Just go for it...

Sometimes I go for the hard and swift hikes.

Thursday I took Hannah and left Charlie at home. I wanted to do a 'hard and swift' hike. I had the route all planned out.

I was using my running vest instead of a backpack.

They sort of look like this:

It is so light! It is nice to carry water and a few useful items in the pocket in back.

My average with Hannah was pretty fast. The fastest pace I set was 12 minutes for a mile. Hannah and I had a blast.

Whoo hoo!

With all of that aside, we saw some amazing sights. Imagine a valley floor covered in Dutchman's Breeches!

We found patches of Blood Root deep in the forest.

Alongside the trail we found hundreds of Trout Lilies.

We took quite a few short breaks. Hannah is a pup so I want to be careful with her.

I have this old coffee cup snapped to my belt loop so Hannah can drink out of it and eat kibbles so she can replenish her energy while I snack on a Protein Bar.

It works really quite well.

The West Ridge Trail 
was lined with 
Spring Beauties.

The Old Man Ice Cave looked rather sleepy when we went past.

These were morning views from Bridge 15. I really have to keep an eye on Hannah, she is a daredevil and I wouldn't put it past her to jump off the bridge. I don't think she would but I've seen her do some crazy stuff and ... she likes water.

Starting our journey before 8 o'clock was really quite nice. We had the place to ourselves. Now that we have earlier sunrises and longer days, I'll be adjusting our hike times to very early or very late.

👇

The Kickapoo River has been quite full for this month. 

The backwaters have filled in and come right up to the paved trail. This area is teaming with life and will soon be producing hoards of 'skeeters and other bitey flying insects. Although, I am happy to see these areas full of water again.

Here is a link to a video. Every time we pass this spot on Little Canada Trail, she has the super zoomies. The Video is 19 seconds long and just of Hannah running up to the tree roots and then zooming around. Her pure Terrier/puppy joy creates warmth in my heart.

I'm putting it here so when I am blue, I can go back and watch it over and over again.

Our total distance for this hike [we did rest and I was very careful with Hannah]...was 8.47 miles. We got home before noon and spent the rest of the day working on flower beds.

A funny note about dogs. This was Hannah's second time on this trail. When we got a junction on Old 131 trail, she chose left which headed back to the parking area a mile away. 

I imagine she either 'knew' which way was back or she was able to smell our backtrack.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Below--->

This is to remind me what I used on this speed hike.

Total time for 5.65 miles: 1 hour:53 minutes. Rated as Moderately Difficult.

Trails taken: Old 131, Little Canada, Ice Cave Trail, start at Parking area on County P
Gear: Running Vest with water, First Aid kit, Food

Foot Gear: Merrill Trail Running Shoes

Temperature: 73 F, Humid, North breeze

Additional easy/slow hike to the pond near the Mule Trail and back to County P Parking
Distance: 2.70 miles
Trail: Old 131, flat, paved
Time: 1 hour:02 minutes.

Rest and recovery walk/hike.

At the end of May, I am doing a Birthday Hike to celebrate my 7th decade here on Earth. The goal is to hike at least 15 miles to mark it. 

Mash up...

Here is a few shots from my hike last Thursday.
Friday was crazy busy as was the weekend. 

Blood Root

 Hepatica

The doggies

One of the Ice Caves

Beautiful mosses

Meanwhile at home.
Here are a few shots of the progress of the good 'stuff' around the shed, old busted garage, and shed.

Before forest mulching. This area of the woods was full of berry briars, multi flora rose, and nasty little invasive brush.

There were narrow deer trails going through the area.

After the Mulching was done a view from the meadow.

A view from inside the forest area.

Before 

After

Patrick operating the 
skid steer and mulcher.

Patrick mulched the areas I asked to be done and will be back to do more work. This summer he will mow the summer pasture and the areas he mulched. 

Maintenance of these areas will prove extremely useful when and if I am going to sell the farm [farmette].

