Trip Journal: Devil's Lake

Last year, upon returning from Devil's Lake, I wrote an essay about how I felt travelling, as an adult, to a place that was an integral part of my early childhood. Having already written about that, I think this year, I'll just show some plants I saw there.
Bunchberry... a northwoods favorite of mine. I planted some at my house and it does come back, but it has never flowered... I should have put it under my evergreens, as a lot of things won't grow there and bunchberry does seem to grown by pines quite often. If I ever find more...
Canada lily, its flowers so tiny most people say "where?" when I point one out...
Neat wrinkly fungi growing from a log.
Black raspberry, or blackberry.
The grass has eyes... and they're yellow! (Yellow-eyed grass.)
This lichen was such as spectacular color, which really doesn't translate here. It gradually went from a pale mint green to a dark army green...
These tent caterpillars -- not the invasive gypsy moths, but a native -- were everywhere, defoliating trees, especially cherries.
I sketched this mayapple flower but I didn't have the time, while the kids were working, to really do the leaves... Oh, well...

Sketches Here and There

Art can be frustrating. I do these drawings, you see. I haven't had an art class since... junior high school art class, like, the one you have to take in school. I sort of want to, but I'm also sort of scared to -- could formal training actually mess me up? I have these fancy pencils that I received as a very thoughtful and wonderful gift, but I don't know how to use them. All those hardnesses and whatnot... I draw with a cheap mechanical pencil (which is supposedly the worst kind for subtlety and shading). Actually, I can't draw most things, but somehow... somehow, I see plants, I see plant forms, and my brain can translate them and my hand can draw them, and I think I'm pretty good at drawing plants. And I'm not one to publicly say that I'm good at something, so I must really think so. Last week, I did some sketches that I was pretty proud of -- I thought the shooting star and the trilliums were quite realistic. But this weekend, I seem to have lost my touch. The golden Alexander, above, wasn't even identifiable, and I just gave up on the leaves. I thought the lily of the valley would be an easy draw, something to make me feel good after the geranium leaf and the golden Alexander. But it turned out to be a challenge to me, also. Ah, well. I show them, anyhow, not to solicit reassurances or anything, but, hey... why not? As for the drawing talent, it will happen, or it won't. I enjoy the sketching only partly because I like the final products. I also love how it makes me look at things... patterns and symmetries, textures, the way shadows and light play. I learn things, details, that I won't ever forget... lily of the valley have this little bract-like thing where each flower splits from the stalk; geranium sepals are slightly fuzzy...
Lily of the valley are my comfort flower. Like a hamburger to a carnivore, they remind me of home and of youth, and of my mom. She always liked them, I believe, because they remind her, in turn, of her mom. So I guess we have passed an affinity for these fragrant, not-as-simple-as-they-look flowers on through the generations...

Observations (May 2)

A many-petaled tulip with many colors, too.
Norway pine cone forming. We learned that they have discovered a Norway pine that is over 9,500 years old, making it the oldest known living organism in the world. Crazy, huh?
Lilies of the valley are starting to bloom. Some places today I could smell their perfume in the air.
Jack presides over his spring-time church.

Blooms of the Past Few Days

The flowers of most grasses are tiny and barely merit notice from most people, but they are beautiful. They hang down like dangly earrings, and swing precariously in the wind. It looks as though, if you touched them, they would fall to the ground, but they don't. They are wind pollinated, thus their subtlety and movement. Here, the deep purple flowers of prairie cordgrass -- a spartina species with razors for leaves -- hang from its future seedheads.


Cattails have formed the corn dog-esque seed bombs for which they are commonly named.
This Michigan lily is a rare and beautiful prairie plant. Its head bent over as though it were studying the ground, these flowers literally spill their sexual parts out for the world to see.
Close-up of a blazing star, with a little beetle peeking out.
Mountain mint began to flower, its irregularly shaped blooms small and subtle. They have purple dots and are really quite lovely if you notice them on your way past. Which is a big "if".
OK, I know this is a totally blurry picture, but I was excited to have this monarch on my butterflyweed. I am hoping she laid eggs and I will get a caterpillar. (And then I can possibly find the chrysalis!)

Also blooming: marsh plantain and meadowsweet, a native spirea that has quite lovely pale pink flowers (but I still don't like spirea).