2 September 2013 Gentian

In the spring of 2012, I bought gentian at the Holden Arboretum spring plant sale. After I made the purchase, I sort of scratched my head and thought, "Okay, where are they going?" I eventually had the questionable idea to place them around the patio. I was thinking it would be wet with just the right amount of sun. I got lucky and they all bloomed. The next step was to see them return this past spring which they did. This weekend, we were treated to the blossoms. Sometimes, you get lucky. :-)

We did some yard work and made our way to a nearby trail in the ANF. It's an old rail trail and has been a place we've walked for all the years we've had a home here. It had become more overgrown the last few years and appeared for all intents to be abandoned by the Forest Service. At the end of summer, we could always walk out and see stands of great blue lobelia and turtlehead. We were a little shocked this afternoon to realize the Forest Service had decided to brush hog the trail. There was a little turtlehead still visible, but the great blue lobelia was gone. :( We can only hope that future summers will make this year's loss worthwhile. We were treated on our walk to seeing about five turkeys pop out of the woods to walk the trail. I was hoping for a picture, but Phineas saw them and bayed. They beat a hasty retreat down the grade.

We stopped for a short afternoon of caching at SGL154 on our way west. The trails were wet from the recent rain, but the cache hides were well done and the SGL was a pleasant walk.

Gwen enjoyed some of the last corn of the season. All of our dogs through Gwen have happily enjoyed fresh corn with us. Phineas appears to be ready to break that tradition.