My youngest son and his fiancé came over the weekend. it softened the pain of what would have been Rich's birthday.

Jer set up some cameras for me on the house and buildings. I never ever thought I'd need surveillance of my place. But here we are in a new era of distrust.

Whirl wind weekend [and it was windy too!]

So the wedding was interesting. The couple did 'hire' a cousin on her side of the family to do the wedding photos. However, the groom's parents asked me to go ahead and shoot whatever I wanted.

This first shot is the rehearsal. 

Compare it to the wedding ceremony.

I took shots from behind the pastor.  It was fun to see the couples' face as they read their vows to each other.

Afterwards, the groom came up and asked me if I wanted some shots. I took family photos for his mom in the fall of 2018 so we do have a history together.

I told him what I'd thought of in his Grandmother's shade garden that I'd worked on the past week. He was excited about taking some shots there.

Of course as I was getting another idea together, the bride's friend came up with her pocket camera and had some ideas of her own. Note---> nothing against the pocket camera she was using, it could have actually been a very high end camera.

Friend person had some great poses and ideas for the couple. I decided to assist the other photographer and learn a few things. As she posed and talked to them, I took a few shots of my own.

My shot of the kiss by the pole barn. 

Yep, I liked it best in old 'timey' black and white.

I'm an Old Photographer so....as I was helping Friend Person, I tried to hold something for her and stay out of frame. Friend Person just quipped out "Don't worry, I'll just edit you out."

I think that comment startled me quite a bit. I'm the one that learned compose, compose, compose and watch your background. I'll just edit you out. [LOL like I don't exist!]

My guess is that wedding photography these days are heavily dependent on AI assistance. I know there is a way you can drop any subject you photo into a different background...I think.

Probably my favorite shot of the day was of the Ring Bearer.

This little girl walked down the grassy isle so carefully.  I swear, she must have held her breath for the entire walk. She took her job very seriously.

What did I learn once more at a wedding as a photographer? 

The after photos with posing are very creative. I doubt I could do it.

Plus, being bossy with people to get them to pose is a trait I don't have.

AI is the new helper. 

Bridezilla's still exist. The bride's mom was a Momzilla in a black sequined dress. 

I'll stick to nature and toys. I enjoyed the candid shots. My father was a master at candid photography.

Later on, I walked back to the shady garden and watched people from a distance. I only knew the father and mother of the groom really. 

I guess that's when it hit me that... oh yes, I was now a widow. A Widow with a capitol W. 

I went home and met up with my Grandson who just returned from fishing all day with Steve.

We watched the moon come up, chatted, and the next morning we took a nice long hike to chill out.

Rain, Morels, Yard and Whatnot

On Monday I went hiking at Duck Egg with the intent of searching for Morel Mushrooms.

Instead, I found some amazing bluebell fields.

I also found False Morels.

Lots of them! All over the place!

They are pretty interesting and sort of wickedly cool.

 

They are different from Morels in that they are solid through and through and not hollow like a Morel is.

Hiking in Duck Egg is a crazy sort of adventure ... that is, if you can make sense of the signs:

The signs are getting better than what they used to be though:

The trails basically circle around the dam which protects areas from flooding. The altitude changes from the ridge to the valley are about 300 feet. Trails zig and zag up and down steep hillsides. The horse trails are really quite wonderful and will make the equine work hard. Hubby and I used to ride Duck Egg quite a bit.

I did find 3 Morels the next day in our woods.

They hide! Actually, because of the garlic mustard 'invasion' they are getting pretty hard to find:

With all the rain and the warmth, the plants are growing with great gusto and soon it will be very hard to find the delicious fungi.

The last few years were too dry or too hot for good Morels to appear. The conditions have to be just so and their are quite a few other factors and conditions that have to be met for them to flourish too.

I do like Morels, but I won't dedicate my days to hunting for them as I have so many other duties to attend to.

