On a mid-spring day, I drove up the old bumpy road from the highway up to Pat Lake in the Six Mile Hills.    i paddled around the lake twice, once in each direction, the secured the boat before I hiked around the lake, following faint trails on grassland slopes above the lakeshore.    I stopped to observe blackbirds, wrens, and ducks in the marshy areas and loons and muskrats in the lake.     Wildflowers and flowering shrubs were abundant along the route and I stopped to observe and photograph some along the way.    Included here are:

• white clematis (Clematis ligusticfolia)
• showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa)
• silverweed (Argentina anserina)
• blanketflower (Gaillardia aristata)
• locoweed (Oxytropis campsestris)
• wax currant (Ribes cereum)
• hairy false goldenaster (Heterotheca villosa)*

 

All photos by the author, taken during that hike.

The Google Photos album can also be seen at this link – Six Mile Hills

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p style=”text-align: right;”>*ID open for discussion