Today it rained ALL DAY. Not hard, not a lot, but something was coming down the entire day. I took the opportunity of a day off of yard-work to go to my favorite place across the river to buy annuals and some veggies. The selection there is unmatched, especially if you want some interesting annuals for flower boxes. They literally have almost everything. And coming in before Mother’s Day, when it is often crowded beyond belief, is always a wise idea, as the aisles are narrow, the carts are large, and selection will dwindle as you shop. So I now always try to go before Mother’s Day, hence my trip on Friday, May 10th. Today’s take is the following:
Anyway, because the day started off so miserably, I actually thought that it would be a good day to document what is currently flowering on the property. Somehow, raindrops enhance the photos, so I went from front yard, to backyard, to side yard, to street side and creek side, and wherever there was a flower, I took a shot. There were many. Let’s start near the chicken coop:
Below are examples of three different violets, dripping wet, and the white one had a very small mayfly in it.
So because there were SO many purple wild violets this year, I decided to try one of the wild violet recipes. The easiest one to start with was the syrup. Here is a patch of them on the creek side of the wall, and this is where I started:
So on May 1st, I decided a return trip to Mariton was warranted because the Trilliums had not really been out in full bloom when I had been there earlier. It was another beautiful day. I went in a T-shirt, as it was quite a bit warmer than my first time there this season on April 24th. There was an abundance of Trilliums, as well as some newer wildflowers and some further along than when I’d been there a week before. I allowed a little more time for this venture, because I wanted to get to the bottom of the River Lookout Trail (map below). The River Lookout Trail starts out pretty tame, but after a few twists and turns, suddenly there is no longer a dirt path, but a steep granite path of rocks. This requires my 68 yr. old self to put down my coffee mug and use hands as well as feet to maneuver.
All told, it was a perfect trip, beautiful weather, and beautiful wildflowers. I look forward to returning soon.
Most people think of the early Spring flower “Lesser Celandine” (Ficaria Verna) as an invasive weed. It permeates our lawn in the Spring probably before any other growth with its cheery, bright yellow flowers, and the foliage (those pretty heart-shaped leaves) last longer than the flower before they start to fade as if it’s autumn, and it’s not even May. Today is April 30th, and most of the yellow flowers are gone. The Hostas then take over the beds where the Celandine is prolific and under the large umbrella of those giant Hosta leaves, nothing else has a chance and the Celandine slowly disappears. Does it have a use? I will find out. There was a headline that showed up for me (somewhere, I don’t recall where) that read: “Standing up for the Lesser Celandine (A truly sensitive flower)“. This intrigued me, so of course I had to read it. My entire “country” life, I have heard only about the disadvantages of this so-called “Invasive”, and ways to eradicate it, control it, annihilate it, etc. I am wondering if this is really necessary? Maybe, primarily because there is so much of it. And it has a tendency to smother out the emerging Spring Ephemerals, and possibly other more advantageous plants. (And then there are those blank spots it leaves in the lawn as it dies back). But control would be impossible in our yard. To kill or eradicate the Lesser Celandine, we would have to involve too many other plants, and it’s impossible to dig it out, so we let it do its thing and then die off under the Hostas.
Links (and quotes) I used while researching Lesser Celandine:
Ficaria verna (formerly Ranunculus ficariaL.), commonly known as lesser celandine or pilewort,[3] is a low-growing, hairless perennial flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. It has fleshy dark green, heart-shaped leaves and distinctive flowers with bright yellow, glossy petals
And from HERE: “Lesser celandine, also called fig buttercup, is an herbaceous invasive perennial plant found most often in moist, wooded floodplains. This spring ephemeral arises early in the season, often near forest fringe areas, and creates a dense carpet of vegetation that prevents native ephemeral plants such as bloodroot, wild ginger, and others from surviving.”
