Regained Confidence

After my troublesome exploration of Waldoboro Town Forest, I wanted to try an easy stroll just to prove to myself that I had not developed a fear of striking out on solo adventures. Since the Coastal Mountain Land Trust had published a lovely guide describing all their land holdings along with trail maps, I flipped through the pages until I decided to seek out the St. Clair Preserve and Knight’s Pond.  According to the description in my pamphlet, the land trust trail was a mere 200 yards from the dirt road to the pond. Perfect! This should help me prove that my previous experience was just a fluke.

The fog was just lifting from the pond when I parked near the boat ramp at the end of a long, dirt road. I stood by the ramp for a few minutes enjoying the view of water and the fog drifting through the trees, thinking that this was be a perfect place to to paddle around in the kayaks. Turning north towards a small picnic area where my map had displayed the trail, I searched but could not find any clearly marked path. The section of water near this area was boggier in nature, containing lots of grass and water lilies.

My lack of success did not stop me from exploring the area. After a disappointing search for said path, I turned south back towards the boat ramp and decided to walk along the beach. As the waterfront began to curve west, I discovered a trail nearby. I climbed up a small embankment and soon discovered an orange blazed trail leading through the woods. Since this path was on the wrong side of the boat ramp, it could not have been the land trust walkway. I knew that parts of this area had been previously owned by the Nature Conservancy, so I wondered if this had been part of the Conservancy trail system. I also knew that the Point Lookout Conference Center maintained a trail system that lead down to this body of water, so that was another explanation for this unknown road. In any case, I decided to explore.

As I walked along this wooded road with the water always visible, I studied the forest for the signs of late summer. It wasn’t long before I noticed the bright red berries of the bunchberries, the yellow spotted leaves of the Wild Sarsaparilla, the occasional discolored fern and the reddish-green berries of some unknown viburnum. I continued exploring until a reached a small point jutting out into the water. From here I could see a large expanse of the pond, a small island in front of me, and a shoreline to my left with grass and waterlilies. I felt a calmness here and I knew that my previous adventure had been an aberration. In the future, I would be able to continue my solo excursions into nature.

After turning back towards the boat ramp, I studied some vegetation growing near the edge of the water. I never did find out the identity of this grass-like plant bearing the remnants of white flowers but I thought they were beautiful. When I was done studying this interesting plant, I conversed for a bit with a man throwing a stick into the pond for his dog. We talked about different hikes and this particular preserve. He informed me that you could keep going on that path I had explored and take it almost the full length of the lake. Sounds like a great adventure for another day.

My goal had been achieved. My morning successful. As I drove slowly back up the dirt road, I glimpsed what could have been a trail just near the picnic area. Proof of that path must wait for another day.

 

An Uneasy Vibe

After returning from Seattle, I concentrated more on exercise hikes up the Multi-use Trail in the Camden Hills, but now as late summer approached, it was time to return to some exploration walks. My choice for the last weekend in July was to re-visit the Waldoboro Town Forest, located on Route 1. Since my last visit two winters ago, the town of Waldoboro had worked on the trail loop and held an official re-opening of the trail earlier this summer. I was curious to see what I would find during a visit in a completely different season.

There was only one other car in the parking area when I arrived. This did not disturb me since I had been on plenty of solo adventures during the last few years. I left the parking field, walked past the two Waldoboro Town Forest signs and entered the darkly, shaded pine forest.

Once in the woods, it was clear the work had been done in this preserve. The trail was marked by fresh blue blazes and an occasional brown hiking sign, brush was piled along the side of the trail and some log benches had been created from some of the remains of the clearing work. As I walked, I discovered some of the vegetation was beginning to show the signs of late summer; the Indian Root Cucumber displayed a slight hint of yellow, the Wild Sarsaparilla had acquired yellow spots and the single leaf of the Canada Mayflower was also beginning to turn. Further down the trail I found some tiny bright red mushrooms which could not be photographed due to the abundance of biting insects.

