Posts Tagged ‘forest flowers’
Slowly Expanding
On a walk back toward the house from the labyrinth, I spotted this remnant in the trail, but no visible nest in the immediate vicinity. I imagine there could be multiple explanations for how it ended up here. I’m hoping for one that includes the successful hatch of a baby bird.
I like how the mottled shadows of emerging leaves made it look like there was a spotlight on the shell.
I don’t know why, but this made me think to check on our patch of trillium we transported from the lake place up in Hayward, WI. Over a series of years, we were bringing back batches of these wonderful flowering forest plants after Memorial Day weekend.
They are so prevalent up there that the white flowers carpet the forest floor this time of year, creating a mesmerizing scene. It’s hard to imagine we would ever reach that level here at home, but even a small patch is rewarding. In this spot, I counted twice and came up with 19 plants, but I knew I wasn’t getting them all. The longer I looked, the more I noticed.
Final count: 24. I’m pretty sure that’s more than we planted. It will be most rewarding to find they are now spreading naturally in their new home.
It’s not always easy to keep track of where things are in the woods. I know we tried starting an establishment in at least two other areas, but they didn’t take. After a couple of seasons, I figured out we will be better off focusing our attention on one main spot. Still, I thought there was another grouping just a few feet away from this one.
I eventually spotted it.
There weren’t many flowers yet, and a tree branch had fallen into the area, but there’s trillium there. It looks like a bit of competition from trout lilies, which are the most widespread ground cover we have here, followed closely by jewelweed.
I look forward to a day when these two trillium groups merge into one as the transplants slowly expand their new Wintervale establishment and take command over all other contenders in this area. We may have brought them here, but I leave it up to nature to decide the eventual outcome.
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Native Trillium
For years, we have longed to establish a colony of trillium in the woods closest to our house by transplanting them from the forest on the land of Cyndie’s lake place up in Hayward, WI. The very satisfying success we have achieved up to this point has been limited to the plants surviving the stress of getting dug up and driven hours away. Some, but not all, have even produced the ultimate reward of the classic blossom.
What has yet to transpire is the natural propagation of new plants in the surrounding vicinity. When we start seeing that, the rewards of our efforts will have us over the moon with joy.
In the meantime, we have been noticing other rewarding blooms in the farther reaches of our forest.
There are a small number of native trillium plants that appear during the relatively short flowering weeks in a handful of spots in our woods. Still, they have yet to offer a hint of becoming the striking carpet of coverage like we see up at the lake.
Now in our twelfth year on this land, we can begin to measure how things change in a decade. Of course, the natural evolution of our surroundings is hard to predict given the rapidly warming climate underway. Will that make a teeming blanket of flowering trillium a more or less likely possibility in our woods?
Either way, it appears we will need to be patient and set our sights on long-range changes. Thankfully, we experience a wonderful thrill even when coming upon just a single flower of our much-loved wild forest trillium.
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First Flowers
That didn’t take long. A day after the new green of freshly sprouting leaves appeared on the raspberry bushes, the first flowers of the season blossomed on the forest floor.
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I don’t actually know what kind of flowers they are. Searching flower images brought me to Wood Anemone as a close possibility, yet I never found results that definitively matched ours.
Cyndie is home again this morning. She arrived to a stack of packages and mail that arrived while she was away. Her rummaging around last night after midnight woke me up. Those packages? She whispered that she hadn’t ordered any of them.
A week earlier, while she was in Florida with her parents, she received notice from her credit card company, checking on purchases. Cyndie still had possession of her card, but hadn’t used it while in Florida. The fraudulent purchases were being made over the internet. So, how does credit card fraud work when you order online? Couldn’t authorities just check where the packages are sent?
Well, not in this case. The fraudster had the items sent to our address.
Huh?
The last place Cyndie had used the card was at the airport parking lot. Getting out again was a trick, because she had canceled the card earlier in the week, as soon as they notified her of the unauthorized purchases. How do you get your car out of the ramp a week later?
Apparently they have a plan for that. Must happen often enough. There is a button you can push for help. The voice told Cyndie that, since she still had possession of the card, she could swipe it to get the amount owed, and then use a second card to pay.
What is making much less sense to us is, the credit card company’s response about our receiving the packages from the fraudulent purchases. An agent told Cyndie, “This happens all the time” in reference to purchasing goods and having them sent to the card holder address. I’m guessing she misunderstood what Cyndie was asking.
I know fraud happens all the time. I don’t see why thieves would frequently order goods they don’t receive.
Cyndie was told she needed to return the items, or would be charged, but the agent didn’t have a good answer about how we get the return shipping paid for by someone other than us. At this point, even the conversation with the VISA agent was sounding shady.
Cyndie had immediately reported the activity as fraud and canceled the card. Seems to me that nothing after that point should be her responsibility.
I suppose the whole charade could simply be a way to prank someone. Three identical, extra-large hoodie sweatshirts. Makeup. Perfume. Shoes. A dress.
We’re not laughing.
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Relative Something 