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Melana's Foray to Ann's
Two days ago I went out to Ann's Farm (Where I will be again Monday) and I collected violet blooms for jelly. Collected a half quart of blooms in the five hours I was there but more than violets I just walked. The whole place is on a hill, or small mountain depending on what your legs tell you, :-), and amazingly beautiful. Most anytime you face downhill you have a view all the way to Montreal and Valleyfield but, yeah, the woods are thick enough with maples, birch and wild apple trees you cannot always see down.
I found orpine, violets, nettles, tons of mature fiddlehead ferns, and what I think to be cinnamon fern and interrupted fern (yeah Catherine I think I found interrupted fern as well). Trilliums are blooming up a storm, wild mint is along all the brooks, jewelweed seedlings are thick everywhere and I again found that red veined dock? near the water like I found in Maine. Which by the way I have an excellent photo of as soon as I get my picture scanned by someone. (Hillery?) Trout lilies, and bloodroot are past their bloom but also in quantity here along the trails. (Deer track where also in abundance but with Max along for the trip I never spotted one) (BTW...Max has been cured of his doggie maleness and is an even better companion than before...now to just teach him to sniff out morels! LOL)
The main thing in abundance though was black flies. Ugh! Never messed with them in the dry ecosystem of the island but got properly introduced at Ann's. Funny...here on the island we are dry and rocky and very little marsh areas but you go out to the apple orchards and hills of Franklin it is marsh and the higher up you go the marshier it can get. Totally different than what I would think. :-) Teach me to think! I even jumped out of my skin when a 747 fell down before my feet only to realize at the last second that was a mosquito! Monster bugs! Well, being the only tasty thing on the menu that day I got sampled plenty. They bit my neck, my arms, my ankles, my ears and even the tough pad of my hand. The bites at the time didn't bother me but about 2 a.m. that night I woke up while trying to scratch my neck open in my sleep. I had little sleep all night and that is why I didn't log on and do mail yesterday. I was just double beat tired. Once from having walked 30 K (mostly up-hill) and secondly from lack of sleep. I was walking death most of the day and even breathing seemed like to much effort. :-)
All in all though it was a fabulous day. Me, Max and 50 gazillion bugs enjoying the scenery and sampling the flora....well the bugs where busy sampling me but I am trying to forget that!
Melana Hiatt