210616 "Fox-and-cubs" Flowers and Clouds

June 16

Fox-and-cubs, a most charming name for this flower, which is also called orange hawksbeard, the devil's paintbrush. orange hawk bit and mysteriously, Grim-the-collier (a collier being a coal miner or charcoal maker).

How is it already June 16? The days are long and full, though I spend many minutes a day simply watching the valley, the clouds and the birds. But the weeks fly by - one day the first curled fronds of ferns appeared, the next a riot of wildflowers everywhere and bees and bugs busy, busy on every plant and stalk. I frittered away my younger years, it seems, when time seemed slower, though in truth I was busy then raising children and learning all that I know. Now the years go so fast. Every generation must learn the same lesson. We are human and mortal, imperfect, in a world beyond our comprehension: vast, probably meaningless in any human sense or understanding. Ah, well. Does it matter? What matters more is being what we are, doing our human work of loving and caring for the people whose lives we can touch, honouring and caring for our earth. Breathe and eat, and indulge our senses, hearts and minds in every human day. Open wide our eyes and arms, see and love.

*****

Yesterday, it had rained in the night. The clouds lingered over the hills, and smoked up the ridge trees and the west meadow as the sun rose higher.

I felt restless, distracted, and I realized I hadn't been for a proper walk for a couple of days, so I went down to see the lower pond, which is actually a marsh now, at the bottom of the property. It was an excellent tonic - just what I needed. It drew me out of my head, into the world about me, the exercise doubtless pulsing endorphins through me, filling my lungs with oxygen-rich air. I returned refreshed, with a calm brain, and all the muscles in my body felt cleansed of tiny tensions and knots, of which I had barely been aware.

I discovered new plants in blossom, frogs busy in the swamp, tadpoles hatched already, navigating their little pond like pros - it struck me like that because they are only babies, really, and parentless, oblivious of their tadpole fragility, darting from my shadow like street-wise urchins from the beat police!

This little flower, less than a centimetre across, is called "strict" blue-eyed grass. It does look like a blade of grass with a blue flower glued to its tip. It grows on the meadow among the grasses, plantains and buttercups. What is strict about it, I'm not sure, (most likely a botanical reference). I imagine it being strict in its austere, upright minimalist appearance and modest leaves.

A great boulder sits by the property line between us and the chicken woman's farm, marked by a row of trees and a jumble of stones cleared from the fields.

The Christmas fern (below) is not prolific on the ridge but here in this bare-floored wood they seem to like it. It may be called Christmas fern because its fronds stay green all through the winter, but my mother taught me to remember the name by the Christmas-stocking shape of the pinnae, the leaflets along the stem.

This marsh flower was in bloom: Musk, or Musk Monkeyflower, looking familiar although I didn't, before yesterday, know its name.

The glaciers, innovative, artistic, careless, fickle and deft, with an eye for beauty and balance, have left a gallery of stone-work throughout the hills. This pair used to be under water when there was a pond here. We are still trying to understand what happened to the pond, which was here five years ago, but all that remains now is a few inches of water at the lowest point of a marsh.

I crossed into the neighbour's field and walked up the lane back to our house. Now that the trees are in leaf the road goes through a living tunnel.

Beyond the bend the road climbs into the sun along the vineyard. The grapes are in bloom at last. They were very late with their leaves too: waited until any chance of frost (one hopes) has passed.

The milkweed is almost in bloom and we will see monarch butterflies soon, I expect. They lay their eggs only on milkweed, which is the caterpillar's only food, although the butterfly feeds on many species of flower.

This is hedge bedstraw, which name I just love; was it used as bedstraw for people or farm animals? It seems to cling to the roadsides, hence the "hedge" part.

These pretty, tiny bells are spreading dogbane, a bush-like plant also growing along the roadside.

I wore my "barefoot" shoes on the walk. You have probably seen something like them advertised on your Facebook newsfeed, basically socks with a rubber molded soul. I love to be shoeless, to feel with my whole foot the ground under me, to balance my stride with every muscle and bone in my foot, so as soon as I saw these shoes I wanted a pair. They were not expensive and I had almost forgotten about my order by the time they were delivered. They are excellent, protective on the gravel road as much as through the meadows and raspberry plants, but they feel so unobtrusive on my feet that when I go out the door I will sometimes think, "I should put on shoes. Oh! I'm wearing them!".