Happy Earth Day!

Day 191: Happy Earth Day! With the possibility of showers in the forecast, I stuffed my new day-pack accordingly and set out for Pack Forest, intending to hike the 200-300 Rds. as an invasive-plant patrol. The loop I had charted out required very little backtracking and measured out at four miles, an easy walk, although portions of the route had become quite brushed in by Scotch broom (that's one). For the first part, the road lies beneath the high-tension lines from the hydro plant at LaGrande, a swathe liberally filled with common tansy (that's two) and foxglove (that's three). The occasional holly tree (that's four) crops up between evergreens. At its intersection with the 300, the 200 continues on to the river, but my goal was to complete the 300 loop. Here, the broom had encroached heavily onto the first quarter mile of road since I last walked it three years ago, but once into the reprod (reproduction forest), I found it largely carpeted with moss. At the furthest possible point from the car as measured by my GPS, a few raindrops tapped me on the head as I knelt down to photograph Snow Queens. "Of course!" I said. "It couldn't have happened any other way!" But the shower was short-lived, and I completed the top of the figure-8 trail wet only where my trousers had collected moisture as I pushed through the Scotch broom. A short section of the main road was lined on both sides with Stinky Bob (that's five) and in one spot, a mass of Spanish hyacinth (that's six), and the last leg of the hike took me into a section I'd never visited before. The only invasive present there was Scotch broom, in places so dense that it had crowded out everything else. That said, I met some friends along the way: two snails, one cow elk, and a chickadee I could have sworn knew me from home for the way he tagged along at my side for several hundred yards. Nature provides such rewards as these for those who are kind to her and her creatures. Walk softly in the woods.