January is Done...

January wrap.
The first of the year was mild and not very wet. I was able to get into the furthest valley in our area and hike along Black Bottom Creek.

Mid month we got walloped by two huge snowstorms. Next came the cold temperatures and wind chills. These are all normal events for January in a sense. But the winter has been warmer than usual due to La Nina.

For the past two weeks it seems that we've had nothing but fog, rain, dampness, and more fog. At first I was pretty excited about the fog. I could walk in it and enjoy the ethereal beauty of it. 

After a few days though, that wore off. 

Then we had a dense fog freeze advisory. I spent an hour walking around looking for frosted plants and leaves.

If I'd had my MapMyWalk App on, it would have shown me going back and forth and around in circles. I wanted to find some exciting and beautiful frost formations on plants.

The key word was 'exciting'. I didn't really find anything spectacular.

I went back out right away after hubby was up and had his breakfast. I wanted to take Charlie for a walk while the snow was still firm and he could walk on top of it.

I grabbed my snowshoes and off we went on a jaunt to the creek. The deeper we got into the forest, there was less frost.

By the time we got to the creek, I had to take off my snowshoes and carry them. Since the creek has so many little springs in it, the temperatures can be much warmer near the water. The difference is startling. You walk in mud and green grass as opposed to a foot of snow. 

I set my little camera on a log and took a photo of Charlie and I walking along the creek.

Our trekking area.
This is the spot where I always stop to admire the little trout. Since the last flood that cleaned out the creek bottom, trees have been falling down across the creek and through out the area.

Our walk becomes a bit more adventurous by having to negotiate around fallen trees and nasty multiflora rose.

The only times I can easily walk through this area is early spring, winter, and late fall. In the summer, it is impossible. The weeds and plants grow so high here that they are taller than I am.

When cattle grazed on this land, it was easy to get around. But the cattle have been gone since 2005 and the land is not managed very well. So it has a lot of invasive plants and it has gotten very wild.

Once we got out of the creek, I had to put the snowshoes back on. We followed the old deer/cattle/4wheeler trail which is growing in now too.

We climbed the hillside and went out to the meadow just east of our property and headed back home. Charlie was such a champ. The only time he asked to get picked up was when we heard a big boom far off.

We came up through the back of our land and walked through the area where the mules had dug up snow and had browsed during the the snowstorm.

This photo shows the back of our shed and the long hill driveway. The mules really dug things up, I was surprised at how much the snow had melted in this particular spot.

However!

The sun came out late in the afternoon to provide us with a stunning sunset.

I was pretty excited since we haven't had an evening with a beautiful sunset in ages:

Let's see what February brings!

December Colors?

What colors does December offer in

the dullest of all the months

of the year?

December is known for being the most overcast and dark month of the year. Well, at least for those of us in this part of the world.

The days are cold, dull, overcast...and the days get shorter and shorter. What beauty can be found outdoors in this month? Last month I challenged myself with November. Now? Maybe I'll