Nature Trail

 With all of the mud that just seems to not go away, we are long overdue for a nature walk. The fields are still too muddy to walk back to the trees behind the farm we are staying at so I found a nature trail nearby. When we had a warm spell, we decided to take advantage of it and visit the trail.

 There is a trail with a large pond. I thought that these shallow water plants made a good picture.

 I just love the swirl pattern on this stem. For the life of me, I can't remember the name of this. An insect lives inside. I find with so much on my mind, I'm more forgetful. I can't even find this online right now. I have lost my resourcefulness, temporarily. A nature walk can be so helpful when times are tense.

 I have read that nature walks help kids with behavioural problems. Lately that would be my kids. None of us have been ourselves, but I think there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Things will change soon.

 The trees have such a simple perfection to them. There is just something so perfect about this picture. Don't you think?

 Austyn and I decided to study the bark of the trees since that seemed to be the most noticable thing while we walked. It seemed like a good time for a comparison. I will post a separate post on this. We also found other things to look closely at while studying bark. I'll do a post on that as well. Here is a stick that Austyn is holding up so that he can see the moss close up.

 Zoe decided that she wanted to climb this hill.

 Austyn noticed the base of this tree and wanted me to take a picture of it. It looks so cool!

 Austyn noticed that most of the pine trees had their branches come off of the trunk in a perfect circle around the tree. Check out how the branches come out of the trunk in a ring around the tree, then no branches for a couple of feet and another ring of branches. It was like this all the way up each one of these trees.

 The large vines growing up through the canopy are great for trying to swing on.

 Zoe is too noisy for us to get close to any animals but we could still see tracks. Here is a deer track.

 Some of the trees had this black stuff on it. It kind of looks like the left over of a cooked marshmellow on a stick and then burned. I've seen these on trees before. I'm not sure what it is. These walks give us more questions. This is one of those questions for further research.

We couldn't decide if this is one tree or many.

We will likely return to this trail. I think this hike calls for more research and also for a return hike to look for more interesting things. I was told that there are lots of fish and turtles around the pond in the summer.

Bark study post to follow and also a post on other things we found while studying the bark.