Posted: February 25th, 2011 
Topics: When I turned 30-years-old last May, I took the day off work and went for a long hike with my dog at Wild River State Park. It was quiet in the park that day, the trees starting to get green and only the two of us on the trail to breathe it all in.
Having recently gone morel hunting for the first time, my eyes were often glued to the forest floor, looking for mushrooms. I didn’t find any. But I did see all the delicate early-spring flowers; they seemed to be the first natural color I’d seen in months and months.
I was just flipping through photos and experienced an almost unbearable sensation in these cold, snowy, gray winter days. It’s overwhelming to feel the longing of life in the landscape, still a good two months off, but also the joy of that annual deep breath the forest takes as the sun comes back to us. I thought I would share the pain and the ecstasy with you, readers.
Click the images below to see larger versions. Click the larger image to see a very large version that might make an appropriate computer desktop this time of year.
Any help identifying the flowers would be much appreciated.
“The pain and the ecstacy,” indeed. After that one week of high temps, all this new snow has felt especially heavy. Thanks for these photos. The green wooded lane is a visual FEAST.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Carolyn Porter, Greg Seitz. Greg Seitz said: Had enough snow and gray and cold? Do yourself a favor and check out some photos from last May of early spring flowers: http://bit.ly/hvl1UZ [...]
the 4th photo from the top in the first coulmn us a Trilium, Snow trillium i think. The second to last purple flower is a Common Blue Violet, the last photo is Wood Phlox. Not sure about the others.