News Flash!

A riot has broken out in Shakerag Hollow! The trilliums, spring beauties, Dutchmen's breeches, trout lilies, and hepatica have taken over the forest floor! Bees, flies, and bee flies are on high alert! Code GREEN! Get down there! Now! Before it's too late! (If you cannot see the slide show below, please follow this link.)

Wobbly Legs and All

Shakerag Hollow is blooming, despite recent snow and ice and endless fog. Nature's first green is not always golden: witness the harbingers of spring!

It's remarkable how quickly my sullen mood turns joyful on the appearance of the Mourning Cloak and tiny wildflowers pushing up through winter's chaos of leaf litter.

An early stroll is well worth the wobbly legs and all!

In Search of One Thing, Finding Another

I asked permission and was given it with this proviso: "Be careful. There are a lot of bad golfers on this course."

The cart track and the utility path took me downhill, below the most picturesque green, where I found the pond. Drained before the golf course was rebuilt, the pond shimmered today, encircled with flowers and thistle and cattails and leafy greenery all round. Missing, though, is the old bridge with its iron rails, access to the center of pond activity now cut off.

"What are you looking for?" the student asked.  "Odonates," I answered, guessing (rightly) that her waders and other gear suggested naturalist study. "You?" I added. "Salamanders," she said. "I'm doing a study, and I must say it's hard work. But fun."

When one golfer finished the third green and before others managed to shoot to it, I climbed up the hill and paused, taking in the view of the plateau and Shakerag Hollow, Roark's Cove and beyond. On my way back to the golf house where I started, three men stopped their golf cart and said, "We saw you up there. What were you looking for -- birds or balls?" "Dragonflies and damselflies," I answered. They looked puzzled, and one said "Ah!" as they drove off.

I am glad of the new course, the spectacularly lively pond, and the clutch of Halloween Pennants balancing on winds of changing weather. Sometimes change is good, even when challenging.

Confusion along the Trail

Prone across the steep trail down into Shakerag Hollow, I heard this: "Are you all right?"

Where I walk, strangers often ask me this question because I look like the old woman-who-has-fallen-and-can't-get-up. I'm only taking pictures, but that's not always readily apparent.

"I'm fine," I said, "just taking pictures."

"What of?" he asked.

"This hepatica, and I'm not having much luck."

"Oh," he said. "What's that called?" And I told him again.

"Have you seen the multicolored things hanging from the trees?" he asked.

"Not yet," I answered. "I am only just now going downhill. Are they insect cocoons?"

"I think they're for Monarch butterflies! They're in all different colors and hanging about head-high," he said cheerfully and headed up the hill.

Not possible, I thought. I finished shooting the frustratingly tiny flower and took off, looking up rather than down for a while. 

First, I saw one of the colorful felt birds someone has hung along the Perimeter Trail. Surely he didn't think . . . no . . . . And then I found this (and several others):

I've seen little packages like this one before, and they weren't butterfly nurseries. Moths. That's what's developing in there, but what kind I don't know. I've seen more than a few, and I've finally learned to recognize them.

I admire the gentleman's certainty and enthusiasm. He asked if I were a wildflower expert. "Not quite!" I exclaimed. "An admirer, perhaps!" What I didn't tell him is that every spring I confuse the rue anemone for the hepatica and when the Odonates begin to emerge (soon, please?) I must review them once again in one of my books. 

Just call me enthusiastic dilettante, writ large.

A Walk on the Wild Side

Wildflowers

by Reginald Gibbons

Coleridge carefully wrote down a whole page   

of them, all beginning with the letter b.   

Guidebooks preserve our knowledge

of their hues and shapes, their breeding.

Many poems have made delicate word-chimes—

like wind-chimes not for wind but for the breath of man—

out of their lovely names.

At the edge of the prairie in a cabin

when thunder comes closer to thump the roof hard   

a few of them—in a corner, brittle in a dry jar   

where a woman’s thoughtful hand left them to fade—

seem to blow with the announcing winds outside   

as the rain begins to fall on all their supple kin

of all colors, under a sky of one color, or none.

Let the Rumpus Begin!

Shakerag's spring has sprung! One Question Mark and one Mourning Cloak butterfly flitting and lighting, numerous no-see-ums stirring the leaf litter, and wildflowers poking up everywhere!

The Day Before Spring Begins

Lake Cheston's red maples blossom,

Shakerag's wildflowers start unroll their carpet,

and Lake Ridyard sings.

What a good day, from beginning to end.

Get Ready!

Shakerag is on the verge of bursting.

Buds obelisk up from mottled trillium leaves,

tiny mushrooms glow like butterscotch,

moss sporophytes shout their hello,

and water runs over rocks and round winter ice.

Get ready! I'm comin', Spring sings!

Wildflowers

I have lately fallen in love with flower photography, something I enjoyed as a young person with my first (second and third) camera. Perhaps because I have time for the first time in years at the right time, I am preoccupied with things blooming around me.
Violet and Spring Beauties























Tuesday, my friend Greg and I walked into Shakerag Hollow, where I had walked with Dead Plants members Thursday before. Flowers and leaves are popping up everywhere. After shooting them, I have decided to learn what they are, so this morning at Dead Plants, I looked at a Tennessee wildflower book. I think I can now name things I photographed.
Dutchman's Breeches











Hepatica and Trout Lily











Not only am I learning to use my camera, but I'm learning to use my brain as well as my eyes. It's lovely.