Harbinger-of-Spring blooming in Ottawa County 2015

            April 3rd, 2015      Harbinger-of-Spring at Grand River Park!

We started the day at Minnie Skwarek Nature Preserve in Spring Lake Township, we weren't expecting to see wildflowers yet, except for Skunk Cabbage.  And we did see plenty of Skunk Cabbage, also two snakes, liverwort, waterstriders, robins, and we heard frogs.  There was snow in a few places along the trail.

 We spent about an hour and a half wandering this preserve before moving on to the next park.  I wanted to check the Harbinger-of-Spring at Ottawa County's Grand River Park in Georgetown Township.  It was very muddy at this park but the trails were passable with our boots.  Soon we were in the Paw Paw patch and found Harbinger-of-Spring!  It's a small plant so you need to step carefully and look closely.

Do you see the flowers?  There are four plants near the log.  

This is what the Paw Paw bud looked like.  There were many Pussy Willow in the fields, and the dried grasses looked like a flowing river.

 We walked for a couple of hours then sat and listened to the frogs, and birds.  It was a good day. 

Lamberton Lake Nature Preserve, Rogue River Park, Rockford - Kent County, Michigan



The end of July 2013, Marie and I started our day at Lamberton Lake Nature Preserve near Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Owned by the Land Conservancy of West Michigan. 

Then off to Rogue River Park, a Kent County park, address 6300 Belshire Avenue  Belmont, MI 49306.  Rogue River Park is a staging area for White Pine Trail State Park.

We saw Culver's Root blooming.

Groundnut  (Apios Americana)  Pea family, also called Wild Bean.
The fleshy tubers of common ground-nut, a twining vine, were an important food for Native Americans, and the plant has been researched for agricultural use as a food crop.

  Chicory

Rogue River in Belmont, Michigan

Swamp Milkweed

Jack-in-the-Pulpit featuring Marie's hand to show the size of this plant.

Redwhisker Clammyweed
(Polanisia dodecandra)  Caper family
This native plant is a summer annual about 1-2' tall.  Each flower is about 1/3" across, consisting of 4 white petals, 4 triangular sepals that are dull green to reddish purple, 8-12 stamens, and a reddish purple pistil.    The lower to middle leaves are trifoliate, while the upper leaves are simple; both types of leaves alternate along the stems.  Each fertilized flower is replaced by an oblong seedpod up to 2½" long that tapers at both ends.

 

Monkey Flower

Purple Loosestrife

Common Mullein ~7 feet tall

After several miles hiking around Rogue River Park area, we drove north to Rockford, Michigan.  We visited the Memorial Park and Rum Creek Nature Trail.

Rum Creek

Super Secret Cattail Trail

 

 Common Burdock



That was our day!

Wildflowers to Wood

2012 03 22 With the warm-hot weather all plants have been popping out early and fast.  I picked up my sweet sister, Sugar, (she must be sweet we call her Sugar, hey why didn't they call me sugar?  Oh well) and we visited Minnie Skwarek Nature Preserve, Ottawa County, Michigan (Land Conservancy of West Michigan). 

There was still more brown than green as we started off. 

The swampy area was full of big, green, Skunk Cabbage leaves but when we got to the first bridge I saw what I came to see.  A Marsh Marigold blooming!  Just one blooming, many coming up.

Marsh Marigold

We also saw, newly out of the ground amazingly, Mayapples, "Umbrellas", no flowers of course, but a little forest of green making their way up through that cold hard packed earth. 

Mayapple

We saw just one hepatica blooming, it was pale compared to mine here at home. 

Round-lobed Hepatica

There were frogs and birds singing. 

Bridge at Minnie Skwarek
It was a warm day but nice to be out.

Also going on this week was woodcutting, splitting, and stacking, March is a good month for this because the leaves aren't out on the trees yet. 

One of my smaller piles of split wood.

We worked hard and there is much more work ahead.  It's actually fun when the weather isn't too hot to work.  And this log splitter makes it much easier.  It's my job to keep the home fires burning and to do that I need wood.
That's just some of this busy week.