glade

All photos Hillside Beach, MB. July 15, 2011.

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We pulled on pants on our second-to-last day at the cabin for walk down a moped/quad trail just off what we'd taken to calling pebble beach. Though I dislike it intensely, we also slathered on both sunscreen and insect repellent.

(I wonder how we smelled to the swarms of dragonflies, buzzing the pink clover lane at the trailhead, their wings rustling like paper all around us...)

There were far fewer mushrooms than I would have expected, but I suppose that felled trees take a long time to break down to mulch in non-managed forest...

Together, we discovered patches of wild raspberries and strawberries along one stretch, the fruit just beginning to turn deep red. We watched where we stepped along another, because there were dozens and dozens of tiny frogs jumping back into the bush.

But my favourite bits of the walk were when I spied a clearing under the trees and nipped off to see what mushrooms might be growing.

I couldn't prowl around willy-nilly, because M and I are sort of fuzzy as to what "leaves of three, let it be" looks like...

Anyways, M pointed out this particular clearing, filled with big old logs that were intensely green with moss. And these tiny mushrooms, almost too small to photograph.

What I'll remember about it was that the air was green, not from light mottled through leaves, but something mossy and earthy and dim.

And that when I leaned on the softness of the log to get this shot, some unseen mushroom released its spores and it was like a mouthful of smoke drifting under my nose and I was somehow only faintly worried, me in my long pants and layers of sun/insect ooze.

I could have spent ages in that glade, but M and Aa were patiently waiting fifteen feet away...