Wake Robin

Last weekend I went to the Lake Jackson Archaeological Park twice.

The first time I went hiking by myself.

The next day, I made David come with me. I wanted him to see the trilliums in bloom.  Trilliums are the first woodland flowers to bloom here, and that's why they are also called "wake robins" -- because after they appear, all of the spring birds seem to wake up and start singing.

We hiked into the woods, looking for the rare relict trillium.

As we got further into the woods, we saw more and more relict trilliums.  They have a dark red flower and gorgeous leaves speckled green, white, and purple.

The ground was carpeted with them.

The archaeological park has a steephead: a stream flowing down into a ravine that creates an unusually cool microenvironment.  As we got closer to the steephead, we could tell that the air was getting cooler.  The moss on the tree roots got thicker.


At the steephead, we saw hillsides covered with ferns.

And trilliums growing among the ferns.

We spent a lot of time searching the stream for a rare type of salamander that is supposed to live there.  But the salamanders were too elusive.

So we settled for more pictures of trilliums.

I thought about the naturalist John Burroughs, who wrote a book called Wake-Robin in 1871.

He said, "The dandelion tells me when to look for the swallow, the dogtooth violet when to expect the wood-thrush, and when I have found the wake-robin in bloom I know the season is fairly inaugurated.  With me this flower is associated, not merely with the awakening of Robin, for he has been awake for some weeks, but with the universal awakening and rehabilitation of nature."

Bloomingtonautica Retrospective 2011

Stranded in the Atlanta blizzard in January; spring flowers at Maclay Gardens in February; wisteria in Gainesville in March; turtles on Amelia Island in April; a wood stork at the Tallahassee Museum in May; a butterfly on the Blue Ridge Parkway in June; losing our tree in July; the cool water of Wakulla Springs in August; bright berries and long walks in September; a Halloween cat in October; Thanksgiving dinner in November; and a decorated tree in December.

The New Year

The solid houses in the mist
are thin as tissue paper;
the water laps slowly at the rocks;
and the ducks from the north are here
at rest on the grey ripples.

The company in which we went
so free of care, so carelessly,
has scattered.  Good-bye,
to you who lie behind in graves,
to you who galloped proudly off!
Pockets and heart are empty.

This is the autumn and our harvest --
such as it is, such as it is --
the beginnings of the end, bare trees and barren ground;
but for us only the beginning:
let the wild goat's horn and the silver trumpet sound!

Reason upon reason
to be thankful:
for the fruit of the earth,
for the fruit of the tree,
for the light of the fire,
and to have come to this season.

-- From "Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays," by Charles Reznikoff

Hillsville Christmas in Pictures