I was figuring that I would miss the skunk cabbage season this year but yesterday morning I strong-armed the GG into a little hike out at the Discovery Geology Center. He would have rather walked along the river down to the Northside for breakfast. I wanted to get out into some serious woods. I won this time. This place really seems almost primeval, at least at this time of year when little bits and scraps of green things are barely edging out the very last of the leaves that didn’t fall way back last autumn. Skunk cabbage absolutely everywhere! Who knew that skunk cabbage grew anywhere other than the Naomikong Point section of the North Country Trail? Marsh Marigold. Mayapples just coming up. Pitcher plants. Tamarack just budding. Last time I saw tamarack, it was fall and the leaves/needles were golden (click on the stop work sign when you get there). I don’t think I’ve ever seen tamarack when it was just budding before. Maybe back when I was a young hooligan, running and jumping around laughing derisively when some poor, misguided parent actually tried to show me something beautiful in nature. 400-year-old trees. Mastadonts. Or maybe not but this is a place where a mammoth once fell into a bog. Or so they say. There is a bog there today. Or two or three. The floating bog was one of our destinations.

Click here or on the skunk cabbage for more pics.

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