Nature Page 

(What Goes On Out There?)

 

Nature is the most amazing topic on earth to study. Everything from the grandeur of the stars to the tree resins that prevent sickness, it can all be found in the forests and fields. 

Simply being in the woods is an amazing boost to the immune system. Every different plant or leaf has different health benefits in one way or another. The air is filled with these various aromas but the human nose can't differentiate between them. 

This page will be updated periodically with the newest information at the top. Be sure to check back soon. 

Use the index by pushing Ctrl + F (the universal Find function). Then copy and paste the code for the topic you want to see. (Example: Medicine code is XIX)

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  The Forgotten Medicines of the Woods              

Many people come to Acorn Lodge for no other reason than to sit in the fresh air of the woods. People are coming to realize that the forest air contains all kinds of scents coming from flowers and plants, and even from the trees. The cottonwood trees smother the trail with their little flowers known as "cottonwood puff." This puff is actually a powerful anti-microbial, that was used by the Indian tribes as an anti-fungal and arthritis soothing medicine. 


A white pine, growing among the cottonwoods, was snapped off by a rare tornado a few years ago.

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The Crow and the Fox          

Crows: Guardians of the Forest


Crows alert the forest animals to the presence of predators. Our little fox (lovingly known as "Foximus Maximus,)" patrols the woods looking for stuff for dinner. This includes mice, rabbits, squirrels, birds, eggs, frogs, and even caterpillars, grasshoppers, and snakes. Basically, it's anything it can get its teeth around. 


But the crows don't go for stuff like this. They form a "fox patrol," usually consisting of four crows, and they follow the fox around by going tree to tree whilst squawking loudly to let everyone know he's "in your area." Foximus is used to this and just casually goes padding along looking under brush and log piles for critters to eat while the crows raise chaos up above. We've been fortunate to have witnessed this on many occasions.


The crows will actually do this to any predator. We get the occasional coyote here and we always know where they are due to our guardian crows. The crows also give out a shriek if a hawk or eagle shows up, and then every bird in the woods shrieks out the same warning. And we watch a large shadow go by... 



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MWoPKlAXx4 


More bullet points:

Red-Headed Woodpecker (RHW)

Red-Headed Woodpeckers are seen often in the woods of Acorn Lodge. They prefer pine forests but also venture into deciduous forests. Here's some bullet points:

Acorn Lodge: A River Runs Through It

The Flint River is the southern border of the Acorn Lodge property. Rivers are constantly changing the landscape, and ours is no different. 

The picture shows the outside bend of the river just upstream from us. The outside bend is constantly taking the force of moving water so it erodes. Where does the dirt go that was eroded away? 

The dirt goes to the inside bend, slightly downstream. 

This photo is of our River Rest area. Note that the land to the left is lower than the right. Notice the tree line. It used to be right on the edge of the river, but is now 15' back from the new edge of the river. The lower area rises a little bit after every flood as the river is constantly washing new dirt up onto the inside bend. 

This is an extreme example of an outside bend. The Niagara River, once it has come across the falls, roars downstream at 35 mph. Then it makes a 90° turn and heads for Lake Ontario. The force of the water has bored into the solid rock cliffs over the eons and has created a huge (and dangerous) whirlpool. 

Most outside banks are not right-angle turns, but the water pressure, either gentle or severe, will erode the bank over time. 

(on left)

The Niagara River thunders north towards the right angle turn. The cliffs are 174' high, and the power of this has eroded them into the whirlpool it is today. The huge waves are caused by underwater boulders.  

I have posted a highly unusual story about this river at the end of this article.  

This photo, taken from one of our canoe trips, shows an inside bend. You can see where the trees, which used to be right on the river's edge, are now inland because of the dirt fill which has been deposited by the river. 

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In 1856 the steamship Arabia hit a tree stump and sank in the Missouri River. The wreck was located on the inside bank, causing the Arabia to be totally covered with dirt during the following decades. Eventually the river crashed through the outside bank and totally changed course, leaving the buried Arabia in what would eventually become a farmer's field. There it lay until 1988 when the farmers found it there. This is another extreme example of the outside bend constantly eroding while the inside bank is constantly filling. Rivers are the reshapers of the earth. 

