 Welcome to our virtual wildflower weekend. We have a lot of wildflowers to look for here. Here in Kentucky, the Red River Gorge at the wilds, there are cabins here. You can rent right on this property. And this is a book that our Nana and Grandpa wrote. It's the Wildflowers and Friends of Red River Gorge and the Greater Red River Basin. Nana, we should go look by the creek because there's a lot of wildflowers by there. All right, let's do it. These are edible and they're just tiny. They got tiny little serrated leaves and there's like three. And then the flowers, there's lots of them on here and they are edible and they're very delicious. We got Ruinemimi, it's this little white flower. It has these little white poem things. And then we got these spring beauties here. All right, all next to the tooth wart that we just showed. And they're these little white flowers with the pink veins and they are also very edible. And over here we have some blood root. Okay, so we found, so here's our Ruinemimi that we've been looking at. And right here is our, and the blood root, you can see the difference in the petals where this one has a lot less and they're a little bit bigger. And this one has a lot more. They have this, the Ruinemimi has a lot more little like pollinator things. And also has a lot more flowers. And the blood root has like a big leaf right next to it. And if you dig it up, it brings this big red, or you can dye stuff with the roots. So we'll get that out and we'll be right back. We dug it up and washed it off. And it has a very red root, but the thing that's even better about it is if you open it up, it has this dye that people used to dye things with. And it works very well. You can use it as food coloring. And it's orange, but. Blood root. Blood root, yeah. It looks kind of like a carrot if you look at it. And it dyes very, very well. That's great. Okay, so here we have in our yard this little blue violet. They start blooming about this time. Here's one that's about to bloom soon. They're really pretty and they have it inside. And it's really pretty. It's like white and then all these little veins that lead up to make the purple. And you can see them like all around. And they are edible. You can eat them only the flower go. And they come in many different colors, like yellow and white and a bunch of different colors. Okay, so these little, the little petals right here, they're like little landing pads. So when a little insect comes to pollinate it, it lands on it. So then they can pollinate it easier than most of the other flowers that are here. But they're very delicious. Okay, this is my favorite wildflower. This is Nana talking. My favorite wildflower is Bird's Foot Violet. And I love it because it has the dark purple on top and the lighter purple on the bottom. And to me it looks very royal and regal. And it likes to grow in sunny, kind of dry spots like this hillside next to the trail. Look at that beauty. Redbud, they're really pretty. They're all around here. And they are very pretty. They're like a pink, purple. I don't know what color that is, but they're like, they can get pretty big. They're not like the biggest tree though. And they are edible and they're really good. You can put them and make jam with them and stuff. So we're here at Misesdon Farm. The site of many wildflower walks in the past. This was Dan and Mai's farm. But our daughter and son-in-law bought the farm. And now we're looking for flowers. Like a toad. Yeah, we have a crept in them. And there are hundreds of them, probably thousands. We're gonna look at it. Okay, so yeah, let's see this. This is the little scratch mark. So something obviously lives in here. I would think something in here would be chipmunk or even some kind of snake. They might lay their eggs in here, which is pretty cool. But you're right, something's been chewing that out. Snakes couldn't really do that. Not snakes, but probably a rodent. Yeah, chipmunk. Okay, go ahead. Okay, so in this hole, little bum hole tree. And we're gonna be looking through here to see if we find any snakes or anything that would live in here. Cause you can tell something's been going back and forth in here, cause it's all scratched up on the side. Very good. It's just about to start. Callie, don't go in. A ravine salamander. A ravine salamander. This is a tiny little baby. He's really cute. And he's fast. And he likes to jump. We got another one. Look at that. Salamander. They're really cool. They're kind of like, it's, they're really chubby. They're really big ones. And we have a worm. Right here. I found a worm. I saw it popping out of the ground. These ones are cool. Cause they look like they have lichens grown on them. Which you can find on trees, like right here. Yeah, yeah, that's the lichen. Yeah. Again. A slimy salamander. You sometimes do hold them. You get kind of doing stuff on your hands. And then it's hard to get off. Like a slug. So another wildflower that likes dry conditions is the golden Alexander. So here we found a little smooth earth snake. This is pilgrim. They also don't bite. They're a lot like the worm snakes. They have a less pointy tail. How do you tell the difference between those? Their tails are less pokey. Worm snakes have like, a lot more stiff tails. You can eat this rock. Yeah. That's a good find. So here we have bluits. They're another tiny little flower. They're kind of like a bluish purple, like a periwinkle kind of. The yellow inside, and they're really tiny. There's big bunches of them. They're not edible, so don't eat them. And then over here, we have a little worm snake. This is a little baby. Full grown is probably like that big. They're really tiny. They do not bite. They're really nice. You can tell they're a worm snake because