City people don’t have brushcutters. In the country a brushcutter serves an important purpose as so many rural roads are lined with wild plants.
That is the draw of the roads for me. Many plants grow along the roads and are hard to find anywhere else. There are other advantages to plant hunting along the roads too.
Why Walk the Gravel Road?
First and foremost at this time of year is the lack of seed ticks. You’ve never heard of seed ticks? Lucky you.
Ticks lay eggs. When these hatch into hordes of barely larger than microscopic seed ticks starving for a meal, any passerby is fair game. They latch on by the hundreds, even thousands. And bite. And suck up a blood meal. The only good thing about them is their lack of diseases. Those they pick up from their hosts.
Second is the ease of walking. Roads, even gravel roads, are fairly open, level and hard making walking easy. Pastures and hills are much harder walking due to exuberant plant growth and terrain.
Third is the definite path. I don’t know how many plants I’ve found out in the woods and could never find again. Not even trying to have a landmark near the plant helps as some creature can come by eating or stepping on it.
Disaster Looms
My nemesis is the brushcutter.
This huge machine has a rotary blade on a long, jointed arm. It mows down every plant along the road to a height of four inches. It shatters tree limbs to keep them from sagging down into the road.
I am left with few alternatives. One, I can stop photographing plants for the year. Two, I can restrict my walks to ShawneeMac Lakes Conservation Area. Or three, I can brave the seed ticks out in the fields.
No sprays seem to discourage seed ticks. I will lay in a supply of masking tape to remove them. And continue to take pictures.