Today is normally the day they hold the annual “Shad Fest” in Lambertville, New Jersey. This would have been the “traditional” weekend, but this year, for some reason, it was changed to last weekend: 4/20 – 4/21/24. We went on 4/20 and it was an absolutely beautiful, perfect weather day. Today would not have been. It’s chilly and overcast. However, the reason I bring this up, is not so much for the Shad Festival itself, which was traditionally to honor the “annual spring shad run”, of the fish called “Shad”, running upriver (the Delaware in this case) to spawn in fresh water. What I’d like to talk about is the Shad Bush (Amelanchier arborea), which blooms around the same time as the Shad run, and that, I believe, is why it is sometimes referred to as a Shadbush Tree. It is also known as: [“downy serviceberry, shadblow, juneberry, shadbush, sarvis-tree or serviceberry, Saskatoon, shadwood, sugarplum or wild-plum”. There are at least 20 species included under the genus Amelanchier and many shad trees are genetic combinations of them]. The information within the preceding brackets is from this site: https://theupstater.com/the-columbia-paper/through-the-woods-shad/.
We have a Shadbush Tree growing right across the creek, picture of it to the left, next to the guard-rail of the bridge. You can also barely make out behind it, to the lower right, our famous Durham Limekilns. More on that later – they deserve an entire post unto themselves. I have a couple closeups of the Shadbush Tree below. These closeups were hard to get as it was a bit windy when I went on this little venture, but I took them anyway, because in about a week or less, these blossoms will be gone.
The Shadbush tree has a beautiful white blossom, which can appear pink when it’s just beginning to bud. This is a short-lived flower, and turns into a berry, which (apparently!) can be baked into a pie. I did not learn this ’til I was researching these Shadbush trees this year. Another fun culinary item to try, given that shortly there will be shadbush berries across the creek. Here is a recipe I found: https://downtonabbeycooks.com/bountiful-serviceberry-saskatoon-pie/ Or from this site (doesn’t this look utterly delicious??). This looks like a fun site to peruse. I had to confirm my age to get into it: https://piequarterly.com/recipe-lakeside-saskatoon-pie/
So that is about it for Shad and Shadbush Tree for the year. If/when I actually cook a pie with the berries, I will be sure to add it here. Shad is a short season.
Every year the Shad Fest sponsors a poster contest, here is a link to this year’s entries. So many of them are so good, and then last Sunday, they held an auction for all the posters entered. I’ve never been, but I hear it’s always a sell-out.
Mariton is a beautiful 200 acre preserve that falls under the management of the Natural Lands Trust. It is a combination of two people’s names: “Mary” and “Tony” Guerrero. They bequeathed the land for preservation 80 or so years ago. Mariton can be very challenging, in that it has trails that go from about 200 ft. above sea level to 700 ft., so when you are walking that trail, it is like climbing stony steps. Really good for the legs and hips. See the “Topo Map” to left. (I love that they put “Coffeetown” on this map).
I used to be a “regular” at Mariton, given that it’s only about a 5 min. drive from us. I took our “Wolf-dog”, “Red” with me for hikes there. I could have her on one of those retractable leashes, so she could have some freedom, and we rarely, if ever, ran into anyone. I felt like the crazy lady of Mariton though, because I would often go early in the morning, and many of the trails had spider webs spun from one side of the trail to the other and after getting a face full of webs, I started carrying and waving branches in front of me to dispel the webs. Often these webs would have a spider still in it, dead center, and to me, running face first into that is a nightmare.
I mentioned in a prior post that I was going this time for the “Trilliums”. Today was Wednesday, and the preserve was OPEN. I knew where I had last seen Trilliums and I went right to it, about a 10 min. hike to the “River Overlook” trail. But I had a hard time finding the Trilliums. I thought they were gone or maybe I got the bloom time wrong because it’s been at least a few years. But it turns out I had the WRONG TREE. I turned around and headed back up the hill, eyes sweeping both sides of the trail for the tell-tale 3-leaved growth. Finally, I saw some at the base of a large tree, I had gone too far. Pictures below. There really weren’t many, and there was only 1 of the lovely maroon color, and it had one rather ragged petal. And one cream-colored one. When I got home, I checked my picture files from years back (surprised to find they are dated 2011) and I realized I might have been a day or so early for Trilliums; my old photos are dated 4/27 – 5/1. Perhaps a return trip is in order on 4/30.
Then, on the way out I ran into the preserve manager, who I told I was “there for the Trilliums”. He said, did you see the ones up on the “Spruce Trail”. No, I was down on the River Lookout. He directed me to a patch of white Trilliums that I’d never seen in there before. Pictures below, plus more flora that I caught on the trails to and from “Trilliums”.
