Garden Surprises

I keep having wonderful garden surprises. It's amazing what roots turn out to be still alive if they have a few years of weeds being kept in check.

I'm really happy about this. It's a large vase-shaped Hosta called 'Krossa.' I bought one years ago and it got moved several times and I thought it was dead. But I thought I found a bit of it last year and moved it here to the front bed. It seems to be very happy. AND- there is another one that must have hitchhiked with some plants from Ester.

This is in the rock garden. I thought it had all reverted to pink and white, but there seems to still be some of what it was purchased to be. It's a moss phlox called 'Candystripe.' You can easily tell why.

This is a really nice surprise. I thought all of these had died out. This is pheasant-eye narcissus and the bulbs came from the home where I grew up. This will need to be moved, but that's easy enough.

The last surprise is a surprise only because I didn't think it would bloom any more this year. This is the damaged sea thrift 'Morning Star Deep Rose' that I got cheaply. It still has the two blooms that were there when I bought it three weeks ago, but it also developed another flower!

I had good energy today and did a lot of tasks both inside and out, although it's never enough! The lawn needs mowing again, and I HAVE to make the mower seat better before I do that again. That may be tomorrow's project.

Maybe I'll even go out and weed for 15 more minutes right now!

See Almost Surprises

Old Fashioned Carnival

Today, I was in Fruitport for an author vendor event. This is put on by the same library that had the event last fall. They hoped that hosting it the same weekend as the city-wide Old Fashioned Days would draw a good audience. The theory was good, but the attendees were not buying books.

This was a genuine, old-time carnival with rides, and booth games, and carney food.

There was a kids' parade with a fire truck escort. Great small-town fun.

Here was my setup. There were about 10 authors. Some I already knew, and some were new to me. That's always fun.

I stopped at a large greenhouse on the way home, but their prices were high. And truth be told, they didn't have anything that I don't already have or can't live without. Most of the plants I really covet at this point, I'm not going to easily stumble on at a regular nursery.

However... if I am ever rich enough to add to my gardens with annuals (ha!), I'm going to have a section with Senecio 'Angel Wings'

and Coleus 'Inferno.' They both are large and showy.

I'm home and surprisingly tired for doing almost nothing all day. Maybe it's getting up early, the warm day, and the tedium of very little interaction. I mean... if you are going to spend all day hoping to sell books, it's good to at least be able to "market yourself" a bit. I even sat and read a book off and on. Things have to be really "dead" for me to do that because I think it looks tacky.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day!

See Fruitport Library

Letting You In on the Plan

Three years ago to the day (I did not plan this, and was pleasantly surprised to discover the matching dates), here I was, poised to step into...



Did you remember? ...the Adirondack Park. I knew the NCT maps were inadequate. I mostly found my way, but lost the trail several times, bushwhacked, backtracked, did whatever I had to to get through.

There are currently 174 miles of North Country Trail in the Adirondack Park. Here's a long shot of the area. The medium green is the 6-million acre park.

Ever since this hike, Matt Rowbotham (NCTA GIS Specialist, eg. he does the maps) and I have been trying to cook up a way to get me back there to get good tracks of the trails without my needing to pay for everything on my own.

Last year, that was a no-go. This year, I applied for and got a NCTA Field Grant. It will cover some of the expenses.

Why? Now that Mary Coffin unexpectedly died last fall, it's pretty certain that there is no one who knows the current Adirondack Route as well as I do. I could wait until the organization has enough money to fully pay for this project. But the older I get, the less likely it is that I would be able to be the one to hike all these miles again. Insert ego. I, I, want to be the one who does this.

More why? People are getting increasingly interested in the Adirondack portion of the trail, but the maps are so inaccurate they are possibly dangerous. There are no accurate GPS tracks of hardly anything. We need to fix that.

Who? Bill and I will be doing this together.



What? We will be hiking and mapping 89 miles of off-road trail. Some of this will eventually change, but hey, the NCT changes all the time. Meanwhile, people need accurate maps. Part of what we are going to do will need to be backpacked because there is no road access. We are also going to do structure inventory (bridges, puncheon, etc)

Whether they look like this, or better.



We are being spotted in our endeavor by several people. Sarah (on the left), who hiked with me for three days in 2022.



and Joyce (left) who hosted Marie (right) and me last year. And Marie (of course)



And Diane, shown here completing her Hike 100 last year.



I am highlighting all of them, because they are chosing to travel quite a long distance to help in this endeavor. Yes, it will all count as volunteer time for us and them, but it's a huge project with a lot of moving parts that have to work smoothly because the locations are so remote.

