Big Jack

I'm falling behind but there have been a few more flowers. The Mayflower is now bearing fruit, but there are still some big jack-in-the-pulpit in the swamp by the dam. This one was a plant about eighteen inches tall!


A big storm this month took down many trees in the area. Tipped over irrigators, blocked roads, other damage. The horrid Norwegian maples have completely shaded out many areas.

Mayday and new leaves

Wow, what a difference in just a couple of days. It's 75 degrees; the trees have leaf-budded out in an echo of their fall colors--pink for the oaks, yellow for the maples--and from bare to green almost overnight. What you see here is, unfortunately, mostly Norwegian maple, a non-native that starts just enough earlier than the native sugar maples that it shades out the seedlings of other trees, wildflowers, etc. But the remaining sugar maples are leafing out too.
Last night I took a roundabout way home and was rewarded with wonderful frogsong along a dirt road, by a field that had been plowed but the ruts stood full of water. I pulled off the road and could hear chorus frogs clacking and wood frogs grumbling along with the ubiquitous peepers. A big snapper slowly crossed the road. As I was leaving, four stout and barefoot Amish women came walking towards me, in the sunshine.

The sunset was beautiful.