Musings

See those broadleaves among the skinny vertical grass blades. My quarry. Hours of digging remain. This is what weed control can look like.

Enough work. Off to Gitche Gumee on this blue-sky day.

For I don’t know how many years, the mouth of Hurricane Creek has taken a hard bend (sometimes east, sometimes west) before flowing into the Big Lake. This year it’s just a straight descent over the dark rust-red sandstone.

We also ducked (haha) in to check the Refuge, although it was “the heat of the day,” not considered the best for critter-watching. We saw the usual assortment…swans, geese, ducks, and a few other feathered critters we/I didn’t recognize. Several turtles. Two work trucks, yet no tourists whatsoever!

Most swans were bottom-up feeding, although we did see two sleeping (head under wing), and managed to catch this pair heads-up.

Posted at 6:50 PM | Comments Off on Under a blue sky

I was in a strolling mood early, and walked down to the lake, already with lapping wee-waves. Nice distortion by the water of the bivalve shell.

Heading up to check the forest edge where I knew more cow warships parsnips await, I found this wildflower lovely, a jack in the pulpit. First I’ve seen this year, but probably mostly because I haven’t been looking in the right places.

I see that the northeast field edge has a robust CP settlement, probably take five daily shifts to eradicate them…or all of them that I can see now that the grass is pretty darned high.

I decided not to put off ring fort construction further, and began generic weed eradication on The Botanist’s Mound. Detailed clearing the last few years has tempered the grass infection, and it went pretty fast. I wanted to go through the soil one more time for contaminants, however, so I left planting for another time. This took sufficient energy that I avoided CP digging today. High this afternoon into the 80°Fs, so you know I wasn’t out there for hard labor after midday!

The barberries are noisy with visitors. I could discern at least four species, including a large orange/black striped bumblebee. They were all moving so fast from flower to flower, and the blooms are on the underside of the branches…making it difficult to get a good shot. This’ll do.

And I found nascent grape clusters. I think much of the lengths and loops of the vine are no longer alive. Another chore to prune back the deadwood.

Posted at 4:46 PM | 2 Comments »

The purple lupines are emerging.

The lilacs are coming along more slowly.

Insect lilac-admirer.

Trillium senescence continuum.

You know the phrase “the blues”? I’m suggesting there’s a similar mood/mental condition that can be called the purples. There’s covid. There’s death and protest. There’re plenty of people not wearing masks. Enough to alter your mood. Mine, anyway.

Posted at 6:00 PM | Comments Off on Having the purples

The Guru flew Droney over the orchard despite it being pretty darned windy this afternoon. If you look closely there are two(?) horizontal bands below the center that are slightly distorted because Droney was working hard to remain stable as the wind flipped it around. Doncha love technology—sometimes!

Chives are beginning to open. Ant aboard (dark, on left side between petals).

Fading trilliums can get a dark pink cast. In my ignorance, I saw some in the woods the other day and thought the pinkish ones might be a different kind. Nope.

Posted at 6:56 PM | Comments Off on Flowery spring

The buds are open on the high branches of the lilacs. Buds are pretty, though!

Here’s the working edge of the eradication program. I hope this is the densest spot, but I have to work my way along this edge of the woods to the farthest you can see in this shot. In nearly an hour of digging and hauling, I “cleansed” about 25×25 ft. I see the big broadleaves and think, “broad stems are easy handles, and it’ll go fast.” Nope. First, there are small specimens in between. And, roots make the digging difficult. And I try not to damage the ferns (too much). But, cooler today meant almost no blackflies, although the mosquitoes were not immobilized by the coolness and breeze. Always something.

After a rest, shower, and lunch, we took the wildlife drive at the refuge. Of course, we saw the big swans and Canada geese, and mallards, and maybe a golden eye. And a brown snake (best I can do—it was moving right along; that’s our second snake since arrival—the first was a copper-bellied water snake, of all things, and in the road…rescued by LaLaurel). We also saw this sandhill crane; neither of us could remember the last time we saw a sandhill at the refuge.

And turtles—one shiny-shelled one down by the water on the log, and several more up higher. The water level was rather high in the ponds, except for the one they’d drained. Deeeee-lightful visit.

Posted at 7:03 PM | Comments Off on Progress

Having taken two days off from the Eradication Project, and noticing the morning was cool-ish, and that there was a breeze off of the lake, I decided to sally forth with shovel and pickup. And a carry-bucket, a new addition to my tools. In the bucket is one and only one of the (larger) cow parsnips. And it is smaller than one I dug up later. They are aggressive growers!

I thought the lake-breeze would send most of the blackflies tumbling away. Wrong. And we’re in the peak days, so more than the last time. Ah well, I put in a short hour, and was glad I did not have to stay longer. Also I had sweated through my shirt-collar, so I did not feel guilty.

Love trilliums.

Posted at 6:56 PM | Comments Off on Continuity

I heard rain when I got up in the wee hours, but fell quickly back asleep and didn’t know how long it rained. The rain barrel had a damp film, but no drops, so it didn’t fall for long. But, here’s a drop, so a few lupines made a catch. Have no idea why the water seemed pale yellow. Probably some obvious effect known to physics and not to me.

Such lovely little flowers, such a delicate blue.

Spider hanging with two big birch buddies.

Somewhat large blooms for apple…as I recall, this is a Siberian apple (NOT a crabapple), good for blooming and lousy for apples…it was planted to pollinate, so I guess that bee knows where to find pollen! The apples are so unpalatable that the deer even (mostly) avoid them, the Botanist told me.

I seem to remember that the orchard has rows of pollinators; I have no idea if they go north-south or east-west. Vaguely I think north-south, but I may be making that up.

Posted at 7:37 PM | Comments Off on Another hot, dry day

With the work of the last few years, and especially the tree-trimming=light-intensification of last year, well, and weed removal, the rhubarb is coming back! This variety courtesy of the Botanist makes strong pink rhubarb sauce, not any of that greenish or brownish stuff you may have been offered elsewhere. I may even be able to make a small pan of it!

Those long leaves are ramps, and the notched leaves are bloodroot. I’ll be digging some ramps for dinner tomorrow. But, I left them today, because I was digging cow parsnips—or perhaps giant hogweed—both are phytotoxic and invasive, and I should have done this removal last year. Then I wouldn’t have had so many daughter plants to remove. Eradicate. That human thing: choosing which plants to encourage and which to…disappear.

Posted at 6:46 PM | Comments Off on Plant choices

Sour cherry. Only we rarely get to eat the cherries. The birds unerringly know when the fruit is on the cusp of ripeness, and they swoop in and take the whole crop in a couple of hours. Done and done.

Spring beauties. Love the color variation in the centers…is it the age of the blooms, or…??

The Uncle Dave maple is always hopeful (if I am allowed to anthropomorphize). The newly germinated are ready to go for years, but are unaware that the lawn mower will axe their dreams.

*Spring is about all kinds of creatures, but plants are much easier to spot and photograph (see title). Also spotted: huge vee of Canada geese; minnows in the upper Tahquamenon. And in recent days: a rafter/flock of wild turkeys—seemed like all females? [We were moving fast.]

Posted at 9:53 PM | Comments Off on Spring is about plants*

We’ve traveled back into earlier spring. Hello, grape hyacinths!

And rediscovered a Big Bridge!

Hello, Hemlock’s Own Trillium! Been watching for a spring lovely in this exact spot at the foot of this tree for decades.

Posted at 8:00 PM | Comments Off on Oh, exclamation point