Thursday, April 25, 2013

A Few Parting Scenes


It will be difficult for us to leave the beautiful Lost Lake Resort now that it has entered its prettiest phase, springtime! In a week we will pull up stakes, hook up the 5th wheel and drive on out to our next adventure in Montana. Our hopes are that we might return here in a few months, in the gorgeous autumn season.
 
 I love looking down on the old cabin from the exit road above it. This ancient building is 100 plus years old and sits on the shore of Lost Lake. I wonder what stories it could tell!

 The resort is filled with trilliums this spring. They are everywhere! After a month of blooming, many of them are entering their last stage, going from white to lavender.




 When we were here five years ago I found some striped coral root orchids, a strange plant with no chlorophyll, hence no green color. These were new to me.I was excited to happen upon this year's sprouting a few days ago. They are not blooming yet but maybe they will in the next few days.

Here is a favorite of mine, if I could name a favorite, the shooting star wildflower. So pretty and so delicate!


After a windstorm I raked and hauled off piles of branches from this now peaceful and sunlit glade. It's ready for a picnic once the tables are placed. I could spend some time here!

As we end our time at the resort I am comforted that I have left a legacy, Dufur, the old man of Lost Lake. Not many know he is here, half hidden in the trees and ferns, but I will think of him often and wonder how the forest is faring under his watchful care. Good-bye, Dufer, Good-bye, Lost Lake.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Spring in the Forest

 Always a wildflower enthusiast and indentifier, my joy in this hobby is intensified in the Pacific Northwest forest country. As I ride my little golf cart around I am delighted to find more and more wildflowers showing their colorful faces. This trillium is one of my favorites and is also one of the first to come forth. It is sometimes called an Easter lily, or, by others a wake-robin, because it blooms close to the time that robins return from their winter home.

 Another favorite, the wild current bush, blooms about the same time the trillium does. These smell good! They like to bloom in the more open areas where the sun gets in between the trees.

 So delicate, so sweet, yellow violets carpet the mossy areas.

 Here's a flower that is new to me. I found it in one of my iPad wildflower apps. It is a Nuttall's Bittercress. I picked a vase-full and to my surprise they had a wonderful fragrance, like hyacinths. They seem quite common all around the resort.
 This strange looking mushroom is not a flower, but I included it because I'd never found one before. It's a False Morel. I call it a "brain" mushroom, for obvious reasons. While the true Morel is greatly desired for eating, the false Morel is a poisonous variety.

This shrub, found all over the Lost Lake complex and in all the forests of the northwest, defied my powers to identify. None of my wildflower apps or books helped, and I didn't find it on the internet, either. How can such a prolific flowering shrub be left out? Does anyone know what this is?