On a 6.25 km hike on the Uplands Trails I spotted meadowlarks, bluebirds, woodpeckers, and crows. There were hundreds of yellow bells (Fritillaria pudica) in flower, lots of sagebrush buttercups (Ranunculus glaberrimus), some mosses starting to show signs of recovery, rust-infected mustards (Puccinia monoica) and desert parsley (Lomatium macrocarpum) getting ready to flower. All photos from the nature hike … Continue reading →
From mid-March to mid-November, the pattern each day is usually the same: Hike, paddle, run, tennis, etc. in the morning (once each day). Work in the garden in the afternoon. The first weeks of gardening have been busy, but sometimes limited by the weather: Cleaning up garden beds (ongoing). Pruning fruit trees and shrubs. Cutting back stems from last year’s … Continue reading →
I hiked Battle Bluff on a cool and windy day. No wildflowers were out, but there were a few evergreen herbs and lots of lichens and mosses. Just three are shared here: Geum triflorum (old man’s whiskers): Alumroot (Heuchera cylindrica): Crinkled Snow lichen (Flavocetraria nivalis): :
Continue reading →The first wildflowers of the year were spotted in the Deep Lake. Two drifts of sagebrush buttercups were in bloom just off the trails.
Continue reading →A hike down the Estuary to Cooney Bay, around the bay, and over the bluff, then back. Still ice on the shoreline, but the River is running. Cocklebur (Xanthium strumarium) on the bay: Some poison ivy (Toxicodendron rydbergii) in the rocks above the bay: And, orange crustose lichen, probably Elegant Sunburst Lichen (Rusavskia elegans) on the bluff: A sunny day … Continue reading →
Even though it is February and we are a few weeks away from real gardening, there are a few chores underway. Stratifying some seeds – cleaned up collected seed for hellebores, blue-eyed grass, and echinacea. Each in a container with some damp soil and into the freezer for 3 weeks. Some to be seeded in rows, some to go … Continue reading →
A Wildflower Journal has been around for a few years, but the site was lost to a cyberattack over the winter. Six websites went dark. Rather than try to clean up and patch the websites, I let them go to the nether, and I started a new website on a different webhost. KamloopsTrails.com came first and it … Continue reading →
