New Sundew

So excited to have found the Spatulate-leaved sundew (Drosera intermedia) on our lake recently. I had only noticed the Round-leaved sundew (Drosera rotundiflora) around our wetlands till now, and was ecstatic to find this one thriving here as well.

Both types are common in the Northeast, but as you can see, their leaf shapes are a little different. They are very slow growers in nutrient poor habitats.

The sticky glandular hairs keep insects trapped until the plant can envelop them.

Aquatic Bloom

This flower has the common name large purple bladderwort (Utricularia purpurea), but it's hard to capture the color in bold sunlight - it seems to sap the color from the petals.

The messy-looking mass of brown vegetation floating beneath the flower are its leaves, stems and bladders 

The plant puts up a long flower stalk that can rise above the water

or often lies along the surface like a long piece of string.

AAA

AAA today stands for Amazingly Abundant Agalinis! The delicate flowers are strongly pink.

They're annuals - I have never seen them so prolific and dramatic as they are this year. How wonderfully cheery they look by the water's edge!

They are a false foxglove native to eastern North America and Canada.

Perfection

This exquisitely delicate and unique flower belongs to our native little floating bladderwort (Utricularia radiata). The white spokes that hold up the flower are regarded as specialized "leaves," and may also be referred to as stolons. There is a second flower forming beside the mature one - they first appear completely underwater, and slowly rise to the surface as the floats become more air-filled and buoyant.

This is how it appears in its habitat. The spatterdock leaves around it give some idea of scale and how small this plant is. The little spots you see around the base and floating in the water beneath it are the traps/bladders that catch zooplankton in the water - a magnificent carnivorous aquatic plant.

 I LOVE this plant - ingenious!

Carefree Caterpillar

 Not the best capture, but I liked the vibe of a smiling, carefree caterpillar.

Whee!

The Finger

My dream vacation ended with a thud, when the tenderness I'd noticed around a fingernail during our kayaking week became unbearable. It was swollen and hot, and I couldn't use my left index finger at all. I didn't recall an injury during our trip away, but I know I had definitely been digging diligently under swampy roots and soil with my bare hands to dislodge a good plant specimen for pressing. Perhaps a piece of reed got pushed up against my cuticle? I only really realized after it had been stuck there for a few hours that there was pressure between my nail and skin. 

I'd begun feeling throbbing pulses in my wrist and elbow by now, and was concerned that a bloodstream infection could compromise my artificial joints. I set off for the Waterboro Walk-In clinic in the morning, but was told the wait time would be many, many hours and that if I left to go shopping in the meantime, I would lose my spot. I could, however, sign into the website and reserve a time slot (the earliest being 4:30PM), but I couldn't reserve one with her at the front desk, nor could it be done by phone. 

I booked the 4:30 PM slot online, after being reminded that it wasn't an appointment, merely a reserved time slot - okay, whatever the difference is, I'd do it. Then I overheard the receptionist telling the next patient that Sanford's wait time was only 20 minutes - I then booked in at Sanford for the next available "reservation" (35 minutes hence) and canceled my Waterboro appointment. Why do things have to be so complicated, especially when you're feeling anxious and unwell?

In Sanford they iced my finger and then lanced it (ow, did that hurt!), collecting the discharge for lab analysis (it turned out to be an Eikenella species of bacteria). I was given a 10 day course of Doxycycline, a tetanus shot, and instructions to soak it 2-3 times each day with Epsom salts. The next day it felt a little better, but it was an open wound, so I had to keep it out of the lake water while I went out on my kayak ... not easy.

Then I managed to burn the thumb on my other hand with the hot metal handle of my bread machine, so I became rather impaired as far as dexterity goes for a few days.

On one of the evenings that I was soaking my finger in a cup on my lap, I fell asleep, only to be rudely awakened by a warm wet puddle between my legs! Silly me! Five days after being lanced and cleaned, it was usable again, and crocheting could be resumed.

And now it's practically back to normal, with some new skin growing in - no more pain, and no sign of anything still embedded there!

