My Bit of Heaven - by Kristl Walek

[Kristl Walek]

well, not quite, otherwise we'd all end up in the mud!

Well, Maggi, if I had had company in that deep, muddy hole, we could have sold tickets 

[Linda_Foulis]

Kristl,
I'm sure all are glad that you and your camera are still working in spite of a mud bath.   I've been reading this thread with seed list at hand and each time I see something that really catches my eye, I go through my list to see whether or not I've already purchased it from you.    Now all I need is the time and more de-grassed areas to plant. 
I'm thoroughly enjoying watching your travels out into the country side and wish I could join you on a couple of excursions.

[Kristl Walek]

Hi Linda!!!!!!!
So great to see you here---I always love it when another Canadian becomes visible in this wonderful group---and especially when it is a Canadian that I already know!!!!!

[Linda_Foulis]

Thank you Kristl,
I actually spend a good deal of time here.... lurking.  Usually reading after a long day of digging in the dirt and few brain cells left to answer or respond to anything. 

Hopefully I'll be more of a participant this winter.   

[Lesley Cox]

Good news about the camera. They're surprisingl;y hardy, mine having been left out in the rain overnight a couple of times.

I wonder why it doesn't surprise me that of all the pics above, the one viewed by far the most time, is of the mud woman!

[Kristl Walek]

Gentianopsis crinita is one of our most beautiful wildflowers.
Thus, it deserves a page to itself.

[Kristl Walek]

Bottle Gentian, Gentiana andrewsii, is the only Gentian species in my area. G. linearis is in Ontario as well, but much further north.

There is an interesting variety of colours in the wild. Blue to purple-blue being the norm.

Solidago caesia is a wonderful and delicate woodland species.

I believe I have forgotten to post Prenanthes alba before as well as Chelone glabra which has been flowering for a while.

Seed of the fantastic Betula alleghanensis was collected today. It is the provincial tree of Quebec and a great Betula---the trunk on some specimens become a glowing gold that the eye can catch immediately in a forest of trees---and particularly wonderful standing out against the snow in winter.

Medeola virginica was also ripe and harvested---it is particularly beautiful at the seed stage

[Kristl Walek]

Also collected today was the native Prunus nigra, to add to the very closely related P. americana that grows wild in thickets on my own property.

Aesculus glabra (Ohio Buckeye) is very rare in Ontario, growing only in one spot on Wapole Island in SW Ontario. This specimen is from my garden, with it's fruit almost ripe.

The Arisaema triphyllum must be sought a pod here and there until the tray fills up.

And Maianthemum stellatum berries are now "in the bag."

[art600]

Kristl

You continue to post the most wonderful shots of your countryside.  They brighten every day.

[Gerdk]

Kristl,
Beautiful pics from plants which are always of interest for me (Long ago I worked in a tree nursery)!
Apart from the beauty of the fruits shown - who will eat all the plum cakes?   

Gerd

[Kristl Walek]

Apart from the beauty of the fruits shown - who will eat all the plum cakes?   

Thank you Art and Gerd....the edible fruits pose less of a problem now that I no longer have time to make use of them --- and P. nigra and (less so) P. americana are really only good for jam in any event. Yesterday, however,  I also collected P. munsoniana (a south-eastern USA native) from my property, and this one is SO DELICIOUS and worthwhile eating fresh that most of it will get rather rapidly rough cleaned in the old fashioned way before it goes into the sieve with soap and water.

[Afloden]

John W,

 I suggest trying Thujopsis dolobrata 'nana', once Thuja dolobrata. See, http://www.conifers.org/cu/th/thujopsis.htm, or google image it. The white stomatal bands are a feature of the species, and are not so obvious in Thuja species. I am sure there is more than this character that separates the two genera.

 Aaron Floden
 Knoxville, TN

[johnw]

John W,

 I suggest trying Thujopsis dolobrata 'nana', once Thuja dolobrata. See, http://www.conifers.org/cu/th/thujopsis.htm, or google image it. The white stomatal bands are a feature of the species, and are not so obvious in Thuja species. I am sure there is more than this character that separates the two genera.

 Aaron Floden
 Knoxville, TN

Aaron - This was definitely not Thujopsis. We grow both forms and the foliage is quite different. Too big for Nana, tips different, foliage colour is dark green whereas in Nana it is yellow green. Take a close look at the upper leaf surfaces in the background. I can send you a larger picture for better detail.  Baffled.

johnw

[Kristl Walek]

The flowering season is drawing to a close in my bit of heaven, although there is still much to show you until the snow flies. We have a few +4C nights coming up this week and the chill in the air in the morning already smells of winter.

It's high aster time here in Ontario....and two of our best are now flowering- the well-known Aster nova-angliae, which hybridizers have played with for many years displaying it's most common colour.

My favorite native aster is, however, Aster ericoides, which becomes smothered with a gazillion small daisier over tiny, intricate and heather-like foliage, it's branches often twisting and turning into fascinating shapes.

Penthorum sedoides (Ditch Stonecrop) I show you only because it is the only non-succulent member of the Crassulaceae. It inhabits wet places in the wild.

An unidentitified Aster sp...... there are so many species here...

And lastly---I have shown you the cute, cute seeds of Triosteum aurantiacum before, but I found one last plant with the seeds still intact in the leaf axils.

[Jim McKenney]

Second thought was for my camera- which did not sink with me, luckily. But it got badly bumped around in my frantic moment, and will not now allow me to take pictures (although it gave me this last picture of "Mud Woman" as a memory.)

Well, Kristl, this brought back some memories of a slightly different sort for me.

Many years ago I was caving with some friends who were experienced and enthusiastic spelunkers. At the time I had a new SLR camera - my first. Concerned about my camera getting bumped on all the rock in the cave, I wrapped it in cloth. In that condition it formed a melon sized ball.

If you have never been caving, let me explain the experience this way: try to imagine crossing, in the dark except for the meager beam of your headlamp,  a field of wet, slimy, slippery, broken concrete slabs. It's cold, it's rough, and it goes on for hours.

When we reached the turn around point in the cave, I took my camera out to take a group picture. No sooner did I have it out of my pack than I fumbled it. I was standing on the edge of a broad, flat, tilted surface whose edge seemed to be at the edge of a dark void. There is no moving quickly in a cave, and I stood there helplessly watching my new camera  go rolling down the slope, off the edge and, as far as I could tell, on to who knows what oblivion. Dejected, I listened for the thump as it hit the bottom of the pit into which it seemed to have fallen.

I thought that was the last I would ever see it. Lucky for me, one of the more experienced members of the team viewed the retrieval of my camera as just another pleasant challenge. With some apprehension, I watched him disappear over the same ominous edge of rock. It was he who had guided us in, and if he didn't make it back - with or without my camera - I probably wouldn't be here writing this.

You already know how things turned out with respect to getting out of the cave; and I got my camera back, too. You should have seen us when we finally got out into the sunlight: filthy from head to toe with cave mud. I'm not sure which is worse, cave mud or bog mud - I've had a bit of experience with both.