It turned into a truly gorgeous day, and I was wondering if I could talk myself into going for a walk when I got home from the vendor event, because I'd been up since 4 am, and knew I'd probably just want to crash.
Then I remembered there is a lovely little nature preserve just off the interstate on my way home. It's at Fruitvale Road, north of Muskegon. I've been there a couple of times before, and thought I remembered the vegetation as being a lot more weedy. Maybe they've been doing some work to clear non-native plants. It's a nice shady place to walk on a hot day. I walked for an hour and did almost all the trails. The one drawback is that it's near US 31, so you really can't get away from the traffic noise anywhere.
I walked almost all the trails today, including two I haven't done before (this is my third visit). This is a big old beech tree on the Rim Trail.
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The Canada Mayflower, Maianthemum canadense, is starting to bloom.
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There were actually a number of large trees in the property. This is a really big red maple.
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Carleton Creek is in the center of the preserve, and there used to be a fish hatchery there. A small dam keeps one portion of the creek ponded up a bit. It's been a cool, shady, dark green space every time I've been there.
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Here's another picture of Gaywings, looking very perky. Those two toothed leaves in front belong to something else, however.
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The vendor event went pretty well. Didn't sell a lot, but didn't lose money. Here are a couple of free pictures from the school yard.
The magnolia tree was just about done blooming, but a couple of blossoms were still intact.
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And although I'm not a huge fan of ornamental crabapples, I do like these dark ones.
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Now, I'm clean and fed and plan to relax for the evening.
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1 comment:
A perfect way to end the day. I like the view lookig up into those trees in the third picture down. The crabapple tree reminds me of the ones we had in our front yard when I was growing up.
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