in Just-

 spring      when the world is mud-luscious ....  We returned to the Gilson Creek area after a week of relatively warm weather and the world seemed puddle-wonderful.  e. e. cummings captured the spirit of spring, and today's sightings confirmed its arrival.  Last week we saw just one California Buttercup blooming.  Today there were many, and several other species of wildflowers had arrived, too.  It will take two or three posts to tell the whole story of today's wanderings.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

 Before hitting the trail, I read an essay in the New York Times.  A friend in Oregon alerted me to it, or I would have missed it.  By Edward Hoagland, it is titled "Pity Earth's Creatures."  Read one way, it's rather depressing, as it's a story of how human's have run roughshod over the planet and despite all the scary evidence of the danger we've put ourselves in, we continue to do it.  Read another way, it is a lively and blunt wake-up call which I definitely intend to share with my students.  The essay is loaded with allusions from Aesop to the cyber-world that could be launching pads for dozens of discussions and essays.  And, hopefully, might stir some people toward right livelihood.
Now, back to e. e. cummings' imagery.  The above photo represents "puddle-wonderful."  A large, brown puddle in the middle of the dirt road to Gilson Creek supported at least one future wildflower.  Most plants have similar-looking embryonic leaves, so I couldn't identify this one.  By next week, if it survives a few dozen gigantic SUVs passing by, it will have sprouted the next pair of leaves which will probably resemble the leaves of the adult plant and make it possible for me to identify it.

 In the same puddle, I found an empty clam shell.  Many pictures were immediately formed in my mind.  Mussel Shoals, Alabama, the Mendocino Coast, Galatoire's restaurant in New Orleans where I first ate mussels many years ago, and so on.  When I turned it over, the bright colors on the inside reminded me of abalone.

 Then, another pleasant flashback.  A baseball, or what remained of one.  As a kid, I'd often hear my dad celebrating a Ted Williams home run by shouting "Well I'll be g--  d-----, he knocked the cover off the thing."  Now I know what he meant.  But we're a long way from Fenway Park.  Must have gotten here some other way.

 I was more hopeful today that my habit of turning over small rocks and logs would yield some excitement.  I was right.  First, I found Ground Beetles.  This is a generalized name for the ones that immediately run fast when you expose them.  Very difficult to get good photos without capturing them.  This time, it was still cold enough that she acted like the slower-moving Longhorn Beetles.

 Across Spanish Creek we saw a probable victim of lightening.  A very tall Ponderosa Pine that was quite dead.

 The next two photos should be in reverse order.  I was quite excited to find a few patches of leaves of the Fan Violet, Viola sheltonii.  I figured they might be blooming by next weekend.  Then we came to a small area that was sheltered from the wind and seemed several degrees warmed then the path to it.  I spotted my first Fan Violet blooming.  After photographing the familiar yellow face, I twisted it to show that the backside of the flower is a kind of brownish purple.

 As we roamed around the area we eventually found dozens of them blooming.

We then headed across the railroad tracks and hiked up the hill to the same spot where we did some sketching a week ago.  At that time I sketched the leaves of the Mountain Violet, Viola purpurea, and I figured that by today they, too, would be blooming.  But, I was wrong.  Lots more leaves have emerged, but no blooms yet.  After sitting and writing for a while, we headed back by a slightly different route and found several more species of flowers blooming, lots of butterflies, and some other interesting bugs.  I'll continue this story with more photos tomorrow.