I went out to the Meadow to look under the old apple trees for Morels and I found a broken Turkey Egg. So they are nesting right now. 
 

I stopped by the Hawthorne Trees to see how they were doing. They are flowering now. One of the trees still has reddish leaves with buds, but I found this one in full bloom. Note the thorn! 

I still think these are amazingly beautiful trees.

Duty keeps calling in the form of mowing the yard. Hubby has an old zero turn mower that has a deck that has to be flipped in order to clean it properly.

We did get it flipped and it is always a total B--tch to get it flipped and back together properly. With his lack of ability for doing any heavy work, it is proving to be near impossible to get it done. I've cleaned it and now it has been sitting for 3 days not ... quite put back together.

I have a little self propelled mower and have been doing piece by piece mowing when I can between rains and foggy mornings. 

I have a notion to just run a temporary fence over certain sections of the yard and let the equine do the work at least for this growth period.

I did that in the 'lane' which is a hilly grassy lane between two pastures. The gals picked it pretty clean and then I mowed what was left. I have hoof impressions in the lane but the grass is no longer knee high.

...Hey...it has been done before!

Photos from many years ago.  2006 and 2008. I think hubby was in the hospital at these times and I couldn't keep up with mowing because I worked full time and drove to Madison to see hubby on my days off.

However...I learned not to hang laundry out when they were in the yard...

The yard never was worse for wear and they did a good job.

A large perfectly mowed yard is very underrated. I guess I shouldn't complain though, last year we mowed the yard 4 times all summer.

The rain and frustration are welcome.

One foot in front of

 ---

the other....

We got some snow. Around here we call it free fertilizer. In the spring the snow delivers nitrogen to the land it falls on and as it melts, it fertilizes the ground. We call it the poor man's fertilizer.

Charlie and I got out for our first hike since Saturday. That is a long lay off for me. We enjoyed the fresh air and went down in the valley to check out the tiny trout pond in the stream.

They were fine and flitting about under a skiff of ice that was rapidly melting.

I enjoyed the hike and didn't rush. All sorts of plants are budding out. The gooseberries, multiflora rose, and barberry bushes to name a few. I was really enjoying the birdsong more than anything else.

I saw a lot of Robins. In the first shot the Robin is in a tree that has a grapevine in it. He/she was eating the dried fruit pulp. Back in our pasture, the Robins were actually getting worms from the ground.

This Robin was with several Juncos who were getting grit from the gravel road. I find watching birds and listening to them relaxing in so many ways.

Each spring I get Bird Fever and tell myself that I am going to learn more and more about birds. That usually falls by the wayside when the wildflowers start to do their thing in the woods. But...yes, one of these fine years, I'm going to get serious. I'd love to go along the Mississippi River and watch those birds come in.

When I worked at the Genoa Power Plant, we used to watch them at our leisure while we were doing our rounds.

Now just the dry cask storage is left as they demolished the plant this week. 20 second video:

Anyway, I got off track. While working at the river for years, I got to watch all sorts of birds migrate through the area. At the time I wasn't interested in ID'ing them.

Maybe in the future I can have time to do such things. One can hope and have dreams right?

Meanwhile in the woods. I found it quite odd that there are still bucks running around with a full set or half set of antlers towards the middle and end of March. I usually start finding sheds towards the end of February. These are trail cam shots.

This is beginning to be an odd year.

I think I'll go for my morning walk with Charlie and then just do some experimenting with Still Life and lighting.

I'm currently messing around with a build that the grandkids left behind.

I am modifying it slightly to experiment with different colors and minifigs. I keep moving figures around and changing things to see if a storyline will appear.

Sometimes things just seem to click and other times they don't. I like this scene. The softness was created by focusing through other bits of Legos.

I need to get things prepared for our busy week. I have multiple appointments to negotiate through Friday and an arrival of another Grandkid.

This weekend looks like my only day to chill out and relax a bit.

One foot in front of the other.