The Free Radical

First, let’s answer the question from yesterday’s Report: What new flavour will be added to the menu next? The answer is strawberry flowers and leaves.

I always forget about wild strawberries, despite the fact that they’re literally everywhere! The great thing about wild strawberries is that before the berries actually form, the leaves and flowers are available for harvest, providing decent nutrition. The taste of the flowers is very mild compared to the fruit they produce, though.

And in the vein of anticipation for succulent fruits… I think that these might be the beginnings of high bush cranberries. I took this shot in the place by the river where I know they grow in July. These might be them in their infancy…

As far as the woodland creatures are concerned, this was family day. Eagle called to us early on, and as I spotted her in the sky just above the western treetops, I concluded from her light brown colouring and white head that this was mama eagle.

She kept circling up ahead, voicing the occasional cry, and after a few minutes she was answered in the east by two of her youngsters whose voices and flights were noticeably more awkward. The activity seemed to be centred around the Ground Squirrel metropolis we refer to as the Burroughs. I concluded that mama eagle was teaching her offspring how to hunt gophers. They weren’t comfortable continuing the lesson until Sitka and I moved on. Fair enough.

Next, as we approached the swamp, two ducks flew up from the place where the clutches of frogs’ eggs awaited the warming weather. I was glad to see that the eggs were undisturbed… and that mama frog was settled in amongst them.

It was just a good happy day in the Forest. No one reached out with any sense of true urgency. Critters and vegetation alike were all just doing their own thing, abiding in a deepening contentment with the progress of new life. And I, for my part, am simply happy to be here.