An Easter bouquet of some of Central Appalachia's finest spring wildflowers, courtesy of Core Arboretum at West Virginia University.
From top: cutleaf toothwort (Cardamine concatenata); Virginia spring beauty (Claytonia virginica); Carolina spring beauty (Claytonia caroliniana); sessile trillium (Trillium sessile); twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla); immature golden ragwort (Packera aurea); dwarf larkspur (Delphinium tricorne); Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica), including a rare white-flowered variation; woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata), also known as wild blue phlox; harbinger of spring (Erigenia bulbosa), also known as pepper and salt; Dutchman's breeches (Dicentra cucullaria); downy yellow violet (Viola pubescens); yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum), also known as dog-tooth violet; and celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum), also known as wood poppy.
GoFund.me/bbadceea Please help my aunt keep my mother's house. My mom would have been 66 on Monday, Feb 12th if not for being prescribed hydroxyzine! It takes paying a lawyer to inherit a fully paid off house. My mom lived in that house for 40 years. Please help us keep it in the family.
Shoyu ramen from Yama, in Downtown Morgantown. Unquestionably one of my favorite meals from one of my favorite restaurants.
I’ve always been partial to cramped establishments. There’s something about sitting nearly shoulder to shoulder with perfect strangers in a cramped room that makes the food taste better.
Sunday was a gorgeous day for a bike ride, balmy and softly lit by the late Winter sun. The smooth alder (Alnus serrulata) is in bloom along the river - the catkins are incredibly beautiful to me. More whimsical are the pointy-capped flowers of the eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), which emerge from the muddy margins of local swamps in mid-February. At mile marker 17 (last photo from the bottom), I spotted my first bald eagle of the season - a mature, solitary bird who got away before I could get my camera positioned. I'll try again next weekend.
As of tonight, the repair fund will hit $2200. I want about $3K in hand before I call the garage to make an appointment. I'd like to get the engine repair and any inspection-passing work done in one go.
The car managed the trip to Morgantown okay, but oh boy, it does NOT like Easton Hill or Willey St. It's currently much happier on the relatively flatter and straighter highways east of Pittsburgh.