Not far into my walk, I came to the beginning of the loop through the preserve. At the intersection was one of those new benches mentioned earlier. The trail in front of me displayed freshly painted blazes, but the blazes were pretty faded on the trail to my right so I continued straight. It wasn’t long before I encountered a bog bridge that disappeared in the ferns growing over the planks. I’m not sure why but I began to feel a bit uneasy at this point and turned back towards the intersection. Not giving in yet to my sense that something felt wrong, I turned down the intersecting trail, only to discover a little way down the lane that this path also narrowed as the grass and underbrush took over before it disappeared completely. The fact that two marked trails just disappeared within a month of being re-opened, suggested that this preserve was not heavily used. For some reason I was spooked by this notion. I decided to trust my gut on this one and returned to the safety of my car.

Summer Visit to McLellan-Poor Preserve

After returning home from our Seattle trip, we took a few weeks to get back into our normal daily routines before setting out on our next adventure during the July 4^th holiday. The local land trust had just recently completed a second entrance to the McLellan-Poor preserve on Route 1, and, since we had been stopped by our previous endeavor to explore this preserve due to an impassible river, we decided to approach the same river from the opposite side of the preserve.

During our approach to the trail-head, we spotted the sign for McLellan Poor just as we drove by, so we pulled into the Belfast Watershed parking area just on the other side of the Little River in order to turn around. Observing the casually mowed trail beyond the kiosk my first thought was that anyone who has the slightest tick phobia would not like this path. But I dressed appropriately for this type of hike, so I wasn’t too worried about the trail conditions.

In the open meadow near the kiosk, there was an abundance of wild vegetation to study and identify, so we spent a few moments there. Near the sign was a rather tall plant with multiple flowers forming a crown at the top, similar to Yarrow but the leaves were different. I later identified this as a Valerian. The field was also filled with Cow-Vetch and some rather nasty looking Thistle Leaves. I assume the rather tall thistle not far from the path was a Bull-Thistle. There was also a number of small flowers about ½ inch across which I identified after we returned home, as Common Stitchwort

Once, we were done marveling at all the flowers in the field, we continued our journey towards the woods. The trail was still very narrow with vegetation alongside the path close enough to brush against our clothing. I knew a number of acquaintances in our town who would get the heebie-jeebies walking through this.  In fact, during this part of our adventure we followed the barely visible line of trail through a stretch of what we could only call a fern forest. Here again, we stopped multiple times trying to identify the various ferns.

It wasn’t long before we passed through the ferns and found ourselves deeper in the woods walking on a wider forest trail. We were occasionally treated to glimpses of the reservoir to our right. In a few places, the trees became more widely spaced and we were able to stand on the ridge for a few moments and enjoy a much better view of the water. As we journeyed towards our destination, we crossed several bog bridges. At the edge of one of these bridges I found a cluster of Wood Sorrel, which I carefully stepped over as I crossed the bridge.

During this adventure, we took the two loops displayed on the trail map in order to cover the entire preserve on this side of the river. Just beyond the intersection of the last loop with the Reservoir Trail we came to the waterway that had prevented the continuation of our winter explorations. We actually did not recognize it devoid of the snow covering the rocks, the footprints of those who went through the ice in an attempt to cross and the lower water levels. This time of year one could easily cross along the rocks that formed a small island in the middle of the river. I had heard that the field near the original trail-head was filled with lupines but it was getting a bit warm so we decided to turn back and prepare for our July 4^th celebrations.

 

A Fabric Color Story

As I neared the completion of my ribbon quilt, I started thinking about fabric options for the backing. Unfortunately, I had not obtained enough of the red wide-back fabric to cover the quilt but I thought I could pull in a blue on each side and use the red down the center. But first I needed to prewash my fabric.

In the twenty or more years that I have been quilting, I have never had problems with a fabric color bleeding. I prewash all my fabrics with color catcher sheets to make sure the sheets come out white and show no evidence of a fabric color bleeding. So far I have been lucky. But this red! Oh my goodness, did this red bleed! After the first washing, the color catcher was dark red. I washed that fabric 6 more times, soaked it twice in a utility sink with dishwashing liquid overnight and washed it in the machine another 3 or 4 times. The color catchers faded to a dark pink but still were not clear. To top it all off, the fabric itself was beginning to show white spots, indicating that the color was completely coming out of the fabric!

