Groundcones

Today’s dull again and tomorrow it’s supposed to rain, but after that we’re in for another spell of good weather that will have me outdoors all day. The coming good weather will have me start working on the roofs, removing all the accumulated forest fall and I’ll be doing it on a ladder. I hate working on ladders. I don’t ever feel safe.

Yesterday, I went to the nursery to spend some of my tax return. I got a dozen small ground cover plants to scatter around the garden under the trees in my backyard. They will fill in the gaps between the larger plants and give the garden lots of colour and plushness.

Well, thanks to my friend Eoin, I now know what the plants shown above are. They are Groundcones—Kopsiopsis hookeri. They are root parasites, drawing nutrients from the roots of Salal (the most common host). It grows in various colours, from light yellow, to orange, brown, red or purple and reaches heights of twelve centimeters. A single Groundcone may release more than 33,000 seeds! The root bases are a traditional food of the Kwakwaka’wakw and Nuu-chah-nuulth First Nations.

•Merrill and Leo live on the lot to the south of me. To the north is an empty lot that sold three years ago to people who live in Prince George. As soon as they bought the land, the cleared a bit of it, installed a well and then a septic field. They planned to start building two years ago, but nothing has happened and clearly it won’t be this year either. Hurray! I appreciate every Summer without neighbours to my north.

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 I’m off for my morning walk with my fellow dog walkers, then I’ll come home to read, plant a new Blueberry bush and to transplant a few more Ferns into my Fern garden. Today will be another like every other day of the past couple of months. Covid routine is entrenched.

Our best restaurant on the island has opened a food truck beachside at a lovely bay at the south end of the island. Currently, it’s only open Friday-Sunday, Sundays for brunch, the other days from early afternoon until 8:00 pm. I’ve invited Jay to eat with me there on Sunday. Anything to change routine!