Buggin' Out

A walk around the yard leads to beautiful discoveries if you take the time to stop and smell the roses. Just be careful where you poke your nose!












Huge bumblebees are frequenting the garden, they dive bomb me sometimes but mostly I'm ignored, they're too busy eating up all that juicy pollen.
See how the passion flower rubs pollen on the bee's back as it works? Click to enlarge the photo and see better how much it's caked on!



Some kind of neato beetle, I love it's b&w stripey pants. There was a big beetle orgy in one of the plants on the vacant lot next door and they were flying all over the place.


Pretty wildflower, right? Look closer....

Wildflower Extravaganza

On April 2oth, we took a hike through one of the popular Spring wildflower destinations in the Smokies. A drizzly weekday & therefore not too busy, only encountered a handful of people.

Catesby's Trillium


There were many different flowers to enjoy, but the stars of the area were certainly the huge patches of blue phlox covering the greening landscape.









Miterwort, Bishop's Cap


Eastern Red Columbine










Stunning carpet of phlox








What's this? A stinkweed amongst the flowers?! Bah! A dainty rosebud am I.





One of several caves in the area. Normally entry is allowed (with a permit only) but currently all entry is forbidden... & Big Brother is watching...



....due to the presence of White Nose Syndrome, which is unfortunately killing bats in huge, huge numbers.







There are multiple manways winding through the area. In past visits we'd followed several of them and I'd wondered where the others led. This time I'd done some research and printed an old topo map which was helpful. We were all over the place exploring, it was great.






Old gears





Still, there are other old paths yet to be explored among the heavily traveled ones.



A small waterfall plunges into a deep, slippery cavern. Once again, entirely no cave entry at the moment, on a normal basis entry by permit only.
We normally leave via the steep slope next to the falls, but today we exited on an old route to create a longer hike.



This little patch of stunning common blue violets near Schoolhouse Gap was an incredible shade of purple.








First sighting of the season! Crested dwarf iris blooming along the upper portion of the main trail.






Back in the parking lot, saw this growing in a large patch of horse poop.... looks like wild greens, maybe red veined sorrel? I don't know, but I could've eaten a pretty big salad at that point ;-) Off to find lunch.

Spring in the Smokies

Flowers are in bloom in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In fact, the annual 'Wildflower Pilgrimage' is underway and we're trying to avoid the crowd.

We have taken our own wildflower hikes recently and have not been disappointed. I will share a few of the sights we've encountered along the way.

4.20.09 - Porters Creek Trail ~7.5 miles roundtrip.

A drab day that developed into a steady drizzle, still there were many flower gawkers along the first half of the trail. And rightfully so, there was quite a show of blooms to observe.

The rain set in as we continued onward.

We passed nobody between Fern Branch Falls and backcountry campsite #31, which surprised me as this was prime flower-viewing grounds. A little rain never slows us down, we broke out the ponchos and enjoyed the solitude.

I stopped to tie my shoe and behold, we spot a little brown bat neatly wedged into a crevice in the rock face, about 7 feet up.... not a cave by any means, but any shelter in damp weather.....


Much of the ground was a virtual carpet of white trillium, and we were treated to see wild geranium, foam flower, bluets, phlox, violets, dwarf crested iris, and a quite a few more.


The combination of drab lighting, wind and rain made for difficult photography (not to mention I never drag along my tripod). I still managed to take a wad of photos and had a great time.


I have posted more flower shots on flickr from this hike and others.