Erm, have we skipped a few months?

Saturday dawned sunny, warm, and glorious, and feeling like May.  Alas, my husband, who is my usual woods walking companion, had to work.  However, my dear friend M also felt the itch to wander outdoors in all the sunshine with cameras.  He'd never been to Clark Reservation before, so I decided to take him there.

Clark Reservation was the perfect place to go.  I was afraid that some other parks (like Green Lakes) would be far, far too popular in that amazing weather, but Clark Reservation never seems overcrowded.  We had most of the trails to ourselves.

It was a glorious day for both the walk and the photography.  Poor M arrived there, took out his camera, and discovered he didn't have his SD card for it.  Oops.  Bless him, he still had infinite patience with my photography efforts, stopping and waiting for me without complaint.

I loved some of the shots that look like abstract art.

We found some very surprising early early flowers.  Bloodroot Hepatica (thanks Woodswalker!) (which according to this blog I believe the earliest I've ever seen is April 3):

some Trout Lilies just getting started but not in bloom,

and Myrtle,

which was in blossom on a prior visit to Clark Reservation on May 4, 2010.  I hope these poor brave flowers aren't shocked by a snowfall this year, but according to the forecasts I think they will shortly be joined by a lot of other early spring flowers, all at once.

Even the turtles had decided to emerge from their mud to sun themselves.

M gets the credit for spotting this shot of moss:

And M also gets the credit for being brave enough to wade into the stream to get this shot:

Here he is, just about to wade in:

All in all, it was a magnificent way to spend a Saturday afternoon.  The sunshine was positively good for my soul, and the company excellent.  I confess I am concerned about the implications of this weather relative to climate change.  But there's another part of me that is just basking in the glory of 70+ degree days and worrying about sunburn... in March.  I remember the blizzard of '93 happened in March.  What a contrast!

Enjoy the rest of my shots from the day.

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Living Things

On Sunday's walk at Clark Reservation, we stumbled upon several glens just filled with trillium:

I usually think of trillium as coming in two colors: red and white.  However, there were many pink trillium (trillia?  trilliums?) at Clark Reservation, which I found enchanting merely because I don't often see them:

As with most of the places we go this time of year, there were huge patches of myrtle along the trail and stretching far into the woods:

I have no idea what these are, although they look naggingly familiar.  Without flowers, my odds of successfully identifying a plant are minimal.  I just loved the whorled pattern of their leaves, though, and the little touches of purple myrtle in the background:

A white throated sparrow nicely posed for me:

I desperately need to acquire a flowering trees and shrubs field guide.  I can't name this, although like so many other things we saw, it looks familiar.  I just love the hanging bunches:

And apparently it produces berries:

We saw quite a number of snakes, which I'm also terrible at identifying.  Add "reptile field guide" to my list of things to purchase.  I assume this fellow is just a garter snake, although I was particularly impressed by his white spots, which you can see in the second photo.  He wasn't patient with me, though, and was slithering mighty quickly away from me.  I don't blame him.  Every single time I see a snake move at full speed I am astounded by the physics of it.  How can they do that without legs???  Evolution is amazing.

There were some strawberry flowers about already, and an ant busily explored this one.

Again, this looks familiar, but I can't name it.  Anyone have a flowering shrub field guide to recommend?

My husband spotted some columbine clinging to a cliff.  I simply adore the stuff.  I'm not sure if it's the way the petals are nested, or the cute little crown points, or the spray of anthers and stamen from the center, but for some reason it's one of my favorite flowers:

Finally, I actually had to look this one up in the flower book, as I don't think I've ever spotted it before.  It's purple clematis:

I sometimes contemplate how much more exercise we'd get if we walked quickly and I didn't stop to photograph everything I see.  But then I promptly think, nah, that would be so boring.  And I don't think I'd be able to bypass all the flowering/hopping/slithering things if I tried.

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Muggy Sunday

We finally managed to get caught up enough on errands and to-do lists to take a little ramble in the woods on Sunday.  The forecast was predicting severe thunderstorms, but we decided to just pack a plastic bag for the camera and risk getting soaked ourselves.  Our thumbing our noses at the forecast worked, as nary a drop fell on our heads.  But oy!  It would have been welcome.  It was so humid the air was viscous, and within minutes we were mighty sticky.

We opted to drive over to Clark Reservation to see if it was even open.  Clark Reservation is a wonderful spot for a walk in the woods, but is sadly on New York State's list of park closures.  We got lucky, though.  Although there was no Ranger to be seen, and no one collecting money, the gates were open.  Even the rest rooms were open, although not terribly clean. 

Clark Reservation is chock full of interesting glaciology, and makes for a challenging walk because of its craggy rocks.  The hounds are out of practice and out of shape, and several times took faceplants into the crevices before they found their rock climbing legs.

Because Lucy has a stumpy leg and can be a bit clumsy, we tried out a new harness on her that is specifically designed for rock climbing:

It gives us a good handle for hoisting when she needs the boost, and has nice secure, padded straps to make it more comfortable for her.  It's actually designed so you can rock climb with a dog - as in, sling her over your shoulder and climb on up with ropes.  I'm not that brave or that strong, but it was great for our hike Sunday and will be perfect for Adirondack high peaks.

Have I mentioned that I love Ruffwear gear for dogs?  

The rocks were enchanting, what with all their crevices and cracks and all the hearty life that grows out of those cracks.

We spotted a tiny toad contemplating leaping across the great divide:

I'm not entirely sure what causes the cool pattern of cracks in this photo, but it's amazing.


The hounds did wonderfully well and enjoyed being in the woods.  They haven't been outside nearly enough all winter, and whuffled and sniffed their way along with evident joy.

One of the (many) hazards of having ridiculously short legs is that one's nose and tongue are closer to the ground than they ought to be.  For some reason, Simon always collects lots of dirt on his tongue, which just makes me want to scrape my own tongue.  Pleh.  It doesn't seem to bother him in the least, but then, he has no qualms about eating bugs, wood, rotting animals, kitty litter, or poop.  A little dirt is remarkably clean by comparison.

In Sunday's heat and humidity the hounds went through a lot of water.  I guess they had to get the dirt off their tongues somehow.  Have I mentioned that my ridiculous dogs have to share everything?

Spouse and hounds, lookin' happy:

We wandered the upper trails for quite a while, then decided to go down all the stairs and walk around the lake as well.  Unfortunately, in the low light levels my camera and I failed to work well together, and most of my pictures turned out pretty crummy, particularly on the lower trail.  I tried a variable ISO setting on the camera that I will not be using again.  It pays to take the time to work out the proper settings.  The camera is not always smarter than I am, apparently, which is both good and bad.

The water level in the lake was extremely high, as you can see below.  Judging by how stressed some of the trees looked, I would guess it's been high for a while.  There is a lovely wetland at one end of the lake that seems remarkably prehistoric.  I kept expecting giant dragon flies the size of the dogs to come zooming through.  Sadly, my pictures of it stink.

I have lots of pictures of flowers and creatures that I will hopefully have time to post tomorrow. 

It's a fascinating place, and I just hope it wasn't my last walk ever in Clark Reservation.  Honestly, sometimes New York State government makes me crazy.

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