Paint, Pete, Plants, and Turtles

Today, I met with a volunteer from the Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the NCTA named Pete. We headed to part of the section I just hiked on Monday to do some refreshing and improving of blazing in that section. I've blogged before about how to paint blazes correctly.

Pete and I have similar notions about how well this job should be done, so it was a joy to work with him. The condition of the blazes in this particular section has been bugging me for a while, and it turned out he felt the same way. So we fixed it. This is a turn blaze, indicating a right hand turn. In this particular location, there was a right turn blaze, but it was positioned so you could also see it while hiking from the other direction, which was confusing. Arrows had been added, which were unnecessary, and there was no turn blaze at all from the other direction. We fixed all that, and improved the spacing on other blazes which had not taken sight lines into account.

It was pretty easy to change all these because the only trees available to blaze are red pines. That bark flakes pretty quickly, and particularly if it hasn't been scraped adequately, which these had not. So we didn't have to struggle much to remove the old, poor blazes.

Pete is also our chapter Vice President, but he especially likes going out to do trail work. He's done a tremendous amount of it in the past several years!

Since this included the area of the wildflowers, I'm including some updates on those. Here are the actual flowers of the common toothwort, instead of the spring beauty blossoms pretending to belong to this plant. As you can see, they do have only four petals.

I also hunted around and found some fertile fronds of the meadow horsetail. It's that skinny pale stalk in front of the fern leaf.

The violets were just starting on Monday. Today they were open and cheerful. These are common blue violet, Viola sororia. They're everywhere, but I still like them. This one is keeping company with a wild strawberry flower. You can see both leaves- the violet's are pointed and slightly rolled. The strawberry is rounded and toothed in threes (another "leaves of three" that is NOT poison ivy).

Again, this is not unusual, but it's always fun to find a violet that isn't the common blue one. These are downy yellow violet, Viola pubescens.

And, I could have gotten the alliteration complete if I'd gone with Painted turtes, which these are. It was a beautiful morning, and the turtles agreed, spending a relaxing morning in the sunshine.

It always amazes me how much time it takes to do even a small amount of blazing correctly. But it was fun to do trail work with someone. And I like to think we've made an improvement to this section.

We also bumped into Ramona, and I learned that the reason the trail re-route I talked about on Monday did not follow a way that I thought would have been good was because there is a piece of private land, and the owner would not allow passage. So, at least I got an answer to that question which had been bugging me.

I am very happy that I feel good enough (not so sore and stiff) that I can do some trail work like this without a lot of pain. I am hopeful that I haven't aged myself too rapidly by doing this big hike, and how I feel after today is encouraging.

See Flowers from Yesterday

Flowers from Yesterday

There are no unusual flowers or plants in this post. These are all finds from yesterday. However, there are a couple of interesting notes.

Most of these finds are from one particular location on the trail. In general, the Spirit of the Woods section of the NCT (the northern 2/3 of the Manistee National Forest) does not support a lot of wildflowers. Most of the forest through which the trail passes is xeric (dry) mixed woods with sandy soil. Wildflowers like to have a little bit richer earth from which to sip their nutrients.

However, Just west (trail east) of Highbridge Road there is a section of trail along lower ground by the Manistee River. This location is rich in spring wildflowers. The soil is probably enriched by seasonal flooding.

Here are common toothwort leaves, Dentaria diphylla or Cardamine diphylla. When I see toothwort in our area, I think it's about 50/50 as to whether it's common or cut-leaved. The "di" in diphylla is because there are two sets of three leaves, opposite each other. For those people who have trouble telling any three-leaved plant from poison ivy, you can look for those two sets.

This is a trick picture. Don't think that even somewhat experienced people don't get fooled by stuff like this. The flowers are NOT those of the toothwort! Toothwort is a member of the mustard family, Brassicaceae, and the flowers have 4 petals. When I saw that these had 5 petals, I did a double take. What? Then I looked more closely at the picture, and underneath the toothwort, Virginia spring beauty, Claytonia virginica, is growing with the flowers reaching through the toothwort leaves to get to the sun!

Here's a patch of the familiar trout lily (aka dogtooth violet, adders' tongue), Erythronium americanum. This is slightly unusual because of the number of plants that are blooming. Most often, you'll find a huge patch of the leaves, but only a very few of the plants will have a blossom.

Next up with another slight surprise is bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis. For one thing, bloodroot is usually one of the very earliest spring flowers, and it's usually finished blooming before the other flowers open. These have to be close to dropping their petals because the other unusual thing is that the leaves are open and the flowers are still present. Usually, when you see the flowers, the leaves will be wrapped tightly around the stems. Later the leaves will open to create lush green carpets.

I know lots of you love the trilliums. There's nothing unusual here, and it's not even a particularly wonderful patch of them. They made the pictures because they are the first ones I've seen open this year. Trillium grandiflorum.

Next up isn't a flower at all. This is a horsetail. In fact, meadow horsetail, Equisetum praetense. I'm trying to learn these guys, because there aren't too many. I should be able to remember them. The fertile stalks are flesh-colored and have no leaves.