of their little tail. It's like a little pointed thing. And they're not, they don't chase you. Snakes don't chase you. They're really nice. I'm always doing what this tongue is just sniffing me. And the little pointed tail, what do they use that for? Why do they have a pointed tail? When an animal tries to tick to eat it, they will use the tail to poke the animal in the eye to try to get it to let go. Ow! Well yeah, would you ask them? They're really smooth. They're not slimy though. Yes. Can you tell her do you want to hold it? So I'm sitting here next to a small vernal pond that Judy and I created about 23 years ago. We put up here. And while the first year, you get a few species that come in like wood frogs and spotted salamanders. After a dozen years, 15, even 20 years, you start to get other species like four-toed salamanders that come in and lay eggs. And they're kind of considered the old growth of amphibians when it comes to these ponds. So we're going to look for four-toed salamanders under places like this where they lay their eggs and see what we can find. We got something here. If you look here, these little eggs are the eggs of this salamander here, the four-toed salamander, which is kind of a neat salamander in Kentucky. They're kind of plain looking on top, but when you turn them over, they have a white belly with spots. Isn't that cool? So now you can see that, as they don't like to be turned over, obviously. But this is a female. And why is she still here? And so what happens is, this is really neat, the females come and lay their eggs under moss, and they sit there with the eggs until the ponds fill up with spring rain. And then the ponds fill up and the eggs hatch, and they basically drop into the water as larvae, really small little salamander larvae about a quarter inch or so. And they're perfect in terms of mosquito control. One of the best ways to control mosquitoes is to build a pond. And of course, it sounds counterintuitive, but what happens is mosquitoes come to the pond, they lay their eggs, and if you have things in there like salamanders with their babies or their larvae, the larvae are eating machines and they eat multitudes of mosquito larvae. And then you get dragonflies that lay eggs, and the adult dragonflies, also called mosquito hawks, will eat the adult mosquitoes. So it's a great habitat for woodland species like Spotted, the four-toed salamander's wood frogs and a number of other species. Nest of four-toed salamander eggs, you can see them right there. They're under this moss grown on this boulder. And again, once the water kind of raises up, these things just drop into the water. So how cool is that? Yeah. There's some eggs over here. Yeah, there's eggs over here. I have Spotted salamanders and Jefferson salamanders. And then that's right, we can pull one up. Let's see. Oh, here we go. So check this out. I know what you're thinking. This looks like somebody blew their nose, but it isn't. So this was laid about probably four weeks ago. And so what you're seeing in here are the elongating larvae of the Spotted salamander. So these things are about a quarter-inch long right now. And probably in the next two weeks, these will hatch. And what's really amazing is, although they're small, like this size right now, a quarter-inch long, they grow and they'll spend three to four months in the pond. And then they metamorphose into sub-adult Spotted, which at some point will be as much as six to seven, even eight inches long, big black salamanders with yellow spots. That's what these turn into. Oh, those things. So how cool is that? Oh, cool. Those are wood frog tentacles. And they're not eating the egg, they're feeding on the algae, which is that green stuff growing on the egg. But the red Spotted nukes actually feed on them. So here we're standing next to a shaggy bark hickory. And what I like about these trees is obviously the bark, the nuts are edible, excellent by the way. But the bark is used by this exfoliating bark, is used by bats. What they do is they land on the tree and they crawl up underneath this exfoliating bark to roost. And so it makes great bat habitat. These are one of my favorite trees for a number of reasons. Anyway. OK, this is golden ragwort here. It's a really pretty flower that blooms around spring and stays up for a very long time till like mid-summer or something. But they're really pretty. They look kind of like little sunflowers to me. And they're normally found in bunches. You can see all around us. There's a lot of them. And they're like, you can find these mostly like anywhere. You got one. OK, so now grandpa and Pallie and Piss, tell us what you're doing, Piss. We're looking for snails. By the way, I'm still not up on them. Oh, no, no. Oh, that is all. And we're digging around the edges of them. OK. And the snails will normally come down here, lay their babies, and like live down here. Pissie. So we found a bunch. Tessie, Wawa, this one's also alive. Yeah, we found some live ones, too. Look at their teeth. Look at those teeth, especially in that one. So snails have teeth? Yeah. They got to eat somehow. They have teeth. Tissie? Yeah. That one live one isn't great, or I talk about it. Tessie, Wawa. OK, this one here is alive. It's hard to see, but they're a little heavier. And they have this little slit in their mouth right here. And those are its teeth, those big things that kind of look like a beak. So that's their teeth. So they eat little insects. And it's really cool, especially when they're alive, because it's kind of hard to see how they live inside a shell when they could barely fit through that little hole. I agree. So another thing that's really cool about land snails at an area like this below limestone can have as much as 50 to 60 