Spring 2005

Flower and Mushroom Forays

Joel stopped by last Saturday and asked if I wanted to go riding. I figured he just wanted to show off the Husaberg he recently bought. It is an awesome bike, but it turned out Joel wanted to show me a hidden meadow filled with flowers he had stumbled across while riding in the backcountry.

We went up over the the ridge and turned off onto a narrow track that dropped through an old clearcut. It was a rocky, difficult road. Steep, downhill, with deep waterbars cut across the abandoned roadbed.

About three quarters of the way back down the mountain Joel turned left down an older road. This was a barely visible track, overgrown with thick brush and littered with fallen branches and small downed trees.  We eventually came to a junction in the deep forest where another, even less used track led off through the fir trees. We parked the bikes and walked down this path...

 

 

 

 

 

The trees were close and dark, with no brush underneath. We rounded a corner and found ourselves in a secluded meadow, an ancient lilac bush standing guard...

walking past the lilac and a small stand of saplings the meadow opened up with a brilliant stream of white jonquils flowing through the middle of it...

    

 

Joel picked some flowers and I spaded up some bulbs, dividing them to take home and replant. These beautiful blooms were the ghosts of a forgotten homestead and had probably been blooming for one hundred years or more in this hidden glade.

We loaded the bulbs and the flowers into the sidecar. Joel took the time to adorn the Husaberg with a totem from the meadow...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we got back to the house we found Amy had adopted a duckling. She named it Ping. 

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All photos and articles Copyright© Vernon Wade 2005 unless otherwise noted