The woods are starting to look less like spring, and more like summer, even though we’re not even through April yet: the poison ivy has begun its inexorable spread across the forest floor and up into the trees. I’m not especially allergic to poison ivy, fortunately, but I do try to avoid stumbling around in it wherever possible. Continue reading
Tag Archives: ozarks
April Evening.
I had just a little time to take a walk in the woods before the sun went down tonight. Spring is proceeding at a brisk pace: the dogwoods are almost gone, but a number of other wildflowers have begun to take their place. Continue reading
Into the Woods.
Today the weather feels more like early summer than early spring. This afternoon I took a break from the computer to take a stroll down into the valley behind the house — with the camera, of course — to see what was going on down there. This early in the season the poison ivy hasn’t taken over yet, so it’s possible to get off the beaten path a bit. Continue reading
World Enough, and Time.
The crane flies are out and about this evening.
These creatures are a familiar sight everywhere during their brief mating season each year — flimsy tangles of thready legs and cellophane wings smacking into window screens and lampshades, dangling from spider webs, drowning in teacups, the survivors finally disintegrating after a few days into a litter of disorganized limbs under the porch light. Continue reading
Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
Although we call them mountains, the Ozarks are really just the eroded remains of primeval sea-bottom, lifted by the pressures of continental drift, then cut and carved and gouged by a couple of hundred million years of water and wind. Even in the greenest spots, the ancient rocks are never far away: the Ozark ecosystem is a thin skin of life stretched over a broken skeleton. Continue reading
After the Rain.
We got a brief break in the rain this afternoon, and I ran out the door with the camera. Tomorrow, I’m told, the rain resumes, but for a few hours Spring was very much in evidence in here in the Ozark foothills.
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- Thalictrum thalictroides, Rue Anemone
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- The man at the end of the block has lilacs already coming into bloom. I guess location really does matter.
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- Podophyllum peltatum, the Mayapple or Ground Lemon
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- Water droplets on a young Flannel Mullein, Verbascum thapsus.
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- Antennaria lanata, wooly pussytoes
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- Cercis canadensis, the Eastern Redbud, one of two species native to the Ozarks.
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- Erythronium americanum, the Trout Lily. In a few weeks it will produce a nodding yellow blossom.
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- The trees are budding out, and the streams are filling with water.
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- Although pretty now, these forest streams are ephemeral: the water will be gone in a couple of months.
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- A small waterfall bringing water down from the hilltop into the railroad cutting.
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- A forest stream.
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- Water droplets in a cedar branch.
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- The dogwoods are early and bright in the deep woods.
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- The dogwoods are only just beginning to come into bloom.
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- The dogwoods are blooming before most of the trees even have green buds.
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- The trees are just beginning to show buds.
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- One of my neighbors has cleared a homestead in the woods.
Sunset Stroll
Tonight I took a little stroll down into the valley below the cabin, just about sunset. Here are some pictures. Enjoy!
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- A view toward the south, along the valley, with Mount Gayler rising on the left (I think…)
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- Past a certain point, the road is easier to walk than to drive.
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- Periwinkle. Like so many plants here, it’s actually an invasive import that has become completely naturalized.
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- Wild muscari, growing on the slope behind the cabin. This is also an immigrant that is now naturalized.
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- This is an invasive shrub from Asia that has become fully naturalized here.
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- There are trees coming into bloom down in the shadows long before the ground-living plants.
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- The road down in the valley.
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- My cabin, as I come back up from the road that leads down into the valley.
