Spring on Cedar Pond

~Trilliums are blooming abundantly all around our property, especially in the wooded parts. These trilliums have grown up through clumps of ferns and moss, under a cedar tree. The pure white blossoms turn to purple or pink as the flower ages...the trilliums around here are in various stages of white to dark purple. ~Oregon Grape, Holly Grape, Mahonia- this too is abundant around here and thrives everywhere, especially favoring our flower beds where I pull a LOT of it out to allow other flora space to grow. I love this plant because it is abundant, stays green all year and this year the clusters of yellow flowers seem bigger than in previous years. The bees are all over the flowers. This is the plant I cut large quantities of to bring indoors during Christmas holidays. It looks like holly doesn't it. Later on the flowers will turn to large clumps of blue berries...hence the name, Oregon GRAPE. You can eat the berries, they are kind of bitter. They make good jam! ~I just like the look of this algae, moss, and lichen covered stump on our island. I believe there is a pair of nesting ducks on the other side of this stump, but don't want to go on our island to check it out. I see one or the other of the pair of ducks close by, every day now....maybe I will see ducklings soon! ~Indian Plum. Found in damp forested areas ( that's us, for sure!), we have this everywhere. My literature says the Native Americans used the straight , thin stems for making arrows. In the fall the flowers turn to a fruit that does look like miniature plums. The birds love them! ~The seasonal stream that runs from our marshy area into the pond, usually fall to late spring, early summer. The granddaughters like to make fairy boats of bits of bark, moss, twigs and blossoms..float them down the creek and watch the little 'boats' launch into the pond. Sometimes the little boats have pine cones or feathers as passengers. ~Red flowering Currant. This adds touches of bright color to the wooded areas when there is little other color. The bees and hummingbirds love this forest shrub too. Although the books say salmon berry should be blooming now, I have seen only a few, but ours look about to burst into blossom. Because of the unusually cold spring, all our flowers are a few weeks behind their normal blooming times.

~Don't you just love the special things around your home and town, in your state or country that mark the seasons? ~ " And the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with seeds in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good." Genesis 1:12