Second visit to Eloise Butler

[pameladean]

Our second visit happened on April 21; we slipped away from Minicon after Closing Ceremonies, as is our habit when weather and the timing of Easter make it possible.

The day was windy and I was having trouble keeping the phone steady. It was really a glorious spring day, though. There's a three-trunked river birch at the edge of the parking lot, right behind the pay box for parking, and it was full of little catkins. I saw a green darner patrolling the trees on the edge of the parking lot. Little woodpeckers twinkled in and out amongst the branches of the oak trees. I forgot to mention that on our first visit, also on a windy day, the long-hoarded leaves on these parking-lot oak trees were being whirled away by the wind in a dance like the ghost of autumn. The few remaining ones drifted down now and again, a week and a half later. Along the shallow steps that go down to the the front gate of the garden, the spotty leaves of Virginia waterleaf were coming up.



I'm not quite sure what I was aiming for with this photo of the tiny marsh, but its general color is what you still saw at first glance coming into the garden.



When one looked closer, however, there was far more green stuff busily taking its place.

Trillium leaves:



False rue anemone leaves:



Trout lily leaves:



Eric found one sunny slope full of blooming white trout lilies, but the wind had picked up and the light was hard to work with, so I don't have a picture. Next time, maybe. For now, trout lilies in bud:



The ironwood was blooming:



We walked along the new boardwalk again, marvelling. There was more water around it than we were used to:





Where it had not been dug up to accommodate the boardwalk, the ground was covered in fallen tamarack needles and a few leaves, with just a leaf coming through here and there. Even the skunk cabbage was not up yet.



But the tiny marsh itself, thatched with fallen cattails, was alive with green darners. They were very fast and engaged in changing direction and elevation very abruptly, and I kept thinking they might be something else; but any actual glimpse of color or shape, which was hard to get, confirmed that they were green darners. We sat and watched them for a while. I associate them with late summer afternoons over ponds laced with duckweed, green prairies full of flowers, marshy wooded clearings, the last light of the blazing sun backlighting the minute insects they hunt. To see them in the still awakening landscape was wonderful.

We went up into the meadow. No pasque flowers, no prairie smoke yet. We checked for the first wild asparagus shoots, but it was too early. The aspen grove and the majestic drooping fir trees stood in the sun as always, and the white oak at the top of the hill was starting to bloom.

We had paid for two hours of parking, and it was not really enough. But we were chilly and hungry, and there was still some Minicon left. So we went reluctantly away.

Pamela

Comments

[sovay]

I'm not quite sure what I was aiming for with this photo of the tiny marsh, but its general color is what you still saw at first glance coming into the garden.

These are wonderful marsh photos. Thank you especially for the pictures of water.

No pasque flowers

Those feature memorably in an episode of Sapphire & Steel, but I don't think I have ever seen one in the wild.

[pameladean]

I am so glad you like them! My photos of water often don't work, but these did.

The garden is not exactly the wild, but I think I've seen pasque flowers in state parks too. They're pretty elusive, being so early and having such a short blooming time.

P.

[sartorias]

Oh, lovely! The last autumn leaves whirling away while everywhere there is spring, that blue, blue water. So lovely.

[pameladean]

I expected more flowers, but I appreciate the slow unfolding of spring after last year's delayed hectic outburst. More soon, I hope.

P.

[graydon]

Those look like spring.

(It is raining here, like it means to keep raining this next age. The forecast disagrees and I do hope the forecast is correct!)

[pameladean]

It's been raining here. Today is merely cold and gray and windy. Everything is more or less holding its breath until the sun comes out again. I hope as well that your forecast is wrong.

That's a great description of a particular kind of rain.

P.

[graydon]

Thank you!

The squirrels are all off display; Aoife is displeased.

That holding-breath feeling, very much so. There are some few May flowers doing their best. I am hoping I shall not need to mow the lawn before I can properly rake it; it's just gone green these last couple of days, but one can feel the lurking sproing somehow.

[pameladean]

My lawn too makes me feel the lurking sproing, another great phrase.

Our squirrels tend to huddle on windowsills and gnaw in a desultory fashion at window air conditioners when it rains, so the cats are not disappointed but rather frustrated. They can hear squirrels but not see them.

P.

[graydon]

I have no close squirrels; there are trees at a little distance from the house, front and back, but no direct route from branches to roof. (quite! Give the tree in the narrow gap betwixt this house and next a few more years.) So the interesting squirrel behaviors involve sprinting about in the back year, or galloping across the porch on the way to those trees. Rain quite suppresses all of this.

I do hope the cats do not become destructively frustrated.

[pameladean]

Cassie merely stares wistfully. Saffron has been known to try to dismantle the squirrel barriers from the inside, but has been persuaded that this is a bad idea. Downstairs, the air conditioners are under less pressure because they are too low for a good nest. Young and foolish squirrels do chew at them, but some of the barriers are made of hardware cloth, which neither cats nor squirrels can get through, and others are apparently not very appealing even to young and foolish squirrels. Additionally, observation suggests that the most vulnerable air conditioners are the ones that were installed slightly off-center, and that's more likely on an upper floor where the whole undertaking is more fraught and annoying.

P.

[graydon]

I do not envy you the obligation to persuade Saffron!

There's a short -- not even waist high -- chain link fence between this property and the next, down the narrow strip between the houses. It's got a pipe top, and today there was a squirrel perched there looking horrified at me through the window in the door; "you're not going to open that?!". (Before sprinting off; "oh no you ARE going to open that".) Aoife was on the inside looking at me with the same expression (because this means I am Going Out, of which Aoife does not approve), and it was some stress on my composure.

I hope the young and foolish squirrels don't gnaw anything very much, and nothing not readily replaced.

[minnehaha]

Any idea what this is? Also, in my style it is awfully small and hard to see. I do not understand why. Your pictures also display quite small on my reading page.

I am working on a post about the plants of Minnehaha Park, where this was taken.

K.

[pameladean]

That is cutleaf toothwort. There's a lot of it in Eloise Butler, but it tends to bloom later.

I am still very bewildered by Dreamwidth's image handling. If you double-click on one of those small images, though, you'll get a much larger one.

P.

[minnehaha]

I didn't know about the click-upon. Thanks!

K.

[pameladean]

I meant to say, I look forward to your post very much!
P.

[minnehaha]

I posted to my blog, and I think there is an RSS feed to here, and I think I am subscribed to it. So, perhaps it will appear.

K.

[jbru]

I should obviously get out to this garden. I don't have much marshy areas in my yard, but seeing how they handle their plants will be useful even if the exact species are different in some cases.

[pameladean]

The marsh is only a small part of the garden in any case. There's a small upland meadow with a miniature oak savannah, and a lot of woodsy bits. It's really beautiful, and I bet the volunteers would love to talk to you about your garden, too. There's usually somebody helpful in the little Martha Crome shelter.

P.