One Flower and a Bee *

I can hardly complain. I look forward to this bud-busting green-gold time of year so much, that it would come a few weeks early has been a joy.

I just wonder what price we will pay come summer. Already, the ticks are terrible. We’ve never had mosquitoes on Goose Creek, partly for lack of standing water on land pitched as we are, and partly because our winters in this microhabitat are more severe than up top on Floyd’s more typical sunny plateau. I haven’t seen a skeeter yet, but I won’t be shocked when I find myself slapping at the side of my neck while basking in warm shade from the front porch swing.

Ah well. That the trout lilies are blooming even before the spicebush has peaked or the Mayapple emerged is a biochronological fact I’ll just accept. I’ll also be on the lookout for morel mushrooms well before April 25, which is our usual alert date for these elusive shrooms.

To get this shot with the iPhone, I felt like a petty bandit, waiting until the store owner (that would be Gandy) wasn’t looking to drop to my knees, grab the shot, hide it in my camera, and jump back up before she would certainly notice and make a big scene. * Forget the reverie. I got the shot, and I’m not givin’ it back.

Note the tiny solitary (versus hive building) bee who doesn’t yet have a lot of pollens to chose from, and won’t get much from the trout lilies, where only the older plants with TWO mottled leaves produce flowers. Once, before the multiple loggings this land has endured, I am certain there were far more wildflowers of every variety we see today in tiny, remnant patches along the gorge of Nameless Creek. This quote about a similar but undisturbed setting says it well. Source with nice images

“Spring ephemerals being what they are, the wildflowers of the finger ravine will soon be retreating underground. If we are fortunate, we will see them next year, in another spring, after a time long to us, but–given their age–perhaps brief to them. Their presence is a marker: a sign of a high-quality and relatively untouched habitat. It is also a reminder: a remnant, a trace, a vestige of a truly native, increasingly rare, and–some might say–sacred landscape. These spring ephemerals and their ravine home are, in the deepest sense, a living memory.”