Since our River House is on an outside bend, we had to stack 120' of boulders along the bank to keep it from eroding.

 But just beyond where the boulders end, and even though the bend isn't quite as severe, the river continues to dig into the bank. 

The Niagara River Episode

(Something we can't explain)

The following story is so unbelievable that I wouldn't be relating this if Linda had not been with me to observe this phenomenon. 

In the mid 1990s Linda and I descended to the boardwalk of the Niagara River. We were within a few feet of this thundering powerhouse of water roaring past us at 35 mph after coming over the Niagara Falls. There were, however, seemingly calm spots of water right next to the shore in front of us. We would learn they were not calm. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

The calm water, although not boiling like the river, contained small bubbles which we could see moving around quickly: up, down, forwards and backwards, and charging around in all directions.  Obviously there was a below-the-surface churning going of some kind going on.  Suddenly out of one of these calm spots came a "column of water" the size (or bigger) of a 55 gallon drum, and it stood right in front of us like as is pictured in this article. It was perfectly round on the sides and stood almost as high as the glass "scientific bubble barrel" shown here. The top was slightly rounded as is the photo, and why a standing column of water in a river didn't collapse back into itself we had no idea. It was a swirling column which appeared to be "going back inside itself" somehow. Then, after appearing for approximately one minute or so, it slowly went back down into the water.  And then it came back up again. 

Try imagining taking the top off a fire hydrant and the water jet is going about 5' up and is disappearing back inside itself somehow. 

We had no camera and could only stand there in amazement watching as this thing would rise up, stay for a moment, then go back down: rise up, stay for a moment, then go back down. And over and over until we finally got tired of looking at it. 

Completely confounded by what we'd seen, we returned to our vehicle and left for our next destination. And talked about this for years afterwards.

I found the picture on the internet of a bubble tank. What we saw come out of the water resembled this in every regard including the color and all the bubbles swirling around. The one that came up out of the river was about 1' wider and maybe 1' or 1.5' shorter. 

We could only guess there was a hole in a rock below that was steering agitated water upwards, but that doesn't explain how it kept its form on the sides and top for at least one minute each time before submerging again. 

As previously stated, if Linda hadn't seen this with me I would not be telling this story. If you have any questions or answers please contact me. 

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Birds of Acorn Woods: Goldfinches

American Goldfinch

Brown-headed Cowbird

Goldfinches can be seen throughout the woods three seasons of the year. They go south in the winter. They also possess a rare trait that isolates them from certain predators in nature: they don't eat bugs.


The goldfinch is different from most birds because they are strictly vegetarian. This unique quirk actually has the benefit of keeping their species alive on the planet. In the bird world we find predator imposters, such as the Brown-headed Cowbird, which is known as a brood parasite because it lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, then abandons the eggs to let the host bird raise its young. This has actually caused the decline of several species in Michigan because the young cowbirds end up crowding the smaller birds out of the nest.


The goldfinch, however, has a built-in protection against cowbird infestations. The young cowbirds need insects and grubs in order to survive, but since the vegetarian goldfinch brings only seeds to the nest the cowbirds starve and soon go over the side to the forest floor. Other species, such as Kirtland Warblers, have diminished in numbers greatly due to the cowbirds taking over their nests and feeding their young. 


Paired-up goldfinches make virtually identical flight calls. Goldfinches may be able to distinguish members of various pairs by these calls. 


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The White-spotted Pine Sawyer

The White-spotted Sawyer, also known as the Spruce Sawyer, is essential to hastening the decay of dead trees. These guys move in and, as their name suggests, start "sawing the tree into smaller pieces" by boring holes and creating, literally, sawdust. Nature's reason for this is to return the tree to the soil where it will provide nutrients for everything growing in the space.

 

This colorful bug has antennae that are twice as long as its body, presumably to poke around inside dark holes and find its way around. 


