Yellow Lady Slipper Hike 2019

Yellow Lady Slipper Hike 2019

Dana Koogler

Tuesday April 23 2019

  Kenny and I have been going through a transition time with lots of change taking place.

Our family circumstances are changing.   Our house and yard situation has other significant changes taking place.   It has been disruptive and unsettling, but it will be better once it is accomplished.  Seeing these types of things through requires a certain amount of commitment.

I have been trying to stay home to see that some of this gets done.   Tuesday I could not stand it

anymore so I took the day off to go ramble around in the woods.  I could not bear the thought

of spending a good chunk of a beautiful day driving.  I wanted something close.   It is yellow lady slipper season so I would do some close by hiking to these spots.  

     

 Yellow lady slippers are some of my favorite Spring wildflowers.

 This orchid is not fully bloomed.  Still has the hood down over the blossom.  the side tendrils are hanging straight down. 

 Saxifrage growing in the edge of a stream.

 Sweet White Trillium

 Un-named stream tumbles through the forest. 

 Above and below two separate hybrid wake robin specimens. I have proven by checking that these flowers produce this color pattern year after year. 

 Newly opened Yellow Lady Slipper orchid

 Jack in the Pulpit up close.  Fresh and green and newly bloomed. 

 Pair of yellow lady slippers. 

 Triplets!  Three at once.  

 Pretty clump of yellow trilliums

Yellow lady slipper up close 

  At one point hiking today I looked out through the pale green  new leaves on the trees at a cobalt blue sky.   I felt more than alive.  It was like walking through a fairy tale.  Perfect day. A bluebird day!  The forest was filled with tall, straight trees.  Sunshine beaming down on everything.   It had rained a day ago so the air was crisp, clean and not loaded with pollen.

My soul was soaring.  A day out like this getting some exercise and enjoying the soothing sounds of the woods.  A day of soaking up the beauty of the Creator's handiwork. 

I am very thankful for the area in which I live.   I am thankful for the chance to get out and enjoy it.    I saw about a dozen hikers all day.   I had the good fortune to find all the lady slippers I knew of healthy and accounted for.   The majority of them were either bloomed out or on their way to being bloomed out.     I saw lots of sweet white trilliums, red wake robins, yellow trilliums, the purple dots of wild geraniums.  The streams were full and especially clear.   They have retained that "snow water" look longer into the Spring than usual.  Mossy rocks shimmered.   Even the drive today was smooth, little traffic and uneventful.   

Sometimes things go right.   

   

Lady’s-Slipper Orchid

Andrew Young

Though I know well enough

To hunt the Lady’s Slipper now
Is playing blindman’s-buff,
For it was June She put it on
And grey with mist the spider’s lace
Swings in the autumn wind,
Yet through this hill-wood, high and low,
I peer in every place;
Seeking for what I cannot find
I do as I have often done
And shall do while I stay beneath the sun.