Catching up with spring

I’ve gotten behind on posting Homestead wildflowers.  The maples are leafed out now, casting the understory into shade and marking the end of the main sequence of ephemeral flowers.  There are still some new ones appearing, and I will keep posting them as they appear.  The garden is complete now, and Helen is working on a chicken enclosure.  One of these weeks I’ll get around to taking pictures of our projects.

I’ve been working with Helen at Wild Garden Seed since April 22, planting, hoeing, and weeding organic seed crops and spending days outside with a wonderful crew.  It has been a very welcome break from days in the lab and in front of a computer, and though the job came to me rather happenstance I am hoping to stick with it at least through the summer – long enough to reap what we are sowing and tending.

April 16-20:

White Fawn Lily, Erythronium oregonum.  The Oregon equivalent of the midwestern Trout Lily.

Oregon Grape, Mahonia aquifolium.  Very common on the forest floor, along with salal and sword ferns.

Vine Maple, Acer circinatum.  Our main understory tree, growing in graceful curves and arches.

Hooker’s Fairybells, Disporum hookeri.

Bigleaf Maple, Acer macrophyllum.  The dominant deciduous tree here, making up ~30% of the forest canopy.  The flowers produce abundant nectar for bees in April, though cool rainy weather often prevents them from collecting much.  This year we had enough warm weather during the maple bloom to get some surplus honey from the hives.

April 27: Last snow on Marys Peak.

It was a bad winter for snow on the mountain, and I never got in a good powder ski.  Many times it would snow from a dusting to a few inches and then melt, but it was a far cry from the 3+ foot snowpack of the last two years.  A cool showery pattern brought temperatures down enough for snow, and I convinced Liz to make the short trip to the top to see the last snow of the season.

Yellow Glacier Lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, poking through the snow.

May 3, homestead flowers on Michele’s birthday:

Three-leaved Anemone, Anemone deltoidea.  These are abundant, especially along the creek near the top of the property.

Western Flowering Dogwood, Cornus nuttallii.  An understory tree with big white blossoms like a magnolia, but always pointing upward.  When I first found one of these in the forest I thought I had discovered the White Tree, an exceptional anomaly of great beauty.  There are at least ten of them on the property, with green bracts that rapidly turn white in late April/early May, causing the flowers to “appear” almost overnight.

Salal, Gaultheria shallon.  Very common understory shrub related to blueberries and huckleberries, and with edible (though not quite as sweet or delicious) fruit.  One of these years I will make a salal fruit leather or a salal mead…

Western Starflower, Trientalis latifolia.  It took us a while to identify this one.

Oregon Iris, Iris tenax.  The largest and showiest of the spring woodland flowers, growing in spots where a bit more light shines through.

May 10-11:  Oregon Coast.  After a few weekends spent working on projects and too long away from the ocean, we headed west to Newport, camping at Beverly Beach, accidentally seeing some whales at Depoe Bay, hiking to Drift Creek Falls, doing our best to identify birds by their songs, and returning via our bees near Jefferson.

Ocean sunset at Beverly Beach

Southward vista from Cape Foulweather between Newport and Depoe Bay.

 

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