A Walk in the Woods

[beetiger]

projectmothra and I made a visit to a little arboretum that I just became aware of, not far from our home. It's an odd little place. You need to drive through a dirt road that winds through a private golf course to get there, lined with signs reminding you that you were going through private property and better stay on the village path or it was trespassing. No one else was in the parking lot or on the arboretum trails the whole time we were there, though you could hear lawnmowers and voices from the course. The path itself was basically a pleasant if muddy 3/4 mile loop trail around a swamp, with a few options of spots to walk up and away from the loop for a bit.

There were also a variety of wildflowers in bloom, lavender and pink ones with rounded petals, red-and-yellow trumpets, and deep purple trumpets. I couldn't recall any of their names.

Little signs on occasional trees noted the species and a useful fact or two about each of the major species found there. One tree there was marked as grey birch, and although I don't recall noting one in years, I immediately recognized it from my childhood. It's got little brown pods on it (apparently officially called "catkins") on it that when dry in the spring look very much like unground peppercorns. I used to call them "pepper bushes", as the ones by my house ran broad and low, not much like trees really, and they grew on the edge of the woods behind my house. I used to grind them carefully between two rocks and use them to "spice" my mudpies and other botanical mock-food creations.

I think I'll visit here again.

Comments

[marrionettegirl.livejournal.com]

I love birches! sometimes on the way home from church, my grandma would stop at one of the few stands of birchs, and I'd take a couple pieces, and use it as paper, with these berries we called ink berries, and my friend and I would sit on the (upsidedown) boat in the backyard, and pretend the birch paper with our notes on it, was in message bottles.. super pretend fun!

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I did this sort of thing so often growing up, plus my bardic nature, that I have a permanent tendency to go into narrative mode and rattle off the names and features of passing flora and fauna.

Last weekend we were shoveling wood chips out of a friend's truck, and I went off: "Oh, look, there's some cedar, it's pink inside. And that bright yellow must looks like yew..." People were amused.

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

I used to do that with the white birches in my yard too! But grey birch isn't the peely kind. It's got smooth grey bark.

[marrionettegirl.livejournal.com]

ah! we'd identify trees, but only to like, "thats an oak, thats a maple, thats a birch"