I Can See Clearly Now, The Pain is Gone!

Hurray and Hallelujah!  The stem-cell therapy I mentioned in my last post has worked to relieve my severe eye pain, and over time, the stem cells, now absorbed by my own eye, should assist my injured cornea to heal deeply and completely. Thanks be to God!  And to Google, where I learned there was actually a name -- Recurring Corneal Erosion (RCE) -- for my eye condition.  And to a bright young ophthalmologist named Brett Campbell who confirmed my suspicion and knew exactly how to treat it.   After just three days of wearing a stem-cell infused contact lens, the severe pain that had caused me to limit my activities was completely gone, and now my cornea, having absorbed those cells, should continue to achieve deep healing.   I now was pain-free enough to wander the woods once again, looking for new signs of Spring.  And find them, I did!  In two separate locations over the weekend.

Ballston Creek Preserve

My friend Sue Pierce, shown here teetering across a muddy spot on the trail, has volunteered to lead a nature walk at this preserve in a few days. When she signed up to do so, she had every expectation that the pretty wildflower called Carolina Spring Beauty (Claytonia caroliniana) would be carpeting the forest floor in uncountable numbers.  We had come to see if her expectations might be met.  The deep snows that fell two weeks ago had melted, but had their cold delayed the Spring Beauty's flowering? We'd soon find out.

 

We made our way from the trailhead all the way to this open marsh.  We had yet to see the masses of Spring Beauties we had hoped to find, but an open marsh in the spring is always a great place to observe lots of birds.  We could hear many more of them than I could see, but Sue reported the calls of Wood Ducks and Brown Creepers, and of course even I could hear and identify the quacking of Mallards and the honking of Canada Geese. We'd been hoping to hear the loud croaks of mating Wood Frogs in the nearby vernal pools, but the previous night's cold must have dampened their ardor for now.

We both gazed with some regret at the dead trees that stood in the marsh, recalling how they had once supported the nests of an amazing group of large birds: Great Blue Herons, Ospreys, and one Great Horned Owl and her fuzzy babies. Sadly, over the years, windstorms have toppled many of the trees or torn off the lateral branches that once supported the huge nests of these giant birds. We have not seen the nests of any of these birds at this locations for several years. (Here's an old post of mine that shows how abundantly the birds once nested here.)

As we walked the wooded trail on this cloud-covered chilly morning, we did spy evidence of spring wildflowers that will soon be bearing flowers.  The speckled Trout Lily leaves have only just emerged, while the wintered-over mottled leaves of Round-lobed Hepatica reveal the spots where new spring blooms will soon spring forth. If we searched beneath the leaf cover, we could see some fur-covered hepatica buds, but no open flowers as yet.

And lo!  We did see a few bud-bearing plants of Carolina Spring Beauties.  But would they be in full bloom in time for our coming nature walk? It didn't look promising.

As it happened, though, the sun soon broke through the clouds, and it was as if Mother Nature had waved her magic wand!  Where we, on our first pass through this wood, had searched in vain for the lovely pink-anthered, purple-striped blooms of Spring Beauty, now we found them abounding throughout the woods. The few tight buds we'd earlier found had opened to display how this flower was worthy of its name.

So unless we have another deep snow,  I have no doubts our friends will find much to delight them when we return in just a few days.

The Skidmore Woods

Sunday was so sunny and warm,  I just had to head to the Skidmore woods to see how the wildflowers there were responding to this delightful change in our weather. One of the earliest flowers to bloom in this woods is a small fragrant violet called English Violet (Viola odorata), so I stopped off first at the spot  where I know it to grow.  Its leaves were quite evident, but no open flowers beckoned me to peer closer and I turned to leave.  But aha!  There was a spot of white amid the green leaves that called me down to my knees.  And there it was!  The white form of an English Violet, not yet open to show off its pure white unveined face, but its distinctive purple spur was clearly evident.  I will come back soon to delight in its beauty as well as its exquisite fragrance.

I fully expected to see open blooms on two hepatica plants that had actually started barely blooming before our Palm Sunday snowfall.  And I sure did see some!  Quite a few pretty pinkish eight-sepaled blooms were now wide open on one Round-lobed Hepatica plant (Hepatica americana).

And this nearby six-sepaled Sharp-lobed Hepatica plant (H. acutiloba) had wide-open flowers of a gorgeous blue hue.

Another early bloomer in this woods is the Giant Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum giganteum), so I hurried along the trail to where I know a large patch of them will emerge. At first examination I felt only disappointment.  But then I spied this wee little sprout poking up from the leaf litter, and there was no mistaking the purplish color of its still-folded leaves and buds.  And look! An already pollen-yellowed anther could hardly wait to escape its bud.  This species of Blue Cohosh has flowers that open wide even before its leaves completely unfurl.

There was one more early bloomer I hoped to find starting to flower, so I continued along the trail to where I knew many shrubs of Leatherwood (Dircus palustris) were known to grow. Would any of these native shrubs have survived deer-browsing over the winter?  I began to fear for them as I passed many shredded Leatherwood remnants stripped of all budding twigs.  Ah, but then a flash of bright yellow off in the woods caught my eye. Hurrah!  Here was a patch of mostly intact Leatherwood shrubs, and clusters of pollen-laden anthers were spilling out of fat fur-covered buds.

And oh!  I then spied a whole shrub entirely festooned with dangling bright-yellow trumpet-shaped Leatherwood blooms.  What a sight for my once-sore eyes! It felt as if this lovely shrub was celebrating with me.

To top off my visit, here was a beautiful Mourning Cloak Butterfly, recently roused from its wintertime rest to waft about the warming woods, sipping sap from trees and spreading its brown-velvet wings to absorb the warming rays of the sun. Life is good!