SHINLEAF AND MAYFLIES

SHINLEAF IN FLOWER...

...DITTO

MAYFLY HATCH IN ASHLAND

Thursday, 9:00 AM.  70 degrees F, a bit cooler on the back porch.  The wind is variable and mostly calm.  The sky is clear with haze over the water.  The humidity is down to 70% and the barometer is down to 29.93".  It will be a nice summer day.  I have to mow the lawn and water plants before leaving tomorrow morning for Milwaukee and my 60th high school class reunion.
   We went food shopping in Washburn yesterday and the rapid increase of food prices has become painfully obvious.  Joan and I are certain that common food items have increased 30% in the last ten years.  We haven't seen this kind of inflation since the reign of that other infamous socialist, Jimmy Carter.  Inflation is nothing more than a purposeful, un-legislated "spread the wealth" tax, perpetrated by the US version of a monarchical central bank, the Federal Reserve.  As long as our country keeps printing fiat money that has no intrinsic value to pay out debts, we will have greater and greater inflation and a poorer and poorer debtor society.  Do we never learn?

   Shinleaf, Pyrola rotundifolia, one of the northwoods plants in the heath family (Ericaceae) is in bloom, this one found along the lake bluff south of Bayfield.  Several species of shin leaf inhabit dry northern woods, most are circumpolar in the northern hemisphere, and have long been used in folk and herbal medicine as astringents for the treatment of internal and external bleeding.  They are closely related to the aromatic, evergreen herbaceous plants commonly called wintergreens found in the same habitats. The minute, waxy, greenish-white flowers, borne on erect stems, are quite attractive.

   While getting gas in Ashland yesterday I noticed quite a hatch of Mayflies.  Probably should get out the flyrod.