230605 walking

June 5, 2023 walking

I must open with this flower. Jack-in-the-pulpit, they will be over soon. I have learned to spot their distinctive leaves, and was curious that they closely ressemble the trillium, with their spare leaves, growing three on a stem. While these have two stalks of leaves, the trillium has only one stem of three leaves. They are not the same family. I have yet to grasp the complete family system of flowers, although understanding them is so helpful in identifying flowers, since there are so many species across the Canadian regions, and no book will list them all. You can always say, if you know, that "it's a daisy", or, "a lily", and sound as if you know a lot about wild flora! These two do share an environment which means that they are found alongside one another in the open woods. 

 The very perfect and charming starflower is a member of the loosestrife family. 

The purple loosestrife is invasive, not only non-native, which is not, to me, a problem in itself, but it also invades and takes over spaces which are home to some native plants. You may be familiar with the tall, very tall, grasses that have plumes of brown seeds, that grow along roadsides. They are imported, and lovely for gardens, I suppose, but they grow in the exact environment that the bullrush inhabits. The result has been the endangerment of the bullrush. I am always delighted if I find a growth of the rushes in a wetland, to think they may hang on. They are edible, almost every part of them, and their long flat leaves are material for baskets. They are long, sturdy, and soak into malleable material, like raffia, then when woven, they dry strong and firm. I am dismayed by the popularity of grasses for gardens, not only the lawn sort, which are a most unfortunate garden covering for the ecology, but the tall "ornamental" sort, which are imported for their prettiness, but if they get into the wild they will push out native plants which are an interactive part of the North American environment, feeding native fauna, and cohabiting with fellow plants. The imports are not food for local animals, nor do they have local predators and checks, so they have a domino effect on the whole ecosystem. 

But to return to the subject of flower families, you would not peg this as a loosestrife, if you know the purple one, but if you know flowers well, you will identify the telltale markers of the family, I suppose, and know more about the plant than I. 

This is a dwarf ginseng, part of the medicinal ginseng family. It is native to the Appalachian mountains. 

The blue-eyed grass is another flower that I did not know before coming here. This is the "strict", or mountain, blue-eyed grass. 

The water avens, which seems magical somehow, I have not seen before being here, though I have come across it in novels. It is rare to here and to me, and small and easy to miss, but so fairy-ish. 

The alien monsters of nightmares and films lurk in the woods. They are the torn-up roots of trees, which our imagination turns into creatures: horns, claws, and fangs.

Real creatures: we have two garter snakes, one here under the maple and one under our porch. I try not to frighten them off, leave them sunning, and probably they are "hunting", lying in wait for a dim sum style fly-by. 

First toad of the year: toads do not wander far and you may see the same one in the same spot all year, although they must sometimes go looking for a mate, and most species lay their eggs in water like frogs. A few species lay on land and some even carry the eggs in their bodies and give birth to live toad babies. That must be an exciting birth to witness.

There is a blue jay news story here. 

In other bird news, we have a nest, with eggs, in the woodshed. Needless to say we will not have more fires than can be had with the wood that is already stacked in the house. 

I will not get closer, because I do not want to frighten off the nesting pair, but you can see the outline of the parent on nest duty. They are a brown bird with white tail feathers, but more than that I have not ascertained. I am delighted to have them here! The bluebirds have returned, or one of their offspring with a mate and are again nesting in the leaning-over birdhouse at the corner of the yard. 

Birdhouse: bird not shown. (haha!)

A real monster, this small spider wandered across my tablet case, its alien eyes wide. I put him down safely, for both of us, that is!

Ferns are a very old plant, predating flowering plants; fossil records show them appearing some 350 million years ago. They are simple and efficient. It fascinates me how they grow only stemmed fronds from a central base and some of the fronds transform into seed fronds. It reminds me of the stem cell, which starts out undifferentiated and "turns on" to become some part of a living thing. The fern fronds begin as one thing, but some trigger makes some parts convert to seed. The interrupted fern converts some of its pinna to seed, shown in the first picture, hence the "interruption".

The cinnamon fern transforms fronds into tall seed stalks. You can see the fern parts in mid-change at this time of the year.

This tree fell during the winter. As I walk the trails on the hill I see many new falls, but with no-one tending the trails they may lie for years where they are.

I went down yesterday to the lower meadow. There has been so little rain, and the snow is melted and run off, that the ridge creek is dry in places. I have not seen it completely dry before. The water still flows underground and there is run-off into the old pond below, which was once twenty feet deep. For the past two years there has been only a small frog pond, but even that is shrunk this spring to half its size.

The frog pond, smaller than ever:

I came back up off-trail, through the woods west of the ridge. There are places where there is no undergrowth; if I was a botanist, I would know what makes this difference. It is water and light, I assume, the slant of the hill, the age of the trees and their canopy. I cannot get lost; I am corralled by the streams and the roads and trails, able to find a way home.

Veering west I hit the larger stream between our property and the one to the west, which will take me up to the bridge and the trail home.

*****

Clouds are gathering and somewhere it will be raining soon.

*****

It is the start of a new day. Enough wallowing in the mental swamp, it is time to begin work again. I have a household to sort for our departure back to Toronto, and the blue cave mosaic to do. There are moments when I wonder if I should bother, but art is, like writing, just to be done, because it matters to the artist or writer, to me, without explanation. 

Mumma Yaga