It is illegal in most states to pick Trilliums. But not to photograph them!
The weather was beautiful today – Monday, April 22. It is also “Earth Day”. I took a quick drive up to a local nature preserve, because this is about the time of year a certain other “ephemeral” Spring flower is in bloom – the elusive Trillium. However, I couldn’t get in! They are closed on Monday. I was rather disappointed, but I’ll have to try it another day this week, otherwise I may miss them. Now while this preserve may be just outside of the Cooks Creek Watershed area, it’s close enough to include the Trillium in my posts. Besides, it’s in the Delaware watershed, and Cooks Creek flows into the Delaware, so there you go. I’ll add a post on Trilliums soon. On my way home from there, I took County Line Road, which is the road that separates the north end of Bucks County from the next county: Northampton. This picture is shooting south into Bucks, and the view is part of the Cooks Creek Watershed:
It has been awhile since I’ve been over on this trail in nearby preserved lands. It looks like the township is using it as a depository for piles of gravel, stones, fill. This was a regular haunt for me and several of our other dogs in years past. It’s open to hunting, so I have to be careful. It’s also an active farm field, which was just recently plowed. There are many game trails throughout, deer presumably. I took Saoirse, the Frenchie and even though she hindered my picture taking, she enjoyed the outing, and hopefully did not pick up any ticks.
Mark pointed out to me today a new growth on the edge of the creek. We are both pretty certain that it was not there a couple days ago, and there are some stalks of it that are already 3 ft. high or better. I can always check some photos I took, see if they were included… well, I did take some pictures shooting downstream, but stopped just short of the bank where these are. Anyway, it really looks like they sprung up overnight, and these tall stalks are new to us. In 22+ years, we have not seen these growing on the creek or the property. We can only assume that seeds washed down from somewhere upstream and rooted themselves here in one of probably last summer’s “High Water Events”. I “google-lensed” the plant and it’s been determined to be: Japanese Knotweed. Highly invasive, but also edible. It is supposed to be a lot like Rhubarb. I don’t know that I’ll be finding out. Luckily, it is down at creekside and not being a “woody” stem, we could probably take care of it with minimal effort. But just as an experiment, I did something to see how fast this stuff might grow. I found a couple of long sticks that I put next to two of the sprouts, about 2 ft. in length, and throughout this week, will monitor the progress.
So after I watched the youtube video about about Japanese Knotweed, I decided to cut some of the stalk and taste it:
It was an interesting taste experience: they are somewhat pickly/sour/tart, with a texture and crunch I would equate to celery, but maybe not as dense. I’m having a hard time figuring out what vegetable it is most similar to – perhaps rhubarb, but I’ve never tasted rhubarb raw like this, so hard to say. I may try the Knotweed pie recipe in one of the links below. If so, I will be sure to post it here.
What can you do with wild violets, besides how amazingly pretty they are in the landscape? Well, apparently they are also edible, have medicinal properties, and have been used for a variety of recipes including cakes, cookies, sugars, syrups, and more.
So I think I have found a significant number of recipes to do fun things with the ubiquitous wild violet. As soon as I have an opportunity to go forage for some, I’ll get busy on it.
On same site, are some recipes for using violets medicinally. Some links I used for this post: https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-08-11-10-ways-preppers-use-wild-violets.html On the site below, there is a really nice recipe for violet cookies. Here is a picture from the site. I think since we have so many violets every Spring, I need to find a way to use them in the kitchen.
Today is Sunday, April 14, 2024 and it is a lovely Spring Sunday. Which is quite the treat, considering some of the dreary days we’ve had of late. A lot of rain, and yesterday being so cool (40’s) and windy as heck. In this post, I want to talk about this miniscule little flower we have in our yard. It’s about 1/4″ across, light blue, with dark blue “veins” fanning out through the petals. This is what most would call a “weed”, known as Creeping Speedwell or Creeping Veronica (Veronica filiformis). It grows prolifically in our yard, but once we start mowing and applying lawn treatments, it is basically gone for the season. I can only get these pictures of it in early Spring, when it’s allowed to flourish in little side-pockets in the yard.