5/6/12 BORROWED MUSCLE, PASQUE FLOWERS AND WILD PLUMS

THANKS, GUARDIANS

PASQUE FLOW3ER

WILD PLUM

Sunday, 9:00 AM.  44 degrees F, wind NNW, brisk at times.  It has been raining off and on, the sky is overcast and the barometer predicts more.
      Buddy and I took a nice walk in the rain on Old San Road earlier.  I had him on a twenty-foot lead, which gives him ample opportunity to explore.  He responds quite well to “here” now and pretty soon I will trust him off lead in familiar territory but with the electronic collar on in case he gets the notion to take off.  He pointed a grouse in the brush on the side of the road this morning, a beautiful classic point.  And there was a sort of mental telepathy from dog to  man that went something like this: “Hey, Boss, this ain’t no robin.”
    I drove around much of the day yesterday with the Bayfield Arbor Day tree in the bed of the pickup, as it was much too heavy for me to unload by myself, especially while still on light duty, and there were no work crews in sight to prevail upon, it being the weekend.  At last a mental light went on; I simply stopped at the Coast Guard station and asked the Officer of the Day to lend me a few strong backs to perform a civic duty, and viola, problem solved. 
    There is a very large clone of wild plum, Prunus Americana, blooming beautifully just south of town and visible from Hwy. 13.  The species often forms large, virtually impenetrable thickets that are very colorful in bloom.  This one will be loaded with wild plums in six weeks or so.  Wild plums seem to be seldom harvested, but when fully ripe they are as sweet and as good as any species or variety of plum, and are good to eat out of hand, or as jam or jelly, or to make into plum wine or brandy (see my blogs of  5/10/10 and 9/26/11 ).  Watch out if you go harvesting wild plums, however, as you might have to compete with the bears, who dearly love them and will tear the bushes literally apart to get them.
    Pasque flowers (Anemone patens, in the buttercup family) are blooming, and are quite attractive in flower and later in seed.  They are native to prairies and poor  soil sites, but I have seldom seen them in he wild.  They are a popular early spring garden garden flower.
    The coming week will be a busy one, with preparations for the Bayfield in Bloom kickoff on Friday, the layout of city trees for planting and their delivery, and several planting jobs to begin.