nichepoetryandprose

My husband and I love to go exploring the New Brunswick countryside. We have been on most roads in southern New Brunswick. Mud is no barrier, because we have a Toyota Tacoma as transportation.

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Our purposes for these drives are many. Time together is the main goal. I am interested in waterways and botany. My husband is interested in woodlands, exercise, and collecting recyclable bottles and cans from the ditches.

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Our drive last week was on Highway 625 from Cross Creek (near Stanley) to Boisetown. This is a rough gravelled road, marked as ‘Closed to Through Traffic’ this time of year, due to water and mud on the road.

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The road is through woods, mostly hardwood, and features the now abandoned community of Mavis Mills.

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Among the various hardwood species present are yellow and white birch, red and sugar maple, ash, and poplar. The poplar were flowering and hanging with catkins, much to the dismay of my nasal passages (I am allergic to certain plant pollens).

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The road crosses a few large streams and the Taxis River.

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The community of Mavis Mills once included a lumber mill and camp, a post office and a train stop. The community was named by a lumberman for his daughter, Mavis Mobbs. The community had a post office from 1922 to 1928. The 1921 Census shows a boarder and miller, John Mobbs, in Stanley Parish and below his name a mill camp with 31 men. Every evidence of the community is now gone, except a two-track road and remnants of a one-time flower garden. We visited there in the summer of 2020 when I was working on my poetry collection about abandoned communities and the remains of their flower gardens. The garden we found here has a healthy population of golden Alexanders, Zizia aurea, and other flowers. For a glimpse of the other garden plants and more of Mavis Mills’ history, see my post by searching the term ‘Mavis Mills.’

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On our April drive I only photographed one herbaceous flowering plant, coltsfoot, Tussilago farfara. It fills some roadside ditches in early spring and many people confuse it with dandelion. Unlike dandelion, coltsfoot blooms before its leaves appear and has scaly, leafless stems. For more about coltsfoot and my poem about the plant, see https://janetims.com/?s=coltsfoot

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The best part of our drive was our picnic beside a small stream. We had cheddar cheese, smoked turkey sandwiches, and ginger snaps. The sound of water over stones was our dinner music.

Hope you go on some explorations of your own this spring and summer.

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All my best,

Jane