It's a couple of days after the start of the trout season. I joined Mark not to fish but to enjoy the hike and photograph the wildflowers currently in bloom. Knowing there will be many repeat visits to this particular site in the Turtle Creek Watershed and in keeping with the spirit of the many hikes with Suzanne, where we would keep detailed logs of the wildflowers we would see in bloom along the way, writing notes in our field guides on their location and date of witnessing the bloom-- I present my field notes. The skunk cabbage and newly emerging knotweed reminded me of the field seasons working along and in flood plains. Flipping a few flat rocks revealed a red striped salamander and pockets of Carabid beetles huddled together on this chilly day. With fingers pinched around the legs of a few fine specimens I asked Mark, "do you want some live bait?" as he cast his line not really expecting a bite. It is disheartening recognizing an aggressive invasive species like the knotweed just starting to poke out of the ground and seeing how pervasive it is; seeing just how much it will crowd out, knowing just how large these small purple asparagus looking aliens will become. I did my best along the way to disrupt as many of these invaders as I could. The white trillium is in bloom. Where it existed on the steepest and least accessible slopes, they were out in numbers. As we walked the trail along side the railroad tracks I was surprised to find a single unmolested plant, even more shocked to look up beside the trickling waterfall over layers of shale to see hundreds of plants in bloom. Trout lilies with their purple mottled leaves and bright yellow dangling blooms highlighted the still gray ground and surroundings. I don't know why, but I'm always excited to see these little plants. Walking further along, until we had finally bypassed any of the other people out fishing for the day, we came across a large patch of Virginia Bluebells.