land by fire, not saws. Temporarily changed lands, had, from annual fires, given rise to fields of berries, flowers, and appreciative wildlife.
Last Friday on the last day of July 2015 the Council of Aging/Conservation Commission weekly walkers returned to the clear-cut and were greatly surprised by the lovely jungle encountered. The new oaks in the clear-cut are a healthy six to twelve feet high with patches of productive berries and a score of other plants, many fruiting or flowering, in between. Some hikers picked handfuls of blueberries and huckleberries which went directly into mouths. Others had brought baggies for taking berries home. In fifteen minutes a few had picked a pint. The blackberries are still red; they’ll be ready in another week.   Usually around here the birds leave few wild berries for humans. We think in the productive sunny clear-cut they may be overwhelmed with fruits and bugs. In June, the top growing month for woody plants, 8.2 inches of rain had fallen.
Plenty of water and light, where once high canopies of tree leaves stole it, have renewed the land in a most wondrous way. In the previous mature woods massive amounts of water from the ground were transported high and transpired in the breezes. Sunlight was filtered. We left this Eden, one surrounded with the fragrant white flowers of pepperbushes in full bloom on the edges of unlogged wetlands, for Prichards Pond on fading almost unrecognizable trails made just four years ago. Most of the hikers will have died before mature oaks are cut on that NEFF lot again. Until then memories of chatting, gentle joking, and picking berries still covered with dew to a background of bird songs in full morning sunlight will remain.
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WATER RESOURCE AND CONSERVATION INFORMATION FOR MIDDLETON, BOXFORD AND TOPSFIELD`

Ipswich R. Flow Rate (S. Middleton USGS Gage) in Cubic Feet/ Second (CFS):
For Aug 4, 2015  Normal . . . 7.9 CFS     Current Rate . . . 0.71 CFS
*Danvers Water Filtration Plant, Lake Street, Middleton is the source for actual precipitation data thru June.
**Middleton Stream Team is source of actual precipitation data for July and Aug.
Normals data is from the National Climatic Data Center.
THE WATER CLOSET is provided by the Middleton Stream Team: www.middletonstreamteam.org or <MSTMiddletonMA@gmail.com> or (978) 777-4584