At this point I knew that this particular piece of fabric would be used for test blocks and would never go into a quilt.  But that left me without a backing. As I browsed my local quilt shop looking for a backing, I mentioned my problem of fabric bleed. I had read a number of quilt postings online that had mentioned two products, called Retayne and Synthrapol but none of them indicated whether one was better over another, or, if one should be used first and then treated with the second. The owner of the shop suggested I try them and report my results back to her. So I left the shop, not only with an experiment to run, but with a wonderfully, wild fabric that would complement the quilt front as well as match the personality of the recipient for this quilt.

Coming from a family with backgrounds in math, science, and engineering, my husband and I decided to use the scientific method to conduct my color experiment. My control group would be a piece of fabric thrown into the washing machine with a color catcher. Another group would be treated with the Retayne per the directions on the bottle, then washed with a color catcher. The third group would first be treated with the Retayne, then treated with the Synthrapol before being washed with a color catcher. The final group would be treated with only the Synthrapol and then washed with a color catcher. I probably should have done another group using the Retayne after using the Synthrapol first but I figured the four samples would give me enough information to reach a conclusion.

Having read some information on the manufacturer’s web site, I discovered that Synthrapol was basically a concentrated detergent that would remove sizing as well as excess dye from hand dyed fabrics. The Retayne was described as a dye fixing agent used on commercially dyed cotton fabrics that tend to bleed easily. Processing this information, I developed a hunch that the Retayne would be the product that a quilter would want to use first.

First I need to find some cheap, red fabric for my experiment. Wouldn’t you know, after washing this fabric the color catcher came out absolutely clean. Now what! I didn’t want to spend a lot of money trying to purchase a fabric that would run, so I turned back to my original red fabric hoping that there would still be enough color bleed left in it to complete the experiment. After running the control I decided that there was enough color still bleeding out of my original red fabric and went on with the rest of the experiment. The next group was pretreated with the Retayne and then washed with the color catcher. It came out absolutely clean. I ran the third group, (using the Synthrapol after the Retayne) anyway just for the sake of completeness and as suspected the sheet was clean. Finally I treated the fourth group with just Synthrapol and after washing this piece of fabric discovered that there was still some color bleeding onto my color catcher.

This proved my hypothesis of using the Retayne as a first measure. It made sense to me since the product was described as a dye fixative and I would want any loose dye to fix itself to the fabric to prevent bleeding. The Synthrapol, described as removing excess dye would still have that excess dye floating around to bleed on nearby fabrics. I might use the Synthrapol on a finished quilt where one fabric color bled onto another in the hopes of removing the stain but it would not be my first choice on new fabric. Going forward I would still use the color catchers as a first pass and then if necessary use the Retayne.

Shortly after this, I had a chance to prove the accuracy of this experiment. I set about washing the vibrant backing fabric for my ribbon quilt and was surprised to find that the color catcher came out a very dark purple. I immediately treated the fabric with the Retayne and washed it again. The color catcher was clean and I had only washed the fabric twice as opposed to more than a dozen time.

 

Seattle Japanese Garden

After finally acquiring a trail map for the Washington Park Arboretum, I meandered a bit more, admiring the different sections of the park before making my way back to the my starting point at the Pacific Connections section of the gardens. I sat there for 20 minutes or so enjoying the scenery while waiting for the Japanese Gardens across the street to open. Nearing admission time, I exited the arboretum and strolled towards the next item on my list of Seattle places to visit.

Typical of Japanese Gardens in most places, I entered a sanctuary that enveloped the visitor with a spirit of tranquility and invited the weary wanderer to leave their worries behind. I walked along structured garden paths admiring everything from the placement of teahouses and pagodas, to the reflecting pool and the pink water lilies. I sat near the lilies just letting the serene atmosphere take over before moving on.

It was a small garden and I spent no more than 45 minutes there but it was enough to recharge my nature senses before having another go at the city. The next day promised rain and it would be a museum day, so I was glad to have this nature moment to carry me through.