Because they are Pokeberries / Pokeweed

fallcolorThanks for the plant ID from yesterday. I guess I was close, at least in the sense that pokeberries rhymes with chokecherries. As I think I have said before, I am random at plant/bird/etc. identification.

Today? I dunno what kind of leaves these are. They are red and signify some of the first fall color we’ve seen around here. Even at Tahq last weekend, there was very little. Actually, it was like summer up there last weekend except that there were very few bothersome insects.

This wee bit of color is on the Losee Lake Trail, accessible from Silver Lake Beach in the Pinckney State Rec Area. Way back when, before the beach urchins, we used to sometimes park at Silver Lake and hike parts of the Potawatomi Trail. It is something like 17-18 miles in total. We would usually plan on five or thereabouts. Once we managed to get *lost* on that trail. That was not a terribly good thing, given that I was four months pregnant at the time and we did not have water with us. Why? Because we only planned our usual five mile hike, which is kind of a quick no-brainer on that trail, or so we thought, since we knew the trail… Roight. We ended up hiking something like 15 miles that day… … … It was okay. I was okay. Lizard Breath was okay. We had a loverly dinner at Seva that night and I felt LB kick for the first time. (Hope that’s not all TMI! 🐗)

It was just a *few* years before we managed to find time to venture back onto the Poto again. We had two young children by then and, boy oh boy, were things different! Mountain bikes everywhere, coming [fast] out of nowhere, given that the trail is twisty-turny up-and-down in many places. I have nothing against mountain biking or bikers whatsoever, just that I had no idea that the trail we used to hike was now so busy with bikers. It’s okay. There are MANY trails around here that are designated specifically for foot traffic so we have a lot of choices, actually a lot more than bikers do.

Like the Losee Lake Trail, accessible via the same parking lot as the Poto. We drove into the Silver Lake parking lot during the polar vortex winter and I saw a sign for the Losee Lake Trail but there was no way I could navigate the huge snowbanks between the parking lot and the trail map to figure out where the trail went. I’ve always wanted to go back though and so today, we somewhat randomly found ourselves out at Silver Lake and we hiked the shortest loop. It was probably a couple of miles total but there is the potential for four or five or maybe even six if you do the whole thing. It’s a pretty quick drive from home and there’s a coffee kiosk along the way. We’ll be back!

One Response to “Because they are Pokeberries / Pokeweed”

  1. Sam Says:

    There are so many Silver Lakes in the upper Midwest!