Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, and Peninsula was arguably chock-full of thousands of visitors… yet by some wonderful twist of fate, I had upper Skyline Trail completely to myself!! Well, unless you count the light rain, 3 deer, arguing wrens, whisper-quiet blue jay and perfect blue carpet of forget-me-nots. *wink*

The palette reminded me of my six weeks of summer camp at Treehaven… except that six weeks of forestry camp is not an exercise in spiritually uniting oneself with nature. Six weeks of camp is more like endless hours of tromping through tangled brush along unforgiving gridlines, pushing through no matter how crappy the weather, how bad your feet hurt, nor how desperately you need to pee. (The latter being much more an issue for us girls than it is for the boys)

But it looked like Treehaven, and reminded me of my fleeting romantic memories of how pretty it was there. (Sans the creepy ticks which rained upon us from the treetops. Ewwww.)

Flowers, pictured left to right:

Carpet Bugle (Ajuga reptans), Wood Betony (Stachys betonica), Dwarf Ginseng (Panax trifolius) – two pictures – including close-up of flower cluster, Gaywings (Polygala paucifolia), Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis), and Wild Honeysuckle (Rhododendron canescens) which smells divine but is all over the park!!!

I wasn’t able to get pics of the wildlife, since it was late afternoon and the light was low. Something about blowing kisses to a yearling doe and having her go from wigging out and scared, to totally relaxed and moseying about, that is just the coolest. How beautiful.

Filed under: Flowers • Sightings • Weather

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