This insect is harmless. He can't bite and just wants to get away from you and back into the dead trees. 

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The Great Blue Heron

The bird in the picture weighs between 5 & 6 pounds. His height is about 4' and his wingspan is between 6' - 7'. 


The Great Blue Heron is a nightmare to the swamp and river creatures. From underwater a heron's legs look like stalks of plants: the frogs and fish just blunder right in front of these killing machines. The blueish and whiteish feathers blend in with the sky when viewed from beneath the surface, meaning that they become invisible to whatever's swimming along the shoreline. 


The Blue Herons have to learn how to catch fish that are underwater, but it's not as easy as it sounds because of "light refraction."  Like in the straw in the water glass example, light bends when it goes into water and objects appear to be in a different place. The young Blue Herons have to learn that a fish isn't really where he appears to be if they are to survive, and if they don't learn it fairly quickly they perish. This test of senses seems to be a "running the gamut" of some type, where the strong survive and the weak fall to the sides.


Bob & Linda (owners of Acorn Lodge) once came face to face with a Blue Heron while walking on a beach on the Gulf of Mexico. We were about as close to it as this picture suggests, and it was a very unpleasant feeling to be standing in front of that sabre-like beak. The heron had actually situated himself behind a fisherman standing along the shore. The man informed us that every time he caught a fish, this bird went roaring out into the water, ripped the fish from the hook, and then gulped it down right in front of him. Then he took his place behind the fisherman again to wait for the next one.

 

We took one more look at its fearsome face and kept on moving.  

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 Bats: Aerial Acrobats

Bats are reclusive. We rarely see them at Acorn Lodge but they live in every woodlot in Michigan. 

Here's a few bullets to tell you more about them:


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Pure Air and Water Indicators    

There's several ways of determining water quality when you're outside. One way is to sit by the river and see if dragonflies and/or damselflies land on you. If they do, you're sitting next to extremely pure water.

The 4-winged dragonflies are miracles of nature with their flying ability. Mosquitoes and such have not a chance when these guys show up. Dragonflies only congregate at areas of clean water. We are pleased to see them here every summer. 

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Lichens: You had no idea...

Looking for fresh air? Tired of the concrete jungle? Please be seated on one of the benches along the Acorn Lodge trails, and just maybe you're sitting next to a Lichen on the tree right next to you.

 You probably didn't know that the presence of lichens means the air is as pure of pollutants as possible. Lichen is a natural air quality indicator. You also probably don't know that these things cover 7% of the earth's surface in different forms, and that they are the terrestrial counterpart to coral in the seas.

Lichens are what are known as "keystone species" that play many important roles in ecosystems. They are an amazing anomaly of three different organisms which combine to create a lichen: ascomycete fungus, basidiomycete fungus, and green alga. The word "symbiotic" was invented because of lichens. 

Here's a few bullet facts:

Certain birds, such as gnatcatchers, attach lichen flakes to the outside surface of their nests, apparently secured by spider webs that they also collect. The lichen serves as camouflage, giving the nest an appearance similar to the limb on which it is built.

Ruby throated hummingbirds use this lichen for camouflaging their nests, too. Amazingly hard to find simply because hummingbird nests are small, and even worse when they're camouflaged, someone actually found and photographed one with mother bird in it!

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Rose Breasted Grosbeak

Top: male;  Bottom:  female

Bullet points: 

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Bugs: Walking Sticks: A real treat to see them   

This is a walking stick (bug). What? You can't see him? Oh, yes: they are able to disguise themselves. In this case he's pretending to be a form of string (or beard) lichen. The predators can't see him either. Pretty good, eh? Plus, this form of lichen is likely toxic. 

Here's a better look at one of them. You've likely seen these a few times but not many times. Now you know why "not many times:" they make themselves so you can't see them. There's over 3000 different species of these guys around the world. They're everywhere except in the far northern or southern climes. 

Some walking sticks have reached 20" in length. They're herbivores, only eating leaves and foliage. 

