Foxlily

It has been a wet April in the Bluegrass, and for the past several days, storms have repeatedly blown through, dropping heavy rains.  The ground is saturated, and on the farm, even the old road into the valley is covered with an inch or so of runoff.

Great weather for frogs and turtles.

On today’s walk, we saw the smaller of the two box turtles pictured here on the old road into the farm.  We commented that this youngster might well be descended from some of the many turtles my husband has rescued from the paved road and released in the valley. The larger of the two, a big female (paler eyes than males), was the most showily colored we’d ever seen.

The little frog paused for one snapshot, and then was off through the leaves, heading for the creek, which was running hard.

We elected not to cross, as all our usual stepping stones were submerged, and any logs fallen across the creek were spongy, saturated, and slick.

So we followed deer trails on the near side of the creek, and found that there were still a few brown trilliums blooming, along with the wild larkspur.

Also along the way:  the wild hyacinth, which is the tall, pale blue bloom (according to Barnes & Francis, Wildflowers and Ferns of Kentucky, these plants are uncommon in Kentucky except locally in the Bluegrass), white stonecrop (the succulent with the fleshy leaves), more wild larkspur, and various little pale blue flowers that I have been trying to identify for years.

We saw the first Mayapple blooms (the white, rounded flower suspended beneath the two big leaves, in the pictures above) of the year, along one of the deer trails.  The big, umbrella-like leaves have been up for months already.  The Mayapple (podophyllym peltatum) a native plant, is also called mandrake.  Although the ripe fruit is said to be edible, we were always taught as youngsters that the entire plant was extremely poisonous.