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| New trail markers! |
Lums Pond, a large man-made lake at the center of the park which is visible in several places along the Little Jersey Trail (LJT). It started as an impoundment that watered the locks along the old C&D Canal in the 1800s. The state purchased the land and lake in the 1960s after the C&D was deepened and widened and watering locks weas no longer necessary. Today the lake provides park goers with warm-water fishing and lots of paddling opportunities. The shores and woody edges are very birdy! A shoreline trail can be hiked all the way around (I've posted on this trail in the past) and is accessible from the LJT.
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| Two trails, the LJT and Swamp Forest Trail, circle the pond. |
My favorite section was an old hedgerow of 50-60 year old Osage Orange trees that marked a field or old pasture boundary with an old farm road. No signs of the old farm remain except for a farm dump area where old bottles and metal pieces are found in the forest duff. It's a young forest, a mix of overgrowth (very vine-y!), plantation pine, and deciduous/holly woods and while the trail skirts the open edges of the farm fields still in use for soybean and corn, it's easy to see many different ways the land has been used in the past by tree type and age.
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| Osange Orange hedge with a an old Black Cherry standing out. |
Osage Orange, a tree native to the Mississippi River Valley, was a favorite among Soil Conservation Service agents and was offered to farmers of the Mid-Atlantic for free or very low cost to encourage land owners to build wind breaks and soil traps. From the 1940s to the 1960s, Osage Orange was planted by the tens of thousands on Delmarva along roads, field edges, and drainage ditches to address the region's very serious soil loss problem.
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| Orange bark and wood gives the tree its name. |
Considered an evolutionary residual - or "ghost of evolution" - the Osage Orange is missing its herbivore partner, the Giant Sloth which was hunted into extinction in North America by human newcomers. There are several species of tree in our region which fit this description as well, the Kentucky coffee tree with its large pods and the Honeylocust with its thick armor of long thorns. Nothing living today eats the bumpy-lumpy green globes called "ground apple" by locals. These fruits, however, must have been a treat for sloths, mammoths, and mastodons.
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| Amos ponders the straight trail ahead. |
After completing the LJT, Amos and I took a leisurely rest and water break and drove down to the canal just a few minutes away. Two miles went by quick on the straight towpath and his coonhound nose was taking in all the new scents of deep water and other dogs. There were lots of dogs!
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| Violet, Viola sp. |
One of our best finds of the day was Amos' discovery of a Red-Bellied Turtle, Pseudemys rubriventris, a Delaware native that can get quite large. This big guy was the size of a rugby ball and very tolerant of the coonhound sniffer as it made its way down a slope to the feeder canal. The big male was clearly on his way to visit a potential mate somewhere in the old connector leading to Lums Pond, as his long and lovely front toenails and concave plastron (bottom shell) demonstrated. He was a show-off. The Red-Bellied Turtle is a species of concern in its home range which includes my section of the Lower Susquehanna River and all of Delmarva. It is considered threatened in Pennsylvania.
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| Red-Bellied Turtle, melanistic - common in old age. |
When we finished our out and back for the needed two miles, I took Amos back to the main park and re-entered for another luxurious rest, snack and water break near the north end of the pond where folks were fishing. With infamous coonhoud drama, Amos plopped himself down on the grass by a picnic table and let out a hilarious sigh that was heard clear across the lake. Fishermen near and far giggled as my 70-pound wonder dog half-wagged his tail and fell quickly asleep for another infamous coonhound trait, the instant nap.
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| Amos' sigh heard 'round the lake. We're done! |
Notes:
Lums Pond State Park https://www.destateparks.com/PondsRivers/LumsPond
Red-Bellied Turtles:
https://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/trees-that-miss-the-mammoths/
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