Sunday, 20 April 2008
As near as I can tell: Trillium catesbaei, with several common names including Bashful Wakerobin.
We returned to northwest GA and redid the damp hike of late March. Despite light rainfall in the previous 24 hrs, we found the creeks and streamlets very easy to cross, and the hike delightful, colorful, actually, with carpets of new plants, mostly wildflowers and (sigh) poison ivy. I may be exaggerating a bit, however.
Monday, 14 April 2008
I know this plant as bedstraw, but without much confidence in that ID. A quick google suggests I’m right; there are a bunch of bedstraws, however, and I don’t know which this is. The genus is Galium, which this web site says is Greek for “milk”, and sometime in history the juice of the plant was used to curdle milk. Yum.
Just finished Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero (2007)*. Recommended. Some of his descriptions of the countryside struck me viscerally as do those of Cormac McCarthy. Somewhat tortured characters are also similar. Many are orphaned young. Ondaatje’s stories are entirely different from McCarthy’s, however.
* I didn’t read The English Patient (1993) or see the movie (1996), so I can’t make any comparisons.
Household victory: 2007 taxes completed, signed, mailed today.
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
…from the west flank of Brasstown Bald, on Sunday.
Now I find out!
Googling tells me this kind of trillium is Trillium luteum, with various common names, and a pronounced lemony odor. Me, I was photographing not sniffing.
Next time!
Monday, 7 April 2008
Up on Brasstown Bald yesterday, we saw many patches of the wild groundcover galax. I did not know that the shiny galax leaves are commonly used in floral arrangements, and that its harvest is regulated—according to this link, which also includes a link to a 44-page PDF on the plant (your Federal tax dollars at work!). I never would have guessed there was this much info on the unassuming Galax urceolata!
Sunday, 6 April 2008
Did the Brasstown descent again. Gorgeous, sunny day. Fantastic company. Wonderful.
That’s the last hike for the (expensive) shoes I wore; they dumped me today and were the same ones I was wearing the other week when I slipped into the creek. As of now, that (expensive) footwear is banished to urban strolls.
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Here’s proof that the tornado almost two weeks ago didn’t get all of downtown—yeah, okay, well, yeah, this is Midtown….
And the fogginess indicates that rain is on the way, so tomorrow’s proposed hike is on temporary delay.
Sunday, 30 March 2008
Yesterday’s rain stopped about nightfall in northwest Georgia (in contrast, we had rain almost all night in ATL), so we knew that the trail might be damp. I did not expect, however, that the trail would compete with the creek to drain the landscape! Despite the constant overcast, we had a great 6.7 mile trek, with, we agreed, just the right amount of up (meaning “not too much”).
We rescued a box turtle who was trucking down the gravel road (never know exactly where to put them and which way to face them), and saw many active, humongous millepedes. Otherwise, the critter-count was pretty low, although on the drive back to ATL we saw a pair of wild turkeys dusk-grazing in a newly-green pasture.
We found a fine early spring assortment of wildflowers beginning to bloom (I don’t remember most of their names—sorry), and few of the flowering shrubs—none of my favorite wild azaleas, for example, but maybe they just don’t grow in that terrain.
* Bosque is Spanish for forest or woods
Friday, 28 March 2008
I finally pulled a carpet of noxious weeds from the (empty) flower garden last evening, and this morning I noticed a robin out there grazing.
Poor robins. Their scientific name, Turdus migratorius fortunately means something more high-fallutin than it sounds. Turdus means thrush and it’s a genus with many species….
And, yes, it’s the state bird of Michigan (includes sound files)!
Friday, 21 March 2008
Maybe it’s the adorable heart-shaped leaves, but I have a perhaps outsized appreciation for redbuds, which in this part of the world means Cercis canadensis‚ but wait, or are they Cercis siliquastrum? Hmmm. Heck, it’s complicated to do identification of non-wild species….
Meanwhile, for those looking for broader horizons, apparently Al Gore wasn’t invited to chat with Richard Branson and his guests—at Branson’s private island in the BVI—meaning a substantially non-green footprint for that gathering, I’m guessing, with all the necessary jet travel etc. just to get there….
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Today, the sky lightened long after dawn, with only enough light to make the trees emerge from the thick fog. Rain will reduce the remaining snow banks and plow piles, and the rivers will overflow.