Home.

Come with me into the woods. Look around you. Together we'll enjoy tho wonders of my woods. Easing through the woods, struggling against thorny berry brambles and fallen limbs, it is hard to pay attention to anything other than were to place our next step.  We catch glimpses of nature at its best such as that Pileated woodpecker on our right though most of what we see is that branch ready to hit us in the face.  And spider webs. You and I are probably not the prey the spiders thought of when they build a multitude of webs from twig to twig. We catch the webs, they don't catch us.
Overhead I can hear birds of all kinds warning of our approach though it isn't necessary, the way we are crashing through this thicket.  A couple weeks ago, when I decided to cut straight through the woods, ignoring all paths, my friend asks me, "Do you, well . . . do you . . . um . . . you know, ever get lost?" I had forgotten the feeling of bewilderment you have when you are not on your "home" turf. the answer, of course, was, "No. Not around here."  but in other places, "sure." It never really worried me, though.  I've never hiked in true wilderness. 

White breasted nuthatch

If I did I would be very  careful.  But in  the civilized areas of our Appalachian woods I go by what my mother told me to do when I really didn't know where I was - "Go downhill, find water and follow it downstream. Just keep walking." Yes, I know, the experts say, 
"Stay where you are," but use some sense and if you figure that there must be some road or home within a few miles and you aren't hurt - well, start walking.
Today, though, we are nowhere near lost.  On this hilltop, we are never more than fifty feet from any known path. 
If we did feel disoriented we could always follow an animal trail . . . I believe all of them lead toward my yard where there is usually something tasty from sunflower seeds to food in the compost pile to a new shoot on an azalea bush.  (You did notice that Zebra swallowtail butterfly, didn't you?) We're (I'm) probably talking too much to see any critters besides birds and bugs but that's alright, we'll just keep moving toward home.

There are so many violets in this part of the woods, two kinds of yellow, Downie and Smooth;  a white one and some purple ones. I am not sure of the type of white ones.   The photo on the right shows a white one and a yellow growing right together. I often dig some up to move into my garden.  the white ones seem to last only a few years before disappearing.  The yellow ones do fine, though.  They grow wild just beyond my garden fence.  Look at this beauty below.

I hope that I can find it again.  I'm not digging it up because there is just one.  It is probably a mutation or "break" in the tiny bulblet. I wonder if its offspring will also be striped? Maybe it is Viola canadensis  which the books describe as, "sometimes streaked with purple," though none of the images I have seen show anything like this one before us.
As we come out of the woods onto our field we see a sky churning, threatening to storm though it will probably hold off a few more hours. For now, the sun seems to have the upper hand.

We turn toward my garden to see the breaking sun reflect off my new bottle tree.  


It has been two weeks since we took that walk.  The dogwoods have lost their bloom. 

I miss them now and though only a couple weeks have passed, spring has become only a cherished memory here in the Ohio valley.  
Oh well. Good-bye Spring, Hello Summer. I'll enjoy each for what it gives.
See that 3rd advertisement for the violet seed paper?  Wouldn't it be fun to put a sheet of those in all the cards we send? Though I do remember a lady that hated violets - poor woman.)
   

Across the Border

Paw paw

Paw paw

Yesterday I showed you the plants I found just across our property line. Let me add a scary story to that.  The whole property was slated for timbering last year.  The timbering had even begun. For two days I moped and cried as the tractors moved in.  Luckily, they started near the gas line an hadn't progressed very far when it was discovered that the logger had no valid license or something like that. This year? So - far - so - good.
Now, lets step back onto the home plot, our piece of land which has been routinely pillaged. Most the hill tops around here were clear in the early 1900's.  What wasn't grazing land was planted in orchards. Around that time, something happened to the fruit market and the orchards and/or their owners fell into disrepair.  When I moved here thirty-two years ago there were still five or six trees on the top of our hill. Now there is one, probably just a child of those early orchards.

So, would any of those more sensitive plants have found a comfortable home in which to prosper? Come with me and we'll see . . . This looks promising.

right away I found some immature Jack-in-the-pulpits. Hooray!

My experience tells me that this is one of the first "deep woods" plants to grow. I suppose it can handle more sun than some of the others. Oh look! here is one with a "jack." Do you see what is growing beside it?

