On a smoky day, I decided to paddle the south end of Stump Lake.    Smoke covered the hills, but the sky directly overhead had some blue mixed with the ashen greys of the landscape.  I launched off an informal spot on the soutwest side of the lake and kayaked around the shoreline.

In the heat the bays were filled with water-crowfoot (Ranunculus aquitilis).   Mats of lobed leaves and floating white flowers filled sections in each bay, but there was also lots of smartweed and clumps of algae too.

The white petaled, yellow-centered buttercup-like flowers are propped by thread-like stems and leaves floating on the water.

At the south end of the lake, marshlands predominated with blackbirds, ducks, wrens, and dragonflies active.

All along the western shoreline, white clematis (Clematis lingusticifolia) was cascading down the bank or draped over shrubs, with their white flowers of 4 white sepals around a cluster of styles and stamens.

The dry shoreline was covered in weedy, tall summer varieties -mustard, mullein, knapweed, and toadflax, unattractive and random-looking.   Time to head to the alpine…