If your garden is missing a few leaves, consider not spraying the plants. Some of your visitors only take a nibble or two.

Walking sticks have interesting defense methods:

Walking sticks are woodland critters. They're not going to bite you, but rather work towards your never seeing them. Imagine the one on the right sitting in the apple tree. No way could you see him. 

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Oxygen: Nature's Antibiotic

What else is at Acorn Lodge? "Uncontaminated oxygen," and plenty of it.

Oxygen is nature's antibiotic. This has been proven through many different scientific studies. Most people wake up with 70% of yesterday's oxygen still in their systems. Deep breathing exercises can clean all that out and replace it with fresh oxygen. This in turn bolsters your immune system and is why it's called "nature's antibiotic."

Many groups now come to Acorn Lodge to be in the fresh air. It is a known fact that trees and plants take in CO2 and release oxygen. By inhaling forest air you're receiving not only pure, unadulterated oxygen, but all the individual plant-based properties from the greenery in the woods, as well. These are the same properties that created the immunities and balms long before modern medicine. They're still here, but not found in the concrete jungle.

Acorn Lodge has two types of forests: 1) pine forest, and 2) deciduous forest. Both have different plant species and contribute different benefits to the air.

On the right is a Google Earth photo showing the forest around Acorn Lodge. The blue arrows are pointing to the lodge on the right, and the river house (1500' away) on the left. There are 1-1/2 miles of trails for wandering and benches for resting in the woods, making it easy to spend a good deal of time breathing in the benefits.

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Flowers:  Trout Lily

Acorn Lodge flowers along the trails:

As we continue to post the health benefits simply from being outside in the fresh air and/or woods, we want to share the information we find about the flora and fauna of Acorn Lodge. Today's info is about the Yellow Trout Lily, a flower found in abundance along the trails .

The endangered yellow trout lily is an important pollen and food source for many types of insects such as bees, butterflies, flies, and ants. The Ottawa tribe also used them for medicinal purposes, especially as an anti-fungal and cold medicine.

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Ant Hills: Amazing Controllers of the Forest Lands

Ant hills are actually little cities. There's so much to know about them that I don't have enough room here to explain it all. The second picture shows some of the rooms and labyrinth of tunnels, but what they do in there is unbelievable.


The ant hill pictured is somewhere in the woods at Acorn Lodge. Here's a few quick facts to know about them:


• The part above ground is waterproof. They turn it into a crust.

• The crust is filled with tiny holes that act as doorways.

• Ants protect their mounds by chewing down any plants that dare to grow on them. They do the same to trees, actually being able to kill smaller trees and cease the invasive roots. 

• You can't see the doorways because they use small pebbles or pieces of wood to close them off.

• The ants drag little stones down into the chambers. These stones absorb heat and keep them warm when things cool off.

• Many ant hills are several hundreds of years old.

• In the northern hemisphere, the inner chambers are usually located on the south side to soak up the heat.

• The ants drag resin from trees into their chambers. These resins act as antibiotics and protect them from fungus and sickness.

• It has been proven that the presence of resin strongly improves the survival of ants and larvae when exposed to bacteria. Results show that wood ants capitalize on the chemical defenses which have evolved in plants to collectively protect themselves against pathogens. 


My experience with an ant nest was brutal. When I was ten years old I'd lost an arrow at the archery range. To gain a better look at the surrounding grasses, I climbed up a "large mound of dirt" and stood there looking for my arrow. Suddenly I was being bitten all over from head to feet. They all started at once. I ran screaming into the grass while others pulled my clothes off and eradicated ants. What I learned from this was:

1) never stand on an ant hill (I didn't know it was an ant hill at the time),

2) they had a way of telling each other when to start biting. This was an early lesson to me on the sophistication of everything living. 

I'm aware that ants can be pests. We put out ant traps to keep them out of our house, and they very quickly learn to not come here. Ants have a highly sophisticated social system, and in their natural habitat are an amazing species to study. Now you know a little more about them. 


