Fishies!

 The eye doctor's office has a very nice aquarium with five fairly large fish. I know nothing about fish except that these are pretty and the aquarium was very clean.

I did quite a lot today. Two doctor appointments, got gas, got groceries. Then I rested and went to bell choir practice. It was tiring, but I did OK.

This picture also has two fish. There is a black one on the bottom that kind of folds up its fins and sits in the rocks.

OF course, you know I like the blue one.

I need to stay awake for another 45 minutes to take pills, but I might fudge on that a bit. I don't think I can sit up much longer. But today was a good day. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I won't be sorry if it's a little better, but I guess I'm getting used to the up-down nature of this recovery.

See Not a Smooth Line

The Rest of Yesterday

 After yesterday's hike, a lot of people went to a restaurant in Baldwin for food. No pictures there, sorry.

But then Bill and Bob wanted to go to the Lake County Museum. On the hike, I had talked about the defunct MacDougall Lodge which is very near that section of trail on the Pere Marquette River. Mac Road, which can be found intermittently throughout Lake County is named for the family. Grant MacDougall designed a boat in the mid-1900s specifically for taking groups on river trips from the lodge. Just that morning, Bill and Bob had visited the site of the old lodge.

So we went to look at the MacDougall boat the museum has. You can see more of this story at Explore NCT.

Also in the boat room, there is a very nice Chris Craft, and some funny bathing suits.

The museum has a lot of permanent displays including this one about local logging history, but they also have three rooms where they change out the exhibits a few times a year.

We stayed until they closed. Right across the street is the art installation celebrating the Brown Trout which was first released in the US here in Baldwin. I've been meaning to get a picture of it for a long time. Finally remembered to do it.

Today was just as I said. I edited, and edited, got a load of laundry washed and dry before it rained, wrote my LDN column, and wrote chapter 30 of Vacation from DMS (882 words). I'm about worded out for one day.

See November SPW hike

Conservation Trail - Murder Creek Re-re-re-re-visited

 Except for some wet weeds, today was a pretty nice hike. We waited until noon to start because it was raining fairly hard in the morning. We got sprinkled on a little bit, but not bad.

We crossed Murder Creek for the first time today at 1:53. This is the creek we crossed once yesterday. But now it was placid and grassy.

Before long, it had changed character completely to this rocky stream.

We followed it through a park, crossing again on this nice footbridge.

Walking beside it, there is an arch for the footpath in this bridge that carries Clarence Center Road.

Finally, we crossed it one more time, where it is now wider. It flows into Tonawanda Creek which flows to the Niagara River.

Legend has it that a Tuscarawas Chief loved his daughter so much that he became jealous when a young brave came to court her, and he killed them both. Murder Creek.

Miles hiked so far in 2024: 292.9. Finger Lakes Trail miles hiked in 2024: 25.6

Conservation Trail, Western NY. NY Thruway to Clarence Center Rd. 6.8 miles

BONUS SECTION: Critters

It was a great day for seeing critters. Ones I could not catch with the camera include a brown thrasher, a mockingbird, and a small snake- possibly a red-belly.

This snail was easy to take pictures of. It moved so slowly, we decided not to wait long enough for it to extend its antennae all the way. But it was fun to watch. I have to wonder what a snail thinks when it is suddenly hoisted from the ground to sit in a hand that must smell really odd to it.

This handsome redtail hawk did not like us walking on the trail below and was very vocal about it.

We got an extra treat in the evening with a visit to another garden, but that will have to wait for another day. However, there was a friendly lawn bunny that was quite used to people.

A big ol' bullfrog is always fun.

The garden had ponds with beautifully colored koi.

But the best find of the day (well, I really did like the snail too) was a fledgling red-wing blackbird. It was just learning to fly and wasn't doing a very good job of it yet. Mama was close by.

This is way more than enough for one day!

See Murder Creek

Seneca Park Zoo - Bright and Weird

  I'll show you more of our zoo visit today. Too bad these beauties are poisonous. The yellow banded, and blue poison dart frogs are native to South America. Apparently they are not a danger to each other since they stopped for an afternoon chat.

If I were ever going to go to the expense and trouble of an aquarium, it would be a salt-water aquarium. I don't know the kinds of fish, but they are swimming among corals and anemones.

Here's another frog from Central America. This is the Panamanian Golden Frog. It's critically endangered. I know he's hiding, but at least I got a glimpse of it.

This one is totally weird. This is Henkel's Leaf-Tailed Gecko from Madagascar. There were two of them just plastered flat to the glass like this. From the top side, they looked like dead leaves. You know what's really weird? The front feet seem to have the suction pads in the right place, but look at the back feet. It an animal spreads its back legs out straight, the tops of the feet would be touching the glass. But these geckos seem to be doing just that and there are suction pads holding them in place.

Finally for today, I'll show you an animal which is native to the northeast U.S. But I've never seen one in the wild. This is a Hellbender. It's a giant salamander- the gray blob beneath the log. They are really unique in that they breathe through their skin. To be honest, I thought these were the same as a mudpuppy, but they are not. I'm glad it wasn't completely hiding. This one was only about a foot long, but they can get almost three times as big.

Today was our last day. We finished the book we've been reading together, we played our game, we ate whatever we wanted. It was a nice relaxing day. This blog is supposed to be only the good stuff, so I'll try not to tell you that I'm sad. Tomorrow we each head home although it will take me a couple of days to get there. It's been wonderful!

See African Animals

Day Two on the Knobstone Trail

 
Here is my after-the-fact, better account of the second day (Thursday, June 18) of hiking on the Knobstone Trail. I made it 10 miles before I was again way overheated. It didn't feel as bad as day one, but clearly I was not going to make up the "lost" miles, so I switched to a more leisurely hike. This decision is recounted in the post from the trail, linked below.

