Last Saturday morning, puppy Shadow and I decided to walk a trail in the Morgan/Monroe State Forest, about 20 miles north of here (Bloomington Indiana). Though there are a few flowering trees blushing purple and white (don’t ask me anybody’s name, I’m terrible with names),
the canopy and underbrush are still mostly brush. But not really! Look down, to discover wild flowers, tiny white, yellow, purple . . .
tiny, unfurling ferns,
in the bottomlands. We crossed a tiny stream,
(wow, beautiful photo, would make a wonderful abstract painting, maybe I’ll get back into painting . . .) and started up.
No more flowers (check out the ghostly silvery sycamore in hiding),
but we did see rose bushes (which, I hear, are an “invasive”: but, permaculturists would say, “plants move,” and “in 50 years the forest will have adjusted; birds would have brought in other plants to curb the ‘invasive’ ones now”; rejoinder: “who has fifty years?”).
At the top of the ridge (which was, apparently, clearcut a few years ago . . .),
we met a couple who were collecting what they called garlic mustard, another “invasive,” they said. It comes from Europe, I think they said East Germany, where people steam and eat it. I tasted a leaf. Delicious! Unfortunately, I forgot to iphoto it.
On our way down, Shadow discovered something under a tiny log. What is it?!
Dig deeper!
Oops! Time to go. . .
but not before “capturing” one more bud InDiana, and her divine cohorts, who preside over and within us all and we still pretend we’re in charge.
As if WE silly humans can control the ever resurgent life force. HAH!
