Rainforests | In the Net! – Pictures and Stories of Life

Rainforests are such interesting (and damp!) places. Here are a few photos of some of my favourites.

I wasn’t able to find out what type of mushrooms these are, but they remind me of mussel shells.

Wild honeysuckle. We saw a number of large honeysuckle bushes growing in the rainforest. There are also lots more growing in the village of Masset, so I’m not sure if wild ones have migrated to town or cultivated ones have migrated to the forest. Their scent was heavenly.

The underside of a large stump showing part of the intricate root system. We couldn’t find any evidence of the fallen tree, and maybe it has already been consumed by the forest, but it must have been very tall and large.

Moss and lichen have engulfed many of the lower limbs of this tree but the upper branches are more exposed to light and overall, the tree seems to be healthy.

I love this scene and find it very representative of how the rainforests on Haida Gwaii appear. But I also think that it could be in one of the Harry Potter books!

Happy Tuesday.

An uncommon intersection is occurring today: a leap year, a lion-like in-coming March and, I hope, an out-going lamb-like March.

The last time we had a February 29 was in 2020, and I hope there isn’t a repeat of what was shortly to follow, of what had actually already started. I was still in the Northwest Territories then, and I took this picture of children having immense fun playing on a giant pile of snow that had been pushed up by road-clearing vehicles. None of us knew it then, but they were coming up to having their fun seriously curtailed. March was arriving like a lamb, but Covid’s hobnailed boots were about to teach us a thing or two. Fortunately however, we are past that.

Herewith are some lion-like March starts:

NWT: cleaning up after a huge early March storm in 2022.

NWT: an icicle, my heavy-duty truck plug-in cord and another early March clean-up, 2021.

Penticton: a leaden, windy, chilly lion-like late February sky, 2024.

Some lamb-like March departures – I like the lambs more, don’t you?

NWT: under a bright blue April 2 sky in 2021.

And last but not least:

Vancouver Island: hiking in a rainforest, March 27, 2019.

More often than not, March has done its lion- like best but has meekly disappeared by the time April arrives. Although we need a coolish, slower spring in order to facilitate our continued drought recovery – and to mitigate forest fires, too – there’s no reason why some sun and blue skies can’t be a part of that.