A Wet Walk in the Woods

This has been an incredibly wet weekend in Southern Maryland!

(John Muir was a racist whose legacy continues to keep Black and Brown folks out of natural spaces but who also was pivotal to preserving natural spaces and creating national parks.)

I write this Memorial Day 2026 with slippers on and under a blanket, as the steady rain calls for. It's rained off and on since Friday (today is Monday). Yesterday it lightened up enough to get some serious work done in the backyard. I am so pleased with how that all is coming together. I pulled/cut privet and planted the Solomon's Seal, huckleberry, and sweet potato slips I purchased at the Master Gardener's plant sale last weekend and threw out some quick growing forage feed for the chickens.

native plant sale AND half off? I made purchases.

Movable pen with happy chickens to the right, freshly seeded areas covered in bedding

view with greenhouse to the front, coop to the left, deck to the right.

I cannot resist a good B and A

Chinese privet is an invasive that spreads by the underground root and grows in patches. It was formerly planted as an ornamental but quickly spreads. If you cut it it will just resprout with more stems - like a hydra. The best solution is to dig it out (ugh) or, if they're young enough and the ground is nice and wet they pull straight out pretty easily. Otherwise, cut as close to the ground as you can and paint with herbicide. They produce a flower cluster at this time of year that smells heavenly but it developes into purple berries or "drupes" that are toxic to dogs. We believe privet may have been what took out my bestest pup, Rowdy.

Before. Privet along fence. icky boo.

After. Ripped all that mess out and planted a lil shade garden.

So, it needed to go!!

Thanks to the Black Tupelo, Tulip Poplar, and Elderberry this is a rather shady area and the things planted there, Solomons Seal and Huckleberry, should love it. Thrive, my darlings!!

This was a fair amount of work!

I left pretty much everything else, including that clump of false nettle. The elderberry to the right is flowering and when it is done I'll remove what is on this side of the fence as the berrries are also toxic to dogs. Earlier in the season I propagated cuttings onto the other side so that it will spread there instead and there's a fair amount already as that's where it started.

The break from the rain was perfectly timed. It's back at it again today and everything that was planted and seeded is getting a great start in their new home.

As I was hella busy out there all day and it's been raining, I hadn't made it around front to the garden in a few days. This morning after journaling I decided to take my dandelion tea out to the garden and look at everything in the lightly falling rain and enjoy myself a nice, wet walk. I have a mile long to-do list (always) that I couldn't touch but I wanted to see how transplanted tomatoes and returning perennials were doing and honestly, I just missed my garden a bit.

Just a girl and her garden and her empty cup of tea

I walked through, noting that the squirrels were again digging stuff up - although not as bad as before. I'll need to cage plants for a bit, maybe? More seeds have germinated but I will need to plant more okra and peanuts to replace the seeds they dug up. The beets and lettuce were dug up too but it is too late to reseed them so I'm mulling over what to plant in their place.

This was a beautiful, peaceful, moseying moment in the rain. With my hood up I hardly noticed it at all. I was too absorbed with talking to myself and the plants anyway.

May flowers are doing the dang thing! Both my thyme and St. Johnswort have put out the cutest, tiniest little flowers - I had to take time to appreciate them and tell them how cute they were.

St Johnswort flowers are yellow, Thyme is white. My Wandering Blackberries have flowers and baby fruit and my Bee Balm is so tall and hopefully preparing to flower for her first time! The flowers are going to be stunning - I cannot wait.

yellow st johnswort flowers

white thyme flowers

wandering blackberry and agrimony

Close up of blackberry flower

Bee Balm aka Monarda aka Bergamot so tall and so close to flowering!!

with Yvonne for scale

As it happens sometimes, especially to me, I got distracted.

I made my way through my garden and out, following the side walk. Kinda wanted to see if I could access the back end of my property despite the encroaching poison ivy, kinda just vibing.

And vibe I did.

My walk led me to an opening in the woods and that opening turned into a clearing where I stood for a bit - breathing deeply and pulling from all my senses to really enjoy the moment.

I listened and could hear the softly falling rain, water dripping off the leaves around me, and countless birds - chickadees, wrens, and flycatchers (IDd using Merlin).

I grounded my feet into the earth below me and spread my fingers to feel the soft decaying leaves and twigs beneath me and the cool, damp air around me.

I inhaled deeply through my nose and smelled petrichor, the smell of rain falling on Earth, and privet, and wet wood.

I looked around me and saw beauty. Magic. Greens and browns, shiny and thriving, at the height of the season. Breathtaking. Oaks and Maples, Virginia Creeper and Swamp Magnolia, and Devil's Walking stick (guess how it got that name), cool mushrooms, little bugs doing bug things...abundance!

trees!

swamp magnolia leaves and bud

swamp magnolia

trees

devil's walking stick leaves

devil's walking stick

If we were tiny, we could live here. flat area surrounded by devil's walking stick and fallen logs

up close of cool looking mushrooms

tree with cool mushrooms

view u p a large tree

woods

empty box turtle shell

I took it all in and snapped a few pictures to share before I headed home. I was still on my street, in the woods behind my house but I felt like I'd been on a grand adventure. My wet walk in the woods provided a beautiful mindful reset and was just what I needed this morning.

I brought a treasure home with me (I have lots of treasures) and came in to dry off and warm up and finish my Morning Ritual.

What an amazing way to start my week!

I was a kid that loved to play in the woods. It's not surprising that I ended up this way but it has been ages since I ran off into the woods like that.

I invite you to do the same.

RUNNOFT

They call it forest bathing now but to me it's just hanging out in the woods. The important factor is mindfulness.

Slowing down, listening, observing, and breathing.

Happy Adventuring!