Last Sunday I went for a hike in Marlborough Forest, a 12,000 hectare reserve 10 minutes from home. It is a forest that one must enjoy now; that becomes quickly painful to walk in between late spring and first frost, when the biting bugs are so thick it is almost unbearable, even to someone with a fairly high tolerance to natures annoyances.
It was a lovely, cool day to walk in this wonderful place, seeing nature slowly come to life again; the cool chartreuse of early tree foliage, the drifts of Trillium, Caulophyllum and Smilacena covering the forest floor. I searched in my Polygala paucifolia spots for any early sign of growth--but nothing to see yet (another few weeks)...
The high point of the day, however, was not the flora, but the rocks. There is a particular rock that one can only find in a few areas in the Ottawa Valley, and Marlborough Forest is one. A geologist friend once explained that it is limestone, but extremely dense and heavy, always dark coloured (dark brown/grey/black) with a high salt content because it lay under Lake Champlain for a very long time. It is chock full of fossils and has fascinating shapes and ridges.
A few pieces form one section of my rock garden, and a small water fall was constructed out of it many years ago.
