WHOSE WOODS ARE THESE....

     These woods are about 700m (1/2 mile) from my house.  Yesterday was very mild so I went for a pleasant walk.

        I've always liked Robert Frost's poetry and especially this poem. I can sense the stillness in the woods as he stopped.

Woodland Flowers

      I went for a walk in the woods yesterday to find some flowers. Well, it actually wasn't a walk. I have a piece of recreational property and very little of it has been developed so there are quite a few wild flowers that show up over the summer. The property has old growth poplar trees. A poplar forest has a heavy undergrowth which by itself is an interesting level of the forest. I have cleared a minimal amount so there are areas where it is open. So yesterday my walk was really mowing grass. However, over the years I have noticed the various plants. This is my first time photographing some and I find that I don't know many names. 

This is the Twin Flower. It likes moist mossy woods. It grows very thickly and is a bout 3-4 in high.

The bell like flowers have a vivid pink center.

Ordinarily the twin flowers hang down

A faded rose with a visitor. It is now the end of season for roses so they look a little the worse for wear.

Lily of the Valley (Maianthemum canadense)

Twinning Honeysuckle (Lonicera dioica)   This is quite common in open woodlands

       So my grass cutting was done in between much flower watching. I was watching for the Round Leafed Orchid. I found two of them but before I could stop my mower I ran over them. I looked for others but couldn't find any.

       I've always been interested in native plants . This has made me put some effort into identifying and  learning about them.

Heavy Wildfire Smoke at Red Deer

       Yesterday a tremendous amount of smoke came in on a weather system from the forest fires which have been burning in British Columbia all summer. These fires are at least 500 miles away from us and across the Rockie mountains.
   
      The smoke was quite noticeable at 7:00AM. By afternoon smoke was obvious within 100 meters. It looked like every home owner had a bon fire in the back yard. The smoke was blue and very easily to smell. Visibility was down to about 1km and the sky was completely obliterated by the smoke. Needless to say our day was extremely dull. Night came early. When we saw the sun it was an orange red. Too bad I didn't take any pictures yesterday.

     Later in the evening we had thunderstorms which continued until about 3:00AM.

     Today there was much less smoke and the day was much brighter. However we did not see any blue sky. This condition is supposed to last until the 21 st . One wonders at the huge amounts of material burned to produce such a tremendous amount of smoke.