One day, no rain mud hike

This was the beginning of the trail and I figured there would be water on it from all of the rains and the overflow of the Kickapoo River. It also came from the bluffs on the west side of the trail.

[It was too wet to stay home and try to do yard work...so off we went..]

As of April 15th, all dogs at the Reserve must be on leash so I had Charlie tied with a cord to my belt and guided Hannah with my free hand.

The cords are different lengths so Charlie can walk ahead of her without her nagging him.

It mostly works. I'm still getting the hang of it.

Not all of the trail was muddy and wet, only about a 1/4 mile stretch. In the other areas, the water had receded. Both sides of the trail had water in it.

The dogs were fascinated by watching a turtle and by watching frogs. We saw Swans and Sandhill Cranes, an Eastern Phoebe, and Red Wing Black birds.

No pictures, my hands were full!

I did get some great water-ish pictures that were interesting. This is overflow into the low lands from the river.

This is not a trail you want to stand around on when the mosquitoes and deer flies awaken.

We hiked with bluffs on one side and flooded low land on our right. It was kind of crazy and interesting.

Even the some of the bluffs had water running out of them. That is how saturated the land is.

This is20 seconds long. I just thought it sounded so beautiful. I've never witnessed this before, but probably because I've never explored this area just after so many heavy rainfalls.

I found more beautiful flowers and even got a few shots of them while wrestling Hannah, who thought she should be involved.

Charlie did his own thing.

It got quite warm in the valley so we found some shade and the dogs had water and some rest before we headed back.

The dogs really had quite a bit of wrestling and play through the muddy wet section of the trail.

They were ready to go home, but needed a bit of cleaning up first!

The late afternoon was dedicated to baths and supper on the porch. We all relaxed and watched the sun go down.

Another day in the books for April with a successful hike.

Wet and wild

This has been our world for the past week. Rain. Repeat.

Rain, dangerous winds, tornadoes, hail, more rain.

Repeat.

Fog.
Fog.

Rivers and creeks over their banks.

Below. Our creek and my boots.

The rain has been coming in the late afternoon and evening. 

The dogs and I [of course!] have been out to explore our creek. 

After years of drought, we now have water flowing again.

In the shot below, I'm standing in sucking silt and sand. Like a kid, I enjoy playing in the mud and muck.

After all. I'm still just a kid at heart. I enjoy a good rainfall and I enjoy puddles.

I felt it was a great time for my Mini-me and Mini-dogs to enjoy an adventure too.

Believe it or not, I finally found a Lego boat that actually floats!

The mini black dog with the red hat is Charlie. The other mini black dog will be Hannah. The current here was enough to move the boat and twirl it around while I squatted above the mud and took photos.

That may sound crazy to you, but play is how I relieve stress.  Hiking, Gardening, and play are the things that keep my mind safe and sound. 

Another nice thing for this week is that it is TOO wet and rainy for the scrap dudes to show up or to have any more landscape work done here.

I haven't been diligent about recording the rainfall amounts. Let's just call it ... A LOT.

My yard squishes in many areas right now and low lying areas have standing water. We've had so much rain that I don't have to fill any of my water tanks for the mules. The grass is growing like crazy and I can't even think about mowing unless I have 'water wings' on the mower.

So, we go hiking, do errands, and seize the day. 

False Morel
Gyromitra caroliniana

Multiflora rose bush leaves
sharp pointy stems!

Flat backed millipede
[recommended to leave it alone]

Cool places to wade in and get muddy. 
This is our valley which is very steep.
You can see the trees above in the 

reflections.

Frustrated Mini me who is not quite tall enough 

to get a nice shot of Spring Beauties.

Some of my favorite spring
flowers.

Spring Beauties.

Last night's storm front coming in. It is a time lapse 38 seconds long. Just sort of fun to watch the clouds and how the mules enjoyed rolling in the mud to help their coats shed.
This is the view from my porch facing south west.

The dogs were rather tired last night... and it is sort of nice to see them asleep together [which was by accident].

Wednesday deserves another Uffda. At least no tornadoes or dangerous hail happened, but we got....

this.................

Uffda may be used in Norwegian as a response when hearing something lamentable (but not too serious), and can be translated as "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that".

Storms, Rain, Crazy

After a night of heavy rain Monday evening, the sun started to peek through the fog. 

The weather service warned of afternoon storms in our area once more on Tuesday.

I took the pups for a very early morning walk down to check out our little creek. I wanted to see if there had been damage to the forest fences. Thankfully, there wasn't. The forest around us had heavy fog lifting from the cool streams.

Everything was soggy so I started to clean a flower bed up. I gave up in playing in the mud.

Hannah had an afternoon Vet appointment to get her second booster for distemper, parvo, and hepatitis. I thought about taking them to the Reserve, but decided to stay close to home.

We went to some DNR land close to home. It is public land along the stream called Tainter Creek in Tainter Hollow.

It is one of those cool places to find spring ephemerals.

We found several patches of Blood Root that had their flowers damaged by the rains overnight. Of course,  Hannah had to checkout what I am photographing. Miss Curious is getting better about staying close while I am doing photography.

Her recall is getting much better.

Wood Anenomes

Trout Lilies not blossoming yet

I also found dozens of patches of Virginia Bluebells emerging! 

I found one plant of Dutchman's Breeches that actually had flowers. Others were just emerging.

We walked along Tainter Creek which was swollen just over its banks.

There are no buildings in this very steep valley. If there is rain, the creek floods. All of the water from the ridges around here run into the creek.

Our morning ended up being quite pleasant.

By late afternoon I was tired from the intense storms we'd had Monday. I don't sleep well during storms. 

The dogs and I took a short nap. There is peace in the house when both of them are tired! 

Somehow, they have both become Velcro dogs.

While I was at the Vet's office, Tuesday afternoon for Hannah's updated boosters, NOAA came out with severe weather warnings 3 times. They warned of a severe thunderstorm producing Giant Hail and a Tornado just miles from the Vet office. 

Wait, What? Giant Hail??? Never heard that term before!

That eeee eeee eeee noise kept going off on the radio in the office along with notifications on my cell phone. We skedaddled home to get things put away before the storm hit our place.

I came down the driveway and looked up at the sky. It was wicked looking but I was ahead of the front.

I hustled and put Little Richard and the car in the shed. The mules were eating grass but looked up when the front arrived and disappeared into the woods.

The storm that arrived at 5ish PM decimated a whole town and so many vehicles. Friends of mine said it looked like a bomb went off. Even wildlife was affected by the baseball and softball sized hail.

Photos from locals posted on FB.

Thank goodness that storm went around us.

However we did have some hail and torrential downpours around 9 PM. Very scary stuff. I heard things hitting the house.

Lucky for me, I found no damage this morning. We had over an inch of rain in the rain gauge. That made for fun exploring in the creek this morning.

The dogs and I got muddy and enjoyed every moment of it.

There is another round coming through this afternoon.

As we say in Westby and Viroqua.

Uffdah.

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.