Big Doings at the Ames Estate

The recent windstorm took down a good sized white pine in the area to the west of the access road to the house, a reminder of just how much damage a really big storm might do there and in the rest of town. Luckily the tree missed smaller specimen trees in its fall. Not so lucky was a beech tree in the little hemlock beech forest which lost a large branch when hit by falling debris from another pine.

If you've walked the estate in recent days you may have seen a number of trees marked with red ribbon. These are red pine that have been marked for removal. Like many trees on the estate red pine is not native to Easton, but is found further north in Canada. When the 1938 hurricane blew through town, lots of white pine was knocked down. White pine is also susceptible to a bug that causes multiple trunks ruining its timber value. The Ames and probably other property owners in town responded by planting red pine which grows straight and is "self-trimming" meaning side branches tend to fall off quickly making for less knots in the wood. Unknown to anyone, the climate here is wrong for mature red pine which tends to die young. Good foresters are recommending its removal and the Trustees are following this recommendation for the very few red pines on the Governor Ames Estate. Ironically, trees from China are flourishing at the Estate while these visitors from a few hundred miles to the north are perishing.

While I was at the NRT I would always point out the "evergreen" by the pond. When it turned brown in the fall and the needles dropped off, it was a great lesson that nature wasn't always as simple as we'd like. The tree was an American Larch and the Governor Ames Estate has two large versions. You might know the tree as tamarack from the Algonquian "snowshoe tree." The skinny needles of pines, spruces, and hemlocks are adapted to preserve moisture and shed snow in winter conditions, but larches are able to survive in conditions down to -85 degrees Fahrenheit and basically trade off the energy needed to grow needles every year with the water savings of losing them in the fall. How specimen larches will survive in Easton with climate change remains to be seen.

Like everything else regarding trees, the Ames estate always has more. This time its two more species of conifers who loss their leaves annually. The first is a native of southern swamps which can grow here fairly well, the Bald Cypress. Don't know why this one drops its needles, but a bald cypress can live for over a thousand years making it one of the longest lived trees in the east. The other shedding conifer is the Dawn Redwood. There are a couple of them by the little pond behind the mansion. They have a reputation for being fast growing and their size on the Ames estate proves that since this living fossil was only rediscovered in a village in Sichuan, China in 1944. The smallest of the three families of redwoods it "only" grows to 200 feet. How did these trees get here? In 1948 the Arnold Arboretum sent an expedition to that Chinese village to gather seeds, and one can imagine Oakes Ames of Borderland getting a few of those seeds.

The Ames estate is not the wildlife paradise that the larger Sheep Pasture is. Maggie, the wonder dog, has discovered coyote and weasel scat only once each. Tracks in the snow have been mostly gray squirrels although both red squirrels and chipmunks have been seen on the estate. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the estate also has a fox. Yesterday Maggie stopped suddenly by the little pond and gave me her check this out look. A glance showed tracks in the snow on the icy pond. Leaning over to check out the tracks, I caught the skunky smell of fox urine. The fox had marked a tuft of grass with scent as she left the pond. I say she because my first tracking adventure found a mark in the snow where the fox had not lifted its leg. Turns out that both genders can pee in as many as twelve different positions depending on whether they want to leave a scent in a high or low position. Must mean something to the foxes and probably to Maggie who has managed to trick out the fox's hunting route on the property.

Moving to the other side of the pond, we found where the fox jumped onto the ice. On the same side of the pond, but not connected to the fox trail was a spot where someone's pet dog had jumped onto the pond and slid on the ice. We won't have foxes very long if people continue to believe that the all dogs must be leashed rule doesn't apply to them. In fact, I had someone tell we last week that their Lab running around off leash had chased the fox from its resting spot in the hollow of one of the dawn redwoods. We have met the enemy, and he is us.