Pine resin has benefits for humans, too. It’s antimicrobial and increases circulation, 

making it useful in products such as:


•  first aid salves for minor scrapes and nicks

•  drawing salves for splinters and boils

•  rubs for aches & pains

•  soap for various skin conditions

•  balms for chapped or dry skin


Incidentally, birds put pine resin in their nests to protect their young against fungus and disease.


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A Song-Bird of the Woods, the Red-Breasted Nuthatch

Red-breasted Nuthatch

The Red-breasted Nuthatch collects resin globules from coniferous trees and plasters them around the entrance of its nest hole. It may carry the resin in its bill or on pieces of bark that it uses as an applicator. The male puts the resin primarily around the outside of the hole while the female puts it around the inside. The resin may help to keep out predators or competitors. The nuthatch avoids the resin by diving directly through the hole.

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Curios:  Engineering and Bridge Building in the Woods

Pine needle counterweight hanging from a spiderweb up in the tree. 

Spiders fly by a process known as "ballooning."

This amazing photo shows a spider web attached to a post and roof of my cabin. You can see where a spider, in one night, created this web using a pine needle counterweight at the junction of the two main strands. 

The bottom (quasi horizontal) web stretches from the roof to a post. There's also a horizontal web attached to this horizontal strand which goes to the ceiling, and the spider has put a counterweight pine needle right at the junction of those two structural strands. This is engineering that very few of us knew about.

It also looks like there's a bug or two captured in there already. Mmm; dinner is served. 

Sometimes our guests ask about weird pine needles hanging from thread-like stuff coming down from up above somewhere. These are counter-weights used by spiders up in the trees to help keep tension on their webs as they build them. Right now our pine woods is filled with these things as the little creatures scurry around up there, weaving back and forth to create their bug snares. Nature is truly amazing, and the more we learn the more we realize how much we don't know.

You may wonder how a spider can get a web to stretch between two trees. The answer is that they can use the earth's magnetic field to actually float through the air (literally flying) from one point to another. If you're interested look this fact up on the internet. Darwin first noticed this phenomenon on one of his trips on the Beagle. One day the ship had spiders all over it, and he determined that the only way they could have got there was to have flown. Scientific studies have now proven over and over that this is true. Additionally, Linda and myself observed a spider flying around the River House a few years ago. We were inside and it was going sideways around the place looking for something or other. Because it was going sideways meant it was flying, not transversing on a web.

A triple counterweight. Three pine needles attached to one strand of web. The top needle actually consists of three needles, making this a 5x counterweight. 

Photo taken on my cabin porch at night. 

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Birds:  Loons at the Lodge

The woods and waterways at Acorn Lodge are home to the Common Loons, both during the year and also on their migration runs. You can hear their bizarre calls throughout the year but mostly in the fall.


Loons eat fish. Lots of them. One study showed that a loon and her two chicks ate 1000 lbs. of fish in a fifteen week period.

 

Fish can't get away from loons. They're just too fast and agile. When they go underwater it's like you and I walking through the buffet line picking up whatever we want for our plate. Loons do that to fish.


Loons have been know to dive to depths of 600'. Their circulation slows down so they can stay submerged longer. Obviously they're built to withstand the water pressure. 


Loons from our area migrate to the Atlantic Ocean or the Mississippi River.  

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Curios:  The Forest Sponge

What's new at Acorn Lodge? Well, actually, it's old. Very old.

Pictured below is myself sitting on a bench and gazing upon a 350-year-old oak tree. There's a lot of old oaks in these woods that were spared during the 1800s logging onslaughts because they were hard to get at. But, as we are always learning from the forests around us, our very existence is possible because of trees like this. Here's what we learned earlier today:

"The water from a 2-inch downpour – more than 54,000 gallons per acre is captured almost entirely by an oak forest’s leaf litter and the organic humus (leaves, branches, dead animals, etc.) it creates. Leaf litter and humus don’t hold this water indefinitely, but they do corral it on-site just long enough for it to seep into the ground, replenishing the water table on which so many of us depend. In areas with no leaf litter, the same 2-inch rainstorm causes a flood."

