A New Trail

Yesterday morning Sue and I walked a new trail in the Camassia Natural Area in West Linn, Oregon. The trail is named for the camas flower, and this was a revelation to me, at least. There is a town to our north called, Camas, Washington. Until now, I had no idea it was named for a flower. Sue and I met an organized tour group along the way. Their fearless leader (with a name tag and everything) told us that the camas flowers were nearly bloomed out, but still gave us some ideas about where we might see them. We walked on about a minute more and found them right away.

They stand about two feet tall with a cluster of flowers at the top of a long stalk. They're about two inches from petal tip to petal tip. Very pretty. After seeing the first ones, we found a few more sprinklings of them. It would be fun to come back a little earlier next year to see them at their peak.

There were a lot of wildflowers in bloom along the trail. Many I've already pictured in previous posts, but we did see a few new ones. The trail was well-maintained with a narrow path of bark chips passing through dense foliage on either side and a green canopy overhead. It meant a nice shady walk on a warm day. It also made it difficult to get any good shots of the flowers with my wildflower app. For whatever reason, I couldn't seem to convince my phone to focus, and so I apologize for the quality of these images. I'm still hoping you can get the idea.

We were quite mystified at the identity of this one, and my app didn't offer up anything I felt confident confirming.

It was probably the most abundant flower we saw on the trail yesterday.

After arriving home yesterday, I did an internet search, and I'm prepared now to identify it as the Seaside Bird's-Foot Trefoil. 

 (Image source: Paul and Bernice Noll)

Also, these wild iris.

We saw just this one large clump of them growing in the bright sunshine.

Here's another that mystified us. The app didn't offer up any viable suggestions. After spending some time on the internet this morning, I'm thinking it might be Ookow.

All this wildflower identification matters little, but it keeps me entertained. Also along the way, we saw Mr. and Mrs. Duck. It occurred to Sue and me that Mr. Duck might be in the doghouse given the barrier between them.

Also this:

It seemed like an oxymoron to me. Even though I went to high school during the 14th Century, I still remember that there was nothing "natural" about it.

A few other pretty scenes...this madrona against a deep blue sky. The madronas are so pretty. In the fall they get red berries and the birds go wild for them. Also, their bark peels off like onion skin.

At one spot along the trail, we had a pretty view of Mt. Hood...always a reassuring sight when one ventures off into the wilderness.

It was a short trail, but a nice change from our usual haunts. While taking these pictures off my phone, I came across the usual group of selfies taken by Maggie when she got hold of my phone. She and Smitty are very prolific when it comes to selfies. 

When I got home, I spent the afternoon in the kitchen. Having just made a pile of mashed potatoes last weekend, I wanted to use up the leftovers making Cottage Pies. We had some for dinner last night, and the two left over went into the freezer for a camping trip planned for next weekend. Also, I made a barbecue sauce. I'm trying a new recipe for pulled chicken in the crockpot today. I'll let you know if it turns out.

Recently I saw a recipe for these white chocolate shot glasses filled with a strawberry mousse. Well, that captured my imagination, and so I went online and found the silicon molds for making the shot glasses. They were $10, which seemed a small enough price to pay to have some fun. Mike can't have the strawberries, and so I made mine with frozen (thawed) and pureed blueberries. Also, the original recipe called for Cool-Whip...which doesn't actually qualify as "food". I used regular whipped cream sweetened with some confectioner's sugar and vanilla.

The original recipe used a full pound of chocolate, which made eight shot glasses. I'm just experimenting and having some fun, and so I only used half a pound. I had a little trouble with the chocolate. It wasn't exactly pourable when I melted it, and so my shot glasses had a few little defects. The whipped cream blueberry "mousse" was quite tasty, however. Fortunately they're small because we got icked out pretty quickly. Still, I think this has potential, and so I'm going to keep experimenting with them. I'll let you know if I come up with a viable recipe.

It was a perfect evening last night. We sat outside eating our cottage pies and white chocolate shot glasses and watched the clouds change in the setting sun.

As darkness fell, I noticed the apricot iris are blooming now, and I was able to get this shot despite the low light.

Today, I'm excited to say, we're heading out to Hood River to see this quilt exhibit in the Hood River Library.

As a bonus, there's a quilt shop in Hood River, and so it looks to be a quilty day, even if I do no sewing on my own. The weather is a little iffy here at home, but the forecast calls for sunshine in Hood River until later on this evening. You can look for some pictures of the quilt show here on the blog tomorrow, assuming photographs are allowed.