Hospitality in The County

The amazing couple who hosted our activities, meals, gatherings and botanizing space in northern Maine, who sorted out logistics, and who put out fires left, right and center, coming to our rescue whenever an extra can of gas, or a vehicle, kayak or spare anything was needed, went above and beyond what hosting means - they welcomed us as family. I am awed by their graciousness.

They let us invade their home en masse, and though we were each expected to provide our own food for the week, they spontaneously provided buffet breakfasts with loads of choices before we set off each morning. They also made us a lasagna dinner, organized a pizza night, a community BBQ, and a night out together at a local restaurant. It really unified the team to be eating together as opposed to separately, in our own time. We took over their couches to get rid of 'kayak-butt' at the end of the day, had meetings at their dining table, and charged our phones at their kitchen counter.

The generosity and energy of our hosts was exemplary - when they could have had a quiet night-in once in a while, instead they offered a night cruise on their pontoon boat or a lakeside fire to gather around. They truly made it an unforgettable week for our team - northern Maine hospitality rules!

Here we are enjoying the fireside glow. The sunset and moon were orange for a few days due to the smoke from fires elsewhere in the country.

The camaraderie and fun we had together as a team was inspiring and is always worth coming back for. This is my idea of a dream vacation 😀 

Lovely Bones

Here are a few close ups of some of the more interesting bones I found at the water's edge in northern Maine. This first one, a vertebra, looks like a face:

I'm not sure which animal this small skull belongs to, but I'm keeping it for my collection.

I also have these long bones with some interestingly splayed, or winged, edges.

During cleaning, I became aware of a piece of lead embedded in one of them. 

I think it had entered from the other side, where there was a little hole, and presumably bone had started growing across the entry point - OUCH, poor animal.

Rock Treasures

I love bringing home a meaningful, special rock from places I've visited. I saw many that called out to me to take a look at them whilst in Aroostook County, Maine for our survey work. By week's end, I think I'd collected about 1 each day, for their texture, color or patterns that struck me as unique. This one below is what I would call my pièce de résistance - to me it is magnificent.

I don't quite know how it was formed and whether those ridged lines crisscrossing it are simply harder pieces that haven't been weathered as rapidly as the rest or the rock, or whether it's form something that was wrapped around the rock (roots?) that became fossilized. The patterns look too angular to be from roots. Fascinating.

Some of the other rocks had interesting markings on them, requiring them to be brought home too.

Here are a few more

Rambling about Ployes

Our gracious hosts on Cross Lake introduced us to Ployes, the Acadian specialty made from buckwheat, grown locally in Aroostook County. 

We came home with packages to try out and I made my first (successful) batch, which were totally yummy, just like our hosts served.

It's a blend of an American pancake and a crepe in that the 'cakes' are made with a batter thick enough to form the size of a pancake, but rolled up like a crepe when served. Another unique feature of these flatbreads, is that only one side is cooked on the pan surface - they are never turned. As the batter cooks, it releases gases (just like lake sediments, yes!) and the bubbles pop at the surface, creating a lovely substrate for pools of butter to melt into! Add a little maple syrup and ooh, boy is that delicious.

I was intrigued that Ployes were offered as a side dish to a dinner meal at the restaurant we visited - it seemed like a breakfast or afternoon tea offering to me, but I ate it at dinner, anyway: when in Rome, ...

I was curious about the name used for these flatbreads, as the spelling and local pronunciation didn't seem pure French to me. Here's what I found on Wikipedia:

Inherited from Middle French ployer; variant of plier (which later underwent further modification), both from Old French pleier, ploiier, from Latin plicāre, from Proto-Indo-European *pleḱ- (“to plait, to weave”) [from 13th century].

So the 's' would be silent in French. I then realized that the original word plier (to bend, fold) could be conjugated to the ballet term plié (to bend the knees outwards).

Of course, the Maine town of Calais is pronounced Callus in our state, and not Calay, as in France, so French pronunciation is not generally observed.

I think I've just plié-d myself into a series of ramblings - it's fun to play with words and speculate, though. 😀

Lake Bubbles

We came across these bubbles frothing to the surface on Lake Madawaska, undisturbed or initiated by anything visible to us. Fascinating! We surmised it must have been the result of gases being released from the sediments and rising to the surface.

Photo: D. Schultz

Here's a link to the bubbles in action

So, essentially the lake is burping ...

