The sky was gloomy and overcast. Rain was forecasted. We knew we wouldn’t be able to ramble far from home unless we wanted to risk soggy socks, soaking hair, and dripping clothes.
Though we’ve hiked in ponchos before, it wasn’t fun. While our upper halves stayed nice and dry, though steamy under the plastic coat, our pant legs ended up wet and damp socks created a blister-y bad time. (That particular day we’d had an 18-mile loop hike planned but had accidentally turned the wrong way onto the North Country Trail. A few miles in we realized our mistake and ended up doing an out-and-back hike of many fewer miles due to our sogginess and discomfort in the region of my heels.)
So instead of risking a bad time in the rain, we decided to adventure close to home.
Like backyard close to home.
Our “backyard” mainly consists of gardens (flower and veggie), a steep hill, a bog, and a pond. Sometime before our time here, someone created a trail down to the bog that’s like a switchback on a mountain. This singular “switchback” lets one get down to the bog and back up to the house by walking at a lesser steep grade than if we just walked straight down the hill. Bless whoever that was because that hill is so steep Luna struggled to climb up it through the snow one winter. I thought I was going to have to rescue her. It was unclear to me how I was going to haul 60 pounds of dog up a hill through knee-deep snow, so thankfully she finally managed on her own.
With several trees now cut down, we’ve noticed some mystery plants popping up in the bog this year. At least they’re a mystery to us when viewed from the deck. Once we get down there for a closer look, it’s a -bit easier to figure out what they are. The first “plant” we noticed a month or so ago, ended up not being a mystery plant at all but was actually a pitcher plant bloom.
But the plant we noticed a few days ago–appearing from the deck as just a light-colored blob on a stalk–still remains a mystery even after viewing it up close. I’m leaning toward it being Tall Cottongrass (Eriophorum angustifolium), which is a vigorously spreading perennial that grows at the edge of ponds or in bogs. As we’d had a bit of rain the day before, the tufts of white were a bit bedraggled but oh so pretty gleaming in the sun.
This tiny adventure wouldn’t have been complete without a mushroom sighting (Turkey Tail, Trametes versicolor) and a photo of a pitcher plant.
We stood for a while at the water’s edge. Hubby dipped sticks into the water to determine how deep it is (depth still unknown as the sticks never touched bottom), and we discussed how next year we’d finally get the dock he built last summer into place so we can finally explore this pond we’ve been looking at for 20+ years. Then the promised rain began to fall, and our son shouted from the deck that we better get a move on unless we wanted to get wet. So we scurried at a snail’s pace over our rickety “boardwalk” and over a felled tree and up the “switchback,” being careful to avoid a few pesky, partially hidden stumps, and were only a little damp when we made it inside.
As for books…
I recently listened to a short story collection titled The Homecoming & Other Stories by Maeve Binchy. I enjoyed most of the stories in this collection. The entire collection can be listened to in approximately 1 hour.
100 Books in 1 Year 