different species of land snails within four or five acres. So they can be extremely diverse, especially here in Kentucky along the limestone bluffs. And then what I'm holding here in my hand are snails that have been actually eaten by small mammals like shrews. What they do is they breach through the apex of the top of the shell to get into the flesh of the snail and eat these. So snails are important food sources for a wide range of wildlife species, including wild turkeys, grouse, a number of songbirds, eat them, small mammals. There's even snakes in Kentucky that actually eat slugs and other smaller species of snails and salamanders as well. So these are at the bottom of the food chain. And they're important food sources. And they kind of recycle calcium back into the soils for plants and like wildfires that we enjoy. So there's a whole bunch of different reasons we should at least look for these things and appreciate them for what they are anyway. So we're walking in the woods. And here's the woods. And we come up on this boulder. And there's a really super cool flower here. Callie, you want to show it to us? Point to it. What is it? Is it called columbine? Yeah. It's kind of dead right now, but sooner will grow up and open. Oh no, it's actually open. I'm going to show you something. So here, let me hold it up for you. That's as open as it goes. That's as open as it goes. I want you to look at this. It's alive. OK, we'll look at that in a minute. So see those little holes there? Yeah. Those are for the hummingbirds and other insects to go in. See how they're long and they've got little tubes so they pollinate. More beautiful columbine growing on the rock with moss and more sedum. So here's another one of the early spring wildflowers. It's called lark spur. And in the spring, a lot of the colors of the flowers are purples and yellows. And if you notice, they're really beautiful, almost like royal purple on the plant. Another way you can identify it is because of the deeply cut leaves. And that's one of my favorites. We found a little live snail. It's a little, it's not a baby, but it's not full grown. So it's juvenile. It is alive because it's in there. It shells a little damaged. But this is Appalachina saena. And this one is a little damaged, like I said. They're also talking about these snails here because they eat most of these plants we are talking about. A trillium, this is the red trillium. It does look like the other kind of trillium that's a lot more rare. But that doesn't bloom till a little bit later. So this is the red trillium. They're found mostly on hillsides in early spring, or like mid spring. And they're really pretty. What do they smell like? They smell like wet dogs. They don't smell very good. And they're called trilliums because they have three leaves. OK. Very good. So right next to the trillium, we have something else that's kind of cool. The Canada violet. Another violet they're all edible. And this one you can tell from the white sweet violet is if you turn it over, these top two leaves are a little more purple than the bottom ones. And the white sweet violet just has all white. And they have little white middles. And another little landing pad. A deer skull. It is. Are those like the jaw of a deer? No. Yeah. It's a deer jaw. Show them. I'm going to two. Like yours. What's this? Is that a pennywort? Yeah. Tell them. OK, so this is pennywort. It's an early flower. And Callie found it. Pretty cool. And it's also an indicator of dry land fish or murals. So what does that mean? It's just an association. Sometimes when you find pennywort, you can also find the murals close by. Rich sites, you know, mesic rich sites like this. OK. OK, so here we have another little violet. This is called the yellow violet, very easy to remember. And they're all about the same size. And this one is a lot like the regular purple violet. They have the same little landing pad on the front. And if you turn them around, they're both like have little pod right here. And they're all about the same size and edible. And they're still edible. Yeah. You can even make jelly out of them. So Callie, tell us about your favorite wildflower. This is flocks. And why do you like it so much? Because it smells good and it's really pretty. OK. It is. All right. And then what's this? Stinging nettle. What's it good for? It's good for stinging people, but it's also good to eat. This is one of my favorite wild edible plants here in Red River Gorge, a stinging nettle. It's highly nutritious. And not only that, it's delicious. So we gather it in the springtime when it's about this high. Just pinch it off. It doesn't kill the plant. It re-sprouts. So just pinch off the top. And then take this home and put it in a pot. Steep it for about 10 or 15 minutes. And then eat it. And the nettles, the stinging barbs that are on the stem, dissolve. So they're not a problem. You won't taste them. But the flavor of this is much like that of green beans or even better. And the nutritional value of this plant, being a wild plant, can be as much as 15 or 20 times more potent in terms of minerals than our best store-bought vegetables and things. So anyway, it's an excellent one to gather in the early spring. Let me take a little closer look. There we go. Just don't touch the bottom of it. That's right. And why? Because it will hurt. We are here with the little foam flowers. And these are the little stamens where little tiny insects come land here, pollinate them, and then leave. It's not all the way bloomed yet because these ones are not bloomed like these big ones down here. And there's a whole bunch up here. You can find them by creeks and in the forest. And they're little tiny white ones. You can see next to my finger how tiny they are.