© Joan Z. Rough, 2008It's a golden world at the moment with so many yellows in the landscape. Forsythia, daffodils, dandelions, wood poppies, primroses, spicebush ... not to mention the yellow-green of newly unfurling leaves. On Saturday night at herb class we had a wonderful salad of spring greens. Several of us gathered violet flowers and leaves, dandelion greens and forysthia blossoms all known for their medicinal uses, which we added to the salad. I also picked and added garlic mustard leaves. This plant is a nasty invasive that is taking over our woodlands. It has no medicinal value, but it tastes very good and by uprooting it and eating the leaves we're doing a very small part in getting rid of it.
Have you ever noticed that once all of the trees begin to leaf out, their new leaflets lightly echo fall colors when viewed from a distance? Yellow-green, a soft almost pink-orange ... and many shades in between. These are the colors of the chemical compounds like carotene within the leaves that help in the plant's photosynthesis of the sun's energy into plant energy. Standing on the top of one of our blueridge mountaintops, it's amazing to watch these subtle colors shift into the bold greens of the summer forest.
We're still playing with weather that can't make up its mind. Seventy-five degrees a few days ago, forty degrees today. On warm evenings buds and leaves seem to pop, while on cool evening this process seems to slow down, as do the voices of the spring peepers. Last night when I let the dog's out for their last potty break of the evening there wasn't a peeper to be heard. My breath was steamy when I exhaled and I was quickly aware that I was getting very cold.
The bear did return the night before last and hit the compost bin. But he/she didn't seem to eat any kitchen scraps it uncovered. It might have been looking for worms and grubs which there are always plenty of in the compost. There is no sign that it returned last night. One of my neighbors has friends who live upriver and they have seen this bear. They describe it as BIG!!
2 comments:
Oh, my - that bear sounds like a troublemaker. But both that photograph and your post are lovely! xo
Here, there's more colour in the foliage in spring than in autumn, as well as the blossom and flowers. I love April.
Don't eat too many dandelion greens, they'll make you pee-the-bed! And don't mix it with that bear!
Post a Comment