In a Pickerelweed

What do you do with a thickly furred dog on a 90-degree day? You take him to the river for a walk ‘n’ wade.

Now that midsummer is well underway, the banks of the Ashuelot River here in Keene are thickly fringed with Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata), a blue-blossomed flower with heart-shaped leaves. Pictures don’t do this year’s crop of Pickerelweed justice. My trusty Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide says that Pickerelweed is “Common on margins of rivers and ponds,” and they ain’t lying. Right now the shores of the Ashuelot are smudged with blue blossoms, as if Mother Nature were wearing eyeshadow.

Although Pickerelweed is abundant and strikingly noticeable along the banks of the Ashuelot, I can’t seem to get any good photographs. Apparently I need to invest in a pair of hipwaders–or a canoe–to get anything other than fuzzy, taken-from-shore shots:

In person, the blurry blue of the near Pickerelweed is perfectly mirrored by a smudge of blue on the opposite shore: a river outlined in blue. But these pictures don’t do these “weeds” justice.

I also can’t seem to get a decent shot of the Water Lilies (Nymphaea) that are also currently in bloom in tranquil, lily-padded shallows:

It seems that whenever I try to get a satisfactory close-up of either Pickerelweed or Water Lily, a Certain Someone gets in the way: