Top o’ the morning

Hepatica hill

It wasn’t until I stepped outside and saw spring beauties blooming in the yard that I thought about hepatica. Spring has come on so fast that I’ve barely had time to yearn for the first wildflowers.

Most years the honors go to hepatica but sometimes, when there’s unseasonal warm weather, everything pops out at once. The hepatica bloom on a west-facing slope off our beaten woods path, which I haven’t walked for months. I discovered that parts of the path were blockaded by fallen trees.

Bloodroot

Along the way I encountered more spring beauties and a few bloodroot. Even the false rue anemones were starting to pop out. Soon the woods will be carpeted in pink and white and yellow but these little show-offs were out ahead of the crowds. Way up high, fat tulip poplar buds caught the sun.

Tulip poplar buds

I had obviously missed the earliest of the hepatica, however, because by the time I visited the slope on this mid-60s, sunny St. Patrick’s morning, the hepatica were out full force, cluster after cluster of white, pink, and blue blossoms nodding on their fuzzy little stems, right under our neighbor’s No Trespassing sign.

Hepatica

I did not need to trespass to visit the hepatica. I would have if necessary, however. In a few weeks I will trespass to harvest the first woods nettles, which are more abundant on their property than on ours. I assume they don’t mind if we eat their nettles but I haven’t asked.

I don’t know who the No Trespass sign is aimed at. Deer hunters? Partying teenagers? It predates these particular neighbors. We all have our ideas of who the trespassers are. Mine include 4-wheelers, morel hunters, and garlic mustard. I would welcome anybody who wanted to walk through our 5 acres of this extensive wooded area to admire the wildflowers. But I have never seen anyone else on foot anywhere in these woods.

I take that back. One fall, when Vic and I were walking through the woods across the road, a man who said he was the son of the owner asked us to leave. He had a gun. We left. Around here, it is definitely safer to stick to your own property. The idea of a commons has not taken hold.

So I feel fortunate to share a bit of land with the wildflowers.

Spring beauties