The highlight of the day was lunch and a rest at Big Oxbow Creek. This was one of only two creeks where there was still flowing water in the entire 44 miles. The most interesting feature was the tall shale wall. There were some low shale walls in other creeks, but most of the rock in the area was red, and eroded into rounded cobbles and pebbles. This cliff provided shade and a nice growing surface for plants that like that kind of place. There's a longer shot in the linked post.



The reliable water meant that fish were able to survive. These guys were about 4 inches long. I have no idea what kind they are.



One of the best parts of the entire hike was that the forest was almost always filled with Wood Thrush song. They make such beautiful music! I'm pretty sure that's what this is. It flew down to the water and took a bath. So by the time I got the camera ready it was soaking wet. And I didn't get any pictures with sharp focus. But I'm pretty happy to have gotten a picture at all. The breast spots don't seem round enough, but that might be because it's wet.



And I found another new plant that day. I may have seen this one before, but not to actually identify it. This is Large Yellow Wood Sorrel, Oxalis grandis. It looks pretty much like the ones that grow in everybody's lawn or on the roadsides, but it's much larger, and notice how the leaves are slightly edged in purple. What caught my eye is that the seed pods stick straight up. Look at the ones in your yard and it's most likely that the seed stalk will have a bend in it. There are several species.



I chose a hilltop campsite. Those tended to have a slight breeze. Anything of that nature was welcome. High 80s for the temperatures again. I did manage to cook a dinner and eat it. It's hard for me to care about food when I'm hot. I also showed you that meal when I blogged from the trail, so it's in the post linked below.



The biggest challenge of the evening was ants. Big ants, little ants, red biting ants. Ants. The orange food bag is not hung for the night yet, but I did temporarily hang it from that tree just to get it off the ground. The ants were crawling all over the food bags (but mostly not getting in). They did get in my dinner, and I spent some quality time drowning them and removing them from my meal.

So, day 2, with the 2.5 miles I did the first evening, 10.5 and 10, I was at 23 miles- over halfway. But the temperatures continued to climb. Stay tuned.

In other current news: I spent most of the day sitting with ice packs on my feet and legs, trying to get the swelling from the poison ivy to go down. I think it's getting better, but this is the worst I've had it in a while. I did manage to do laundry and make yogurt. And some good news on the writing front: I outlined all the rest of the next children's book, The Lonely Donkey.

See Plan B

orChid, Koi, Catskills

 
Today was another day of non-stop errands and appointments for Marie. Of course I tagged along.

We had ourselves a mini-mini flower show by walking through the garden section of a store we were in. Don't know its name, but I like the random spots on this orchid.



They also had a pond full of Koi in an interesting variety of colors. Look near the middle of the picture and you'll see one with a purple back and orange belly.



Even though there is all kinds of traffic and wires and "stuff" in the foreground, I like this picture because it shows how the Catskill Mountains just loom all around the civilized spaces.



Tomorrow, we have a couple of short errands, but then we hope to just hang out and be together for a while. Whew.

I got my monthly newspaper column written.

	See Loving Mountains
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Other Wildlife from the Hike

 
I have to say that we did see quite a bit of wildlife on this hike. Only one sighting was "unusual," but all were enjoyable.

I've already showed you the snail, the bullfrog, and one of the many, many great blue herons. Actually we saw one or more of those almost every day.

The very first day out we joked that we saw one of just about everything common: rabbit, woodchuck, chipmunk, squirrel, heron, geese, garter snake...

So, I'll get right to the point and show you the special thing first. This is special not because it's uncommon, but wood ducks are pretty secretive, so I think it was awesome to see mama wood duck with a row of babies. They were paddling fast for the cover of some reeds. You won't see her leading the babies out on a grassy lawn like mallards do.



We saw surprisingly few turtles given that we were beside water almost all the time. I suppose the rivers are a bit too swift, but I think the canal would be ideal. The ones we did see were often covered in duckweed. This isn't really a problem for the turtle, but it's not too photogenic.



There didn't seem to be as many deer as we have here, but since Michigan is sort of paved with deer, that isn't saying much. This one wasn't very concerned about us.


Here's a nice butterfly that posed for me. Pretty sure this is a Silvery Checkerspot.



This sighting gave me a good laugh. Someone's koi must have washed into the canal from a backyard pond during a rainstorm. It's now a seriously sized fish. Terrible picture, but it does prove what I saw.

And since goldfish and koi are nothing more than pretty carp, it's a great segue into another story. The last day of the hike I encountered two young men walking beside a pond watching the water and carrying bows and arrows. I asked them if they were planning to shoot fish. "No," said one, "just carp."

OK... I said "Well, carp are fish, although they aren't worth anything." They agreed. Then I asked if they were doing something unusual, or if there are lots of people who hunt fish with bows and arrows. "There are lots of us," they said.

Since then, I've seen articles on the internet about this odd sport. Interesting.



I saved what I consider to be the funniest picture for last. The campsite had a resident woodchuck. I told the manager that the city was going to have to put her on the payroll because she went around in the mornings and cleaned up bits of things left around the fire rings.

But this pose just makes me laugh. She looks like a 1930's pin-up poster. Well, ok, maybe she has more fur and too much overbite.



Next up... plants.

	See 17-Year Cicadas
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Spring-y Break

 
At work, one of the office people brought in these nest cakes for our break, and she remembered us filthy folk in the mailroom!



It was a wonderful day, made it into the 60s. I was out doing cases. Had to walk some more. So sad. Not. Here's a little lake I did not even know existed. Casin Lake.



And there is some spring-y activity going on there too. The fishies are swimming. Can you find them?



And the geese seem to be looking for a nest site.



Warm sun with cool air, a nice walk. What more could I need?

	See Hiking and Watching the Fishermen
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