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saturday April 26, 2008
Finally my first photo expedition of the year! The winter as last forever ! We could indeed say that the old joke about the four seasons in Quebec is a little bit true: the winter, after the winter, the summer and before winter! I saw my first flower this week, a Colstfoot, that is six days later than the previous three years.
Fortunately that 4-wheels had hardened the snow otherwise only my dog, Wuchi 5 pounds wet, would have been able to go down the St-Maurice ! At first sight nothing very interesting, places without snow shows plants with persistent foliages: Wintergreen, Pipsissewa, Sheep Laurel, naturally nothing with flowers.
But looking closer I discover some Mayflower with flower buds. Unusual scene: the snow is sprinkled with Trembling aspen flowers (catkin), this makes me quite sure that the snow lingers too much this year!
Getting closer to the St-Maurice, where Grey pines are replaced by maples, a deer which drank in a small brook, jumps up in front of me and my dog and leaves. I am so amazed by this appearance that it is only after a while that I realize that I have a camera in hands !
Near the St-Maurice, there is much less snow, I find some plants which have already brought out their leaves and which augured all these magnificent flowers which we shall soon see : Trout lilies, the Red trillium and the Two-leaved Toothwort.
But in this period of the year, early in spring, it's on trees and shrubs that we find the most beautiful flowers, in spite of their small sizes, we could almost consider ourself in a equatorial forest !
To concluded I would like to wish you and to wish me, a 2008 year rich in floral discovery and also by hoping that there will be more visible mushrooms this year than last year, as much than in 2005, exceptional year for fungi!