Another Walk in the Park

Yesterday the Ice Age Trail. Today Elver Park. It’s a great time to be walking, with seventy-degree temperatures.

Elver Park has beautiful blossoms at this time of year. The flowering crabs are finished, as are the invasive garlic mustard blossoms that promise many more in the future. The black raspberry blossoms are turning into baby berries. Other blossoms have taken their turn.

Today Elver Park has two floral experiences. The park has two hills of woods separated by a lower grassy area that contains recreational spaces. At this time of year the interesting parts of the park are in the woods. Each side is different. As I walked through the woods at the north end, I found more wild geraniums than one could ever hope to see scattered through the shady pathway. It was very beautiful.

Coming out onto the grass, I looked across at the south hillside and saw a spectacular white or off-white expanse of flowering locust trees, all facing north. Lots of tall mature locust trees, going up the hillside. This hillside provides wonderful views of fall color later in the year for people who drive by on McKenna Boulevard. Today they can see the flowers.

The irony is that when I was walking up the trail on that hill, I couldn’t see any of the locust blossoms. They were all high above my head in the ceiling of greenery that is the woods.

There is plenty to enjoy on the ground, too. The bursting of green life that is everywhere except under the shady tall pines is reassuring that our planet is still regenerating itself even in our parks, with some help from the Almighty.