It's not really mine. A neighbour owns the land on the outwash plain in the foreground, and up the first main slope of the hills. Beyond that, all the way to the horizon and down the forested north slope beyond, the land is all part of my parents' farm, where I grew up.
I made a run out there yesterday morning to pick up a load of manure from the old cattle-feeding area, now a garden and orchard. It's almost twenty years since they wintered cattle there, and the manure has rotted down to black gold. I get to take as much as I want, and enjoy the scenery along the way.
Saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia)(above and below)
Western Canada violet (Viola canadensis)(above and below)
In case you didn't notice the crocuses, golden-bean (Thermopsis rhombifolia) makes sure you know that it's spring.
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4 comments:
I should go take a poke around in the bush tomorrow. The wild violets are lovely, and every time I see them it takes me back to being a kid exploring on my own in the bush around our acreage with our stupid dog, Caesar, or the smart blue heeler, Misty.
Re the saskatoons - do you have enough bushes around your place to do some serious picking?
Oh, yes, there's lots of saskatoons all along the hills. There's a belt of rolling land with grassy hills and shrubby coulees all along the south edge of the hills, a couple of miles deep by maybe 25 miles long, and there are saskatoons all through there. Depends on the year, though. I heard that they were very good in the drought years of the '30s. People used them to survive. They say it's because of insects - contrary to what you might expect, you get more saskatoons in a dry year because they escape the insect attacks.
That lools like a lovely landscape. I just recently had the "a-ha!" moment when I realized that many of the blooming shrubs around here are saskatoons.
Enjoy, Deb! I hope you get some before the bugs and the birds do.
Some of your pictures from your yard look a lot like the landscapes of my childhood in the hills, both at the present farm and a few miles east at Saskairie. But you also have evergreens and marsh marigolds and such, which don't appear in our little island forest.
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