It's wild strawberry season again.

They might not look like much, being a fraction the size of the strawberries on offer at farmer's markets and the grocery store. But the wild strawberries of our fields and woods edges pack a lot of flavor and sweetness into a small package. Is there any wild fruit tastier? And best of all is the price.

Wild strawberries don't last long. As soon as they ripen at our place in late June and early July, birds called cedar waxwings arrive in hordes to pluck them out of our shaggy lawn. I'd be a liar if I didn't admit begrudging the waxwings their feast, at least a little. They consume far more of the precious fruits than we do. But heck, I guess waxwings have been picking here far longer than we have, so maybe the real thieves are the frugivores we see in the mirror.

A favorite way to devour wild strawberries is to toss a handful in a bowl some cool summer evening and drizzle a little heavy cream over the top. But it's not easy getting the fruits to the bowl. The picking is a slow process, giving you just enough time between fruits to run a quick cost-benefit analysis for each. This may lead to the idea that it's better to live in the moment and devour on the spot than save for a later which may never come. Think of it. A giant asteroid hurtling through space could strike the earth at any moment. If this happened, would you want to leave any wild strawberries in your possession uneaten?

Politics Along The Trail

When companions and I are out walking Adirondack trails, we often find ourselves discussing everything under the sun---except politics. Why spoil a beautiful day? 

Yet once in a while, I can't resist stirring up a little respectful discussion of current affairs. The best way to do so, I've found, is to point out that a low-growing, green-flowered, glossy-leaved wildflower along the trail is named for a politician named Clinton.

The usual first response is laughter. I go on to point out that the plant is named not for Bill or Hillary but for DeWitt (1769-1828). This Clinton was a distinguished naturalist as well as a politician. In addition to having the Clintonia lily (Clintonia borealis)  named after him, DeWitt Clinton served as Mayor of New York City, as the sixth Governor of New York, and as a United States Senator from New York. In 1812, he ran for President against the incumbent James Madison. President Madison prevailed, if only by a small margin, but one could argue that Clinton won the greater prize. He had a classic Adirondack wildflower wildflower named for him.

Today, DeWitt Clinton is best remembered for his leadership building infrastructure in his home state. The Erie Canal, sometimes called "Clinton's Ditch" or "Clinton's Folly" by detractors, was his greatest accomplishment. Thousands of laborers, a great many of them recent immigrants, had much to do with it, too.

Clintonia borealis is also called bluebead lily. The small yellow-green flowers ripen into a gorgeous cluster of lucious-looking blue berries. Unfortunately, they're poisonous.

Predators, Prey, And The Dance Of Life And Death

A common garter snake, handsome and scaly, had a pickerel frog, beautifully spotted and smooth-skinned, by one of its rear legs. I was leading a group of young professional naturalists, training for work this summer at the Adirondack Mountain Club's Adirondack Loj [long story, but that's how they spell it] and the Paul Smith's College Visitor Interpretive Center in Paul Smith's. A young woman spied the snake, and then I spied the frog.

Yikes! Here was nature at its riveting, and sometimes unsettling, best. We didn't intervene. Snakes and frogs have been sharing landscapes for millions of years, and this was their struggle for survival, not ours. Nor could we look away. It seemed unlikely that the small snake could get down the small frog leg-first, but then, the frog seemed accepting of whatever fate was about to befall it. And the snake was clearly determined.

Working its Spandex-like skin and intricate arrangement of jaw bones up and over the rest of the frog, the snake was nine-tenths of the way done when we eventually moved on. We'd enjoyed a thoughtful discussion about the drama we'd witnessed. On one hand, all felt sorry for the frog.  On the other, we recognized that just as pickerel frogs survive by preying on animals smaller than themselves, so do garter snakes. 

A week earlier, companions and I had seen a broad-winged hawk fly over a field, carrying a garter snake about the same size as the one that captured the frog. Eating and being eaten: it's the way of the world. 

On the outings I lead in the Adirondacks, we see nature at its most peaceful and sublime, and sometimes we also see the opposite. When the sight of killing makes someone sad or queasy, I remind him or her that predators don't just take. They also give. In the case of the pickerel frog, keen eyes, powerful legs for jumping, and exquisite camouflage are at least in part compensation for a long, long span of evolution in the presence of hunters, including snakes. As for myself, I'm mindful that the broccoli I grow in our garden is alive and minding its own business before I kill and eat it.

Note: there are no venomous snakes in our part of the Adirondacks. Garter snakes are small, harmless, and, for those not keen on snakes, easily avoided.

Spring has sprung!

Winter is a long time coming in the Adirondack Mountains. The last of our snow finally melts in April, although white stuff can fall in any month of the year. This is a cool place---literally---a wonderful thing at a time when the planet's warming.

Spring is thrilling here. Birds that have been gone for more than half the year return and renew acquaintances with us and the woods in which they raise their young. It's a special treat on a spring day to see a Baltimore oriole, a rose-breasted grosbeak, or a purple finch. Flowers bloom, many of them on display only for a matter of days before they settle down to making fruits, their blossoms not to be seen again for another year. Favorite Adirondack spring flowers include the red and painted trilliums and the goldthread.

Another spring highlight is the return of amphibians. Like zombies in a horror movie, frogs and salamanders stir from their death-like winter state and erupt from the soil and the muck. The first to emerge are wood frogs and tiny thumbnail-sized frogs called spring peepers. Later come leopard frogs, green frogs, American toads, and spotted salamanders. The salamanders are shiny black with big yellow spots. They look like they walked out of a Dr. Seuss book.

With spring come mosquitoes and blackflies, too, but hey, it's not hard to cope, and paradise comes at a price.