A Dense Fog Over the Farm
The landscape looks so mysterious shrouded in thick fog.
Do you get a lot of fog where you live? My Bedford, New York farm is in close proximity to a reservoir, where early patches of fog are quite common. Fog is essentially made up of condensed water droplets - a result of the air being cooled to the point where it can no longer hold all the water vapor it contains. It can be thin or thick - sometimes so thick it obscures the road and other objects ahead making it difficult for driving or even walking. There was a very very dense fog over my home and property yesterday morning. It was a great opportunity to capture some photos of this atmospheric phenomenon and perfect to post for Halloween.
Enjoy.
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- This is my allée of pin oaks – one of several allées here at the farm. These tall majestic trees look bewildering in the fog. At the end is a carriage road intersection, but the thick fog makes it nearly impossible to see.
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- Do you know how fog forms? Fog can form in two ways: either by cooling the air to its dew point or by evaporation and mixing. This happens often when the earth radiates heat at night or in the early morning. This view is of the carriage road just outside my Winter House. The red tree on the left is Nyssa sylvatica, commonly known as tupelo, black tupelo, black gum or sour gum. It is a medium-sized deciduous tree that shows off beautiful, scarlet red leaves in fall and shiny, dark green leaves in summer.
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- Fog happens when it is very humid. There has to be a lot of water vapor in the air for fog to form. Hard to see through the fog, but this photo shows London planetrees in my maze. And look carefully, my handsome Friesian Rinze is grazing on the left.
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- Here are three of my five donkeys in another pasture. Don’t confuse fog and mist. Fog is denser than mist. This means fog contains more water molecules in the same amount of space. Fog cuts visibility down to six-tenths of a mile while mist can reduce visibility to about one to 1.2 miles.
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- Some of the ginkgo trees have already lost their leaves but many tend to lose all their leaves at the same time. As the weather gets colder, the petioles get what’s called scars to protect the tree from disease after the leaves fall. After the hard frost sweeps down the east coast, this ginkgo, and others at the farm, will drop the rest of its leaves leaving an even larger carpet of color below.
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- This is a view looking down a section of my Linden Tree Allée – one of two at the farm. At the end is the carriage road to my home – hard to see, but it’s there.
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- Here is what we call the “pine” paddock, with the great pine trees on the left. Hard to see their bold green color, or the gold, yellow, red and brown of the changing trees nearby.
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- The thicker the fog, the longer it takes to dissipate. This fog lasted several hours along with rain showers. This view shows my pool, now covered for the season. Antique staddle stones, originally used in the 17th and 18th centuries as support bases for granaries, hayricks, and game larders, are on the far side.
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- This photo shows the thick fog just past the weeping branches of the willow.
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- Do you know what’s ahead in this photo? This image was taken from my Boxwood Allée looking toward my stable at the end.
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- These are also linden trees – half of my long allée that starts at the carriage road to my Winter House and extends north between the fenced pastures all the way to my chicken coops. But, the foggiest place in the world is Grand Banks, off the island of Newfoundland, Canada. The cold Labrador current from the north and the warm Gulf Stream current from the east create just the right conditions for thick fog to form almost every day of the year.
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- This fog is seen in the middle hayfield. Beyond the trees is an expansive field where I grow lots of hay for my horses.
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- Here is another photo of the middle hayfield. Not long ago, we baled the second cut of hay from this area.
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- This photo shows the longest allée here at the farm – the one planted through the carriage road in the middle field where we have great London planetrees and Cotimus flanking the road. There are actually many different types of fog – radiation fog, sea fog, ground fog, advection fog, steam fog or evsporation fog, precipitation fog, upslope fog, valley fog, ice fog, freezing fog, and artificial fog.
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- On the left, the gold leafed trees are Japanese zelkova trees, Zelkova serrata – a medium-sized deciduous tree that typically grows up to 100-feet tall with a spreading, upward-branching, vase-shaped crown. I planted this stand in 2019 and they’re all doing so well in this part of the field.
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- This view is from the opposite side of the hayfield. Ever wonder why it is called “fog?” One definition of fog from the 14th century refers to tall grasses. Many grasses use fog as part of their name such as Yorkshire fog grass. Fog was also the Danish word for mist or spray in the 16th century. It is thought that the two definitions may have merged when mist was noted over a field of grass.
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- This young Pin Oak Allée is down a long road leading to my Contemporary House, which is primarily used for storage. These young trees are thriving here beneath their taller neighbors – I am looking forward to seeing them at maturity.
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- Edging the back hayfield on one side is a stand of red maples. Look at the photo long enough and you may just see them.
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- Here, one could see the leaves of a maple up close, with thick fog behind it. Another interesting story involving fog includes President George Washington. During the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, George Washington and his troops were fighting a losing battle against the British. When a thick fog descended on the area, Washington took the opportunity to withdraw thousands of his troops into Manhattan. After the fog lifted, the British descended on the American positions, only to find they had left. The Americans’ miraculous retreat saved their lives.
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- At the far end of the back hayfield is my giant sycamore tree, the symbol of my farm. This tree is among the largest of the trees on the property.
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- This is the view through this grove of dawn redwoods, Metasequoia. These are so pretty in fall. They have feathery, fine-textured needles that are approximately a half-inch long. And look at its bark. The bark of the dawn redwood becomes deeply fissured as the tree matures.
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- In the fog, the climbing hydrangea vines creeping up the trunks of these bare sugar maples look almost frightening.
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- I hope you all have a very safe and frightfully fun Halloween. This is a photo taken by Mike Hester, a member of my security team, the night before the fog rolled in. It shows the eerie skies above my allée of boxwood. It almost appears as if there is a face in the clouds backlit by the moon.
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