Calhoun County Trailway

 I left Marianne's this morning. Always so much fun there. She thinks we hadn't done a picture of me with the NCT snowman, so we had to...

Of course, I wanted to stop and hike some NCT miles to break up the drive home. I forgot that this particular section is a wide dirt trail, the Calhoun County Trailway, but that's OK. And it's lined with junk vegetation, alien Tatarian Honeysuckle and Garlic Mustard. But I almost didn't care because things were starting to green up! Saw a big blue dragonfly, and another smaller one. I hiked in shorts and a t-shirt!

This is roughly parallel to the Kalamazoo River.

I went as far as this big bridge. Of course the trail goes into the woods just past here, but I needed to turn around.

And what is this bridge for, you ask? It carries the trail across a large, unnamed wetland (freshwater marsh) that drains into the river.

It's a premier day, because I identified a new-to-me plant. This little thing has been bugging me for a couple of years. It's alien, of course, but it's a cress. Hoary Bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta to be exact. It is edible as a salad green, so I'll have to watch for it around here. It's working its way north, and has supposedly been found in Mason County.

It has a dainty basal rosette.

The four petals convinced me it was a cress (member of the Brassicaceae- cabbage, mustard- family). But I needed a good picture of the rosette and the stem leaves to get the actual ID.

I'm saving half of this hike to share tomorrow. The road was closed to get to where I wanted to start, so I parked beside the road, walked one direction, came back and beyond, did the part I wanted to do, and came back to the car. The second piece is what I want to show you, but I have to do some research, so I'll save it.

I got off even the state highways as early as I could, to still make it home in time for bell practice. The trucks were just annoying me. Greening fields, farms, and small towns brought me joy. I did a modified version of one of my favorite activities. I didn't have time to not use a map and just drift north and west on any old road, so I used the atlas to stay on paved roads and not get "caught" on the wrong side of a lake or accidentally go through a large town.

Found myself crossing Hardy Dam. The water was blue, so I had to try for a "drive-by-shooting" picture.

I timed it perfectly. Got home just in time for bell choir practice.

Total miles hiked in 2024: 189.6 of which 69.6 is North Country Trail.

North Country Trail, railroad culvert bridge at Historic Bridge Park to wetland bridge in Calhoun County, MI and back. 3 miles

See Historic Bridge Park to Ott See A Visit to Hardy Dam

Cold, but Sunny

 It was 16 degrees this morning, but a small group of us decided to hike a few miles. The awesome news is that the sun was out most of the time!

This is the same section I hiked last week (link below), but things certainly look different today. And look at the shadows!

Six of us met and broke new trail in the snow.

We had two dogs with us. You know Koa, and you know that she is pretty small, about 20 pounds. But look how tiny Roxy is! Roxy is a Tibetian Spaniel. I'd never heard of that. She will only grow to be about 15 pounds. She's so tiny that she got to ride in a pack the whole way, and even with her warm coat and being in a pouch, she curled into a ball and hunkered down. You can see the little lump in Peg's front carrier in the picture above.

Naturally, the topic of greatest discussion was the blue sky. And what a lovely shade of blue it was!

Other than that I did some editing and writing. Walking in the snow was hard. I stressed my sore knee a bit.

Total miles hiked in 2024: 102.7 of which 18.7 is North Country Trail.

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI. Timber Creek TH to FR 6428 and back. 5.2 miles

See Before the Rain