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Following a day of unremitting rainfall, the sun returned gloriously on the last day of August . Three inches of rain had brought an end to a cold, wet summer. The Towpath of the Erie Canal beckoned. It was nice to escape the house and to breath in the cleaned, fresh air. The garden was a bit on the soggy side but the path by the side of the canal was dry. Two turtles plopped off a tree trunk felled by the storm and lying in the water. Many local creeks had burst their banks and flooded nearby lands and roads but the canal was contained.
Wildflowers and berries were in abundance. Nature's abandon was in contrast to carefully planned gardens. The end-all of U.S. plant images and data is the U.S. Department of Agriculture Gallery. A more constrained list is limited to New York State wildflowers. My ability in identifying the wildflowers I encounter is most limited. I do fairly well in the spring. By late summer I am lost. I do know enough to avoid tasting any blue berries that are not most obviously huckleberries even though they do not look at all like Deadly Nightshade, belladonna. . A number of the wildflowers growing alongside the canal are small and short, inviting a stop and stoop to observe them.
. . . . . . Many berries, blue, white and red, are at eye height.
. . . . . . Many years ago our daughter Ann, visiting from her job as a Naturalist Ranger in the National Parks, collected wild grapes and Sumac flowers from the side of the canal path and made a jelly from them that only a father could love. A more compassionate father than I.
When we returned home and I loaded the photographs to the computer, I was surprised that I had taken 44 photos. The joys of digital photography. Deletion of the unworthy is so simple. When I used to use film, I waited for the one perfect photograph. Sometimes, months later, I discovered it was not so. Now that it is possible to take many hundreds of photographs without changing film rolls, reckless abandon is the mode. Instant gratification is also possible when taking photographs in one owns garden. There are some exceptions. How many times have I wanted to photograph some particular specimen, dashing for Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article A Walk On The Canal Path in International Gardens is owned by . Permission to republish A Walk On The Canal Path in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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