Day 53: Bells of blue

Another rainy day, or at least that was the forecast and yet somehow we managed to get out at a time when the sun made the car feel like midsummer. After a run-in with some desperate sale shoppers we headed off somewhere quieter. Our plan was to head to the nature reserver at Burns Bog and wander the trails there, but after a quick Tim Hortons refreshment stop we changed plans and ended up at a real dump of a place. Or rather, an ex-dump: Everett Crowley park is the former site of the Vancouver landfill, and is in the lengthy process of being returned to its former natural state. Currently it's a small network of well-graded gravel paths, with a few more adventurous trails leading off through the recovering (most deciduous) forest.

The scent of the cottonwood trees was overpowering, filling our nostrils and saturating our sense of smell. Personally I quite like it, but I've heard that it's misery for others. Other trees in leaf included oaks, big-leaf maples and alder. I was expecting more flowers, given the disturbed nature of the land, but the only competitor to the dandelions were isolated clumps of (non-native) bluebells. Now normally I go off on a rant about introduced species but I have a soft spot for bluebells, and not just because they're Maria's favourite flower. Plus they don't seem to be taking over, unlike many other invasive species, being mostly restricted to manicured (or in this case, somewhat unmanicured) parks and gardens.

It wasn't the bluebell-filled woods of my childhood, the classic English spring time woodland scene, but bluebells are bluebells and they're simply irresistible.

Bluebells