Daigle Pond

Six of us opted to survey Daigle Pond (36 acres) whilst the educational plant paddle was being offered to the community, since we weren't all needed for that. This is a very small set of 2 ponds, with tons of vegetation that clogged the outer edges of the lake, making our passage through it very difficult. The water was icky, leaving one's hands feeling frothy and scummy, so eating lunch on the water was not an option. This lake, too, has issues with water quality and is well below the minimum standard.

Photo: D. Schultz

We ended up spending way more time here than we ought to have, as we kept finding new and interesting things - freshwater fingernail clams (only about an inch long, not seen in the other lakes) and dragonfly carapaces, which I successfully removed by threading their delicate "legs" up and off the top of the tapered bulrushes.

We also encountered many more stands of Calla lilies, some bulbet-bearing water-hemlock, and lots of Coontail with fruits, the first time I've seen them at that stage. I hope I can retain everything (or most) of what I learned in the field.

    

 

That evening we attended the community event at the Senior Center - a BBQ was laid on for the volunteers, and 3 presentations were given to the community.

 

Team photo at the community outreach evening

Photo: K. St Peter

Lake Madawaska

Lake Madawaska is also, unfortunately, categorized as "Impaired" since it too harbors algal blooms due to excessive nutrient loading. The water was clearly and obviously full of algae so we declined to snorkel there - slimy green algae can be seen between plants below.

Dale borrowed a tandem kayak, and pushed the front seat all the way back against the rear one, so that he had a ton of room for his long legs - he thought it was pure luxury, but it's what the rest of us are used to! It was 16 feet long and very difficult to transport.

Interestingly, a large portion of the two basins of this 1,600 acre lake were also sparsely populated with plants, except for one or two rich areas. I was fortunate in being assigned some of the most productive and diverse habitats to survey - boy, was I thrilled! This is where we came across our first Bog lily, trailing buttercup in bloom, flowering water marigolds, water lobelias and a new native milfoil for me (in addition to the Northern and Alternate flowered water-milfoil): Farwell's water milfoil. So much to learn!

As you can see, the area was pretty spectacular and remote.

I got out of my kayak to 'use the (wild) facilities/bog,' and also investigate a terrestrial plant at the same time - I was pleased to confirm that it wasn't purple loosestrife. There were many interesting rocks with intriguing markings and textures on them, and then I noticed some bleached bones right near the shoreline - it looked like a collection of different animals. I made sure to pick some of them up before climbing back into my kayak - boy, were they stinky! Here is my collection of treasures, all cleaned up and ready for my nature display cabinet.

Ellie, Dale and I were teamed up for some of the time on Lake Madawaska. Our view scopes, used to help see down through the water column, weren't very useful because of the murkiness from algae. I usually float the scope off to one side of my kayak, where the light is best and oh, man, does one's neck hurt by the end of the day from keeping it turned one way for so long ... luckily we were so tired by the time we went to bed that even those aches and pains couldn't keep us awake.

Photo: D. Schultz

This is our team on Madawaska

Photo courtesy of K. St Peter

Cross Lake

Cross Lake, Maine (rated Impaired by Maine DEP water quality standards), is amazingly shallow for long stretches, which meant we could see plants along very wide segments from the shoreline out into the lake. We noticed different plant communities were established more or less in swathes parallel to the shore, so we needed to cover them all.

Photo: K. St Peter

Where the lake gets deep, it gets pretty deep: 45 feet. Our hosts did a brilliant job of ferrying us with our kayaks to the furthest reaches of the lake so we could spend all our time scanning the water in each assigned sector and not waste unnecessary time and energy paddling all the way there and back.

Photo: K. St Peter

Bunny and I teamed up together on the first day, and had to take shelter on the shore when a raincloud came over while we waited to be picked up by the pontoon 'ferry.' It didn't amount to much - we get more wet whilst paddling in our kayaks on a regular, sunny day!

Photo: M. Wescott

I had a very special, close experience with 4 eagles in a cove around me one day - magnificent, and unforgettable.

One afternoon was too choppy and windy to survey, 

so we used the time to identify plants we'd collected and questioned IDs on.

Photo: K & C St Peter