I'll also get to meet the new NCTA Vermont-New York Regional Trail Coordinator, Will Brazill, who is spotting us one day.

So, perhaps you can sense my concerns about being in good enough shape to do this. There will be 5 days of backpacking (split into two sections), and the rest is day hiking. But it will be much more continual and intense hiking than I've done since the big hike and certainly since I've been sick. I'm feeling pretty confident that I won't endanger us by being unable to complete the task, but I'm not getting younger, eh? And I'd prefer not to be in continual pain.

Just as an aside, when I backpacked with David a couple of weeks ago, I asked him who was the oldest person he knows that backpacks. I was NOT fishing for compliments. He got a funny look on his face and said, "You."

As a final reminder of the Daks, and a glorious reminder of what may be ahead (if it's not a gray day when we get there), here is the view from Jones Hill. This will be on our last day!



Only 2.5 weeks to finish preparations, do a few more conditioning hikes, and then... WOW... it will be off to New York!

See Here I Go

I Get By with a Little Hike with My Friends

How would the next line go? "I get high with a little hike with my friends."

So... I am seriously in need of getting even more in shape in the next 2.5 weeks. I'll share what that's all about soon. But today, a few of us got together to hike a section of the NCT I don't do very often. The link below is to when I did it on the big hike, and that was two years ago. This is the piece that is part of the Manistee River Loop and I don't like how busy it usually is. But this is a Thursday (not a weekend), and still fairly early in the season. Also, it's our hilliest section and that's what I need to be practicing on.

A total of eight hikers participated. Four of us walked the entire distance, and the other four went to the end and hiked in and out for shorter mileage, and then they were able to take us back to our cars.

Here are some of us on Eddington Bridge.

The big news of the day is wildflowers. We saw lots! And that is a little unusual because most of where the NCT runs through the Manistee National Forest is rather dry. Here's a sampler. This post would be out of control if I tried to show photos of them all.

This is Downy Yellow Violet, Viola pubescens. Flowers above the leaves, slightly hairy. And there are even some seed pods!

Here is Wild Sarsaparilla, Aurlia nudicaulis. This is always a fun find, and due to a slope of the land I was able to get a good picture from a low angle. See the balls of flowers below the leaves?

Back to yellow, we saw large patches of this in bloom. This is Lousewort, or Wood Betony, Pedicularis canadensis. It also comes with maroon flowers, and sometimes maroon leaves. We only saw yellow ones today.

Much to be expected at this time of year, and even in dry woods, is Gaywings, or Fringed Polygala, Polygala paucifolia. This looks like a little orchid, but it's really a milkwort.

And speaking of orchids, we saw a LOT of Pink Ladyslipper. This is a true orchid.

It was just warm enough to coax out a little garter snake.

It's really hard to get nice views across the river because the trees are pretty dense, but this one isn't bad. I'm pretty sure the bare spots you can see on the far hill are sand banks below a section of the trail that is about four miles farther, just north of Mesick.

We also saw Foamflower, Canada Mayflower, Great Solomon's Seal, False Solomon's Seal, Starflower, Indian Cucumber Root (not blooming yet), Wild Lupine, White Trillium, Wild Strawberries, Common Blue Violet, and Rattlesnake Hawkweed in bud.

I am tired, but not too bad. Need to keep working on my core.

Miles hiked in 2025: 180.8. NCT Hike 100 Challenge: 77 miles

North Country Trail, Manistee County, Upper River Road to Hodenpyl Dam. 9.2 miles

See Tales from the Manistee River Loop

Assorted

What characterized today was more of the cold rain, but I don't feel compelled to show you a picture of that!

Partly because Om and I will be running all over this summer and won't see much of each other, and partly (mostly) because I wanted to try a recipe, we had a nice meal at home.

And what recipe is that, you ask? Rhubarb Glazed Chicken. It is yummy. Here is a link to the recipe I used, but I left out the hot sauce. Rhubarb Glazed Chicken. We added asparagus and a baked potato. There's chicken left for a couple more meals.

Worked a little more on the knitting project. I can continue to show you until it becomes obvious what it will be. Then you'll have to wait until it is bestowed upon the intended recipient.

And, oh yeah. I won an award at the Michigan Outdoor Writer's Conference.

I managed to work on most of my other tasks too, but the chicken was a little labor intensive because I stewed another big batch of rhubarb (and didn't need all of it for the chicken), and had to make an unplanned trip to the store. I don't usually goof up on that sort of thing, but I sure did today.

See A Little Project