We did find this flower in a dryer area of the forest. It's not open yet, so I'm breaking my "rule" to not share pictures this spring until the flowers are open, but I like these a lot, so I get to break the rule. This is gaywings buds, Polygala paucifolia. When open, it looks like a tiny orchid, but it's not at all. It belongs to the milkwort family which has wildly varying plants if one goes by appearance alone. Genetics will sort out a lot of the confusion. A lot of plants were thrown into Polygala because they had similar flowers but not much else in common. It was kind of a junk drawer of genera.

Finally for today, I bring you shadbush (aka serviceberry, Juneberry, shadblow, and more), probably Amelanchier laevis, as it is the most common species in our area. It seems to me that these are blooming very late this year. This is usually the very earliest flowering tree you will see in the edges of the woods. Indeed, looking back in my blog, I've often posted finding it in bloom in mid-April.

Now that I've shown you some nice plants, I'll counter that with telling you that I spent a fair amount of time today chopping, digging, and trying to kill more autumn olive- A VERY BAD PLANT- around our house. It's so serious, it really needs a bulldozer. All I can hope to do is keep it from overtaking the yard.

See A New Direction

Best Photos of 2017

 

Last year, I took you through 2016 pictures month by month. That limited me to 12 favorites, but maybe eliminated something if there were two good ones in a month. This year, I'm just picking some good ones and arbitrarily putting them in categories.

Most unusual sunrise picture, so I'm calling it the best. September 26

Favorite landscape. Waves of pointy hills in springtime Ohio. April.



Favorite snow picture. Sumac trees against red pines. December 30



My favorite picture of a person. December 9

Favorite still life. At Shagway Arts Barn in the rain. October 22



My favorite sky picture.. The Stratocumulus undulatus clouds in November.



Favorite wildlife picture. Praying mantis with German yellowjacket remains. October 23



Favorite country road picture. From the Ohio hike. April



Favorite tree picture. The maple tree overhanging the driveway to the Shagway Arts Barn. September 5.



Favorite plant picture Horsetail. August 14.

Favorite abstract pattern picture. Ice on a wetland. March 12



Funniest picture. I thought it was going to be old/new fungus growth, and instead got a cute little shark coming around a reef. September 17



There you have 12 of my favorites. Comments always welcome!

In other news: I spent 2 hours messing with the snowblower. The plows had put a 2 foot wall across the bottom of the drive, and the bank around the mailbox is up to the top of the box and about 2 feet in front of it. Cleared. widened the bottom. Now the wind is blowing and the roads are drifting shut. School has already been called off for tomorrow. But we should be able to get out. Road trip for me- stay tuned. Also did some promotional stuff for books and finished (I hope) the extra material that will go with the Dubois Files books. Making split pea soup. Might write a little more, or not- kinda pooped.

	See Best Pictures of 2016
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How Do Plants Make You Feel?

 
These plant pictures have all been taken in the past month. I present them to you without identification (exhibiting great restraint), just to let you react. Tell me how they make you feel.












I got a lot done today! Laundry, mowed grass, worked at the paper because they were short-handed, stripped more paint off the trailer, did some housework, did some computer work. Wish I could get this much done every day! Tomorrow it's back to work, but I have some fun planned for later in the day.

Emerging Equisetum

 
You might remember the horsetail from last Saturday that was just getting its leaves.


I wasn't sure if it was Meadow Horsetail, Equisetum pratense, or Woodland Horsetail, Equisetum sylvaticum. Now I know the answers! It's really easy, once you see them both. This is Meadow Horsetail, which grows up to look like this with ranks of straight leaves like the spokes of a wheel.



Yesterday, I stopped at a place where I knew the Woodland Horsetail grows to see if I could find any new ones. I did!


It also grows in ranks, but the leaves are branched, and that is really obvious in the emerging stalks. They look like little trees- a tiny woodland.

When full grown, here's what they look like.

	See Woodland Horsetail
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Fern Hike, No Ferns

 
Today was the monthly outing of the Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the NCTA. It was supposed to be a hike to showcase ferns, but I knew after my scouting expedition a week ago that wouldn't be true.

The only fern we saw trying to even produce fiddleheads yet was this cinnamon fern, and you can hardly recognize it as anything at all. I just happen to know it from the location.



With a lot more visual interest, I can give you bloodroot. It was everywhere! This is interesting to me because I'd never realized it even grew along this piece of trail. It blooms and the leaves disappear so quickly, I'd never seen it there before.



The horsetails (Equisetum) are just beginning to show. I think this is woodland horsetail, but I'm not certain, because I'm guessing based on the looks of the sheaths (those ranks of dark points around the stems), and I don't know enough about them yet, to be sure. It might be meadow horsetail. Hope I can find this same location later in the season, to be sure. Nevertheless, it's very pretty- like a tiny sculpture.


It rained all night and was a dreary morning. I wasn't sure if anyone would show up for the hike. But I was the leader, and needed to be there. I had decided that even if I was alone, I'd at least do a fast loop to check out how the plants were progressing. This is the same loop I did last weekend. But, one other person came! The weather cleared, and there were even a couple of moments of sunshine. It was great!



May have tightened up my ID skills on another fern, as well.

	See A Hike Too (?) Early
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