How 'bout that, guys & gals? Do I hear a "Yay, trees?"

From "The Nature of Oaks," by Doug Tallamy, PhD.

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Thistle: the Flower of Scotland

Oh: you didn't know about thistles? Acorn Lodge has them and are darn proud of these little plants. Dig this:

1) There's 58 different species of thistles in North America.

2)  Monarch butterflies visit native thistle flowers more than any other wildflowers during their migration back to Mexico.

3) Thistles are very beneficial for pollinators. Their abundant nectar and pollen make them one of the most popular plants for pollinators, including bees, flies, beetles, and butterflies. Hummingbirds are also especially fond of thistle nectar.

4) Milk thistle is promoted as a dietary supplement for hepatitis, cirrhosis, jaundice, diabetes, indigestion, and other conditions.

5) The thistle is the national flower of Scotland (where my dad came from). In Scottish history, legend has it that during a surprise Norse invasion in the mid-13th century, one of the Norsemen's soldiers stepped on a thistle and cried out in pain, alerting the sleeping Scottish Clansmen. The Scots were able to defeat the Norsemen at the Battle of Largs, saving Scotland from invasion.

Come for a plant & thistle walk sometime. These things are cool.

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Curios:  Who knew this about dandelions? 

Sometimes you will see dandelions on the lawn at Acorn Lodge. This is because dandelions do all kinds of beneficial things. In fact, dandelions serve as a primary food source for bees and other pollinators as they emerge after the winter season. They also use their roots to loosen the hardened soil from the freeze of winter, help to aerate the soil which is good for your grass, they'll reduce erosion by colonizing any bare spots, and they'll bring up good nutrients for the soil from their deep roots before "puffing" and traveling up to a mile away spreading their seeds.

Dandelions are the bees first food in the spring. And, of course, the bees are pollinators, so let them (the bees and the dandelions) do their thing in nature. Relax and bee happy. (tee-hee!)

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Mayapples; Guardians of the Forest

It's a great time at Acorn Lodge for viewing Mayapples!

Mayapple's dense foliage provides shade and shelter for many types of wildlife, including insects and small mammals. Yes, there's a whole world underneath that little canopy, and they're very important in the health of the forest. Besides providing shelter for bugs and small critters, the Mayapple plant shades the ground and prevents weeds from growing and spreading throughout the woods. (Who knew the forests had guardians stationed at the gates?)

Medical use? You betcha! The root of the mayapple contains podophyllotoxin, which has anticancer properties and has led to the development of two antitumor drugs, etoposide and teniposide. Podophyllin has also been used topically to treat malignant growths since the mid-19th century. Even the Native American tribes used it for various skin ailments.

Oh, yes - the critters like them, too. Small mammals and box turtles eat ripe mayapple berries, which helps spread the seeds to new areas. Other animals that eat mayapple fruit include deer, raccoons, and squirrels. Mmmm! Yummie!

Note: Mayapples are poisonous to humans. Supposedly the fruit is non-toxic but we don't recommend using any part of this plant in anything that anyone is going to eat.

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Forest Schools & Forest Bathing

We're always learning.

We recently attended a hearing concerning a "forest school" to be in our area in the near future. As part of the discussion, one lady rose and explained that she had been a school psychologist for over 20 years and had dealt with children with "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder," or ADHD. She then mentioned that she didn't call it "ADHD," but rather it was "FDHD, " meaning "Forest deficit hyperactivity disorder." She found the easiest cure for these kids was to take them out into the forest into the fresh and they immediately calmed down. This, she said, was because there's something in the fresh air that they don't get in the classroom.

Because of our research into forest bathing and the nature of the woods, we had already learned that trees release chemicals called phytoncides, and that these lower anxiety and depression. It's no wonder that people come to Acorn Lodge to just sit in the woods with a book for hours.

(Source: multiple sources including Wikipedia).

Certain facts and information on this page are taken from various internet sources. We thank all our research partners for their help in bringing this information to the public.