That leaf with its deeply cut lobes is bloodroot! Its seed pod is full of maturing seeds which will soon be carried away by ants who will eat the fat from around the seed then throw it in the ant garbage pile where it will, hopefully, take root and grow.

This fungus is pretty neat too.

Here is a close up, though it gets a little fuzzy.

This is great fun!  We hardly have to move and we see all kinds of stuff.  Look at that bank over there speckled white with violets.

And there to the right . . . that's an Oxalis, Wood sorrel.

Delicate pale pink flowers flare outward.

It doesn't all look the same, does it?  As we push on through the tangle of branches we see these Wood sorrel plants . . .

Is it a mutation or something different in the soil that makes those distinctive red lines on the leaves? Or could it just be a different variety.  Do you know? 

This next photo shows my favorite find today! 

Maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum) growing right amidst Jack-in-the-pulpits and bloodroot! 

Our day is good - and we have a ways to go before we get back to my garden so don't leave me yet.

     

Bloomers, Wild and Free

Time moved too quickly as my wildflower bonanza day moved toward its. Happily, the day didn't end before we spotted a lemony bellwort, with petals twisted upon itself in a flower hug.  Below, a spent blossom blows with the breeze.

Just a few feet up the hill from the bellwort was a deep red trillium, Toadshade, Trillium sessile or sessile-flowered wake-robin, nestled among the larkspur. 

The sessile trillium has petals that never really open, remaining vertical almost as if in prayer.

Notice that the flower has no stalk. Hence, the source of its name, "sessile" a word which at one time meant low enough to sit on or sitting on the base. Now, for botanists, it means that a flower or leaf sits right on the base without a stalk.  Supposedly the toadshade smells foul, but I didn't think to smell it at the time.  This was a lifer for me, a first look that wasn't printed on a page.

Morning was over and it was time for our lunch. The Mountwood Bird Club members had a special place planned for our noon meal.  I heard someone say we were eating at "columbine rock." I've seen columbine in the mountains but didn't realize they grew so close to home yet outside of cultivation.  All columbines are a bit wild. We should never become too attached to a particular spot for one. Columbines seem to have a free will, growing wherever they feel so inspired, whether it be in a fertile rose bed or in baked clay between cracks of a sidewalk.  I've learned to  accept this wild child where it offers itself. "Columba" Latin for "dove," columbine flies all over my garden. A common name is "grannies bonnet" but there is nothing common about wild columbine. 

Damp, moss-covered rocks danced with red and yellow flowers. Peanut butter and jelly became a gourmet meal in such a setting.

Our lunch time view was shared with a hillside of giant trilliums, many which had evolved to pink, lilac and maroon as this one below.

They clung to the rocks and tumbled over the hillside amid white violets and spent hepatica.

Lunch in Earth's garden, What a view.

I've saved the best until last - Blue-eyed Mary.  People that know me might think I mean my daughter, but not this time.  Blue-eyed Mary, Collinsia verna, is a small, sweet, violet-like flower cluster.

While sighting a single plant is nice, it is nothing compared to what we saw this day. Thousands and thousands of blue-eyed Marys blanketed the creek bottoms and hillsides, encroaching into people's yards.

Such a subtle color, a mass of pale blue, a giant blue shadow across the hollow.  We saw a farmhous where dog boxes housed hounds held to their tethers in small bare circles amid a sea of blue, perhaps wasted on the poor color-blind hounds.

Our part of the caravan was waylaid by a thrush, specifically a Louisiana waterthrush whose song was heard through an open car window.  I hold it personally (birdally?) responsible for thwarting our effort to see the firepinks in bloom.  I shouldn't have been surprised, though. Afterall, this was a birding club. My ill-trained neck refused to look up any more as we tried to follow the elusive bird from branch to branch, catching bits of its call.  I'm not complaining, though. I was allowed to see a Louisiana waterthrush besides all the wonderful flowers. But, alas, all good things come to an end and this was the end of my Earthday frolic. 

I am glad you were with me to enjoy the wildflowers. I was so lucky to be included in this trip and I thank the Mountwood Bird Club, especially my friend Pat for allowing me to travel with them from river  to hill top.

This is all of the wildflowers but tomorrow I will give you a glimpse of the birds we saw. There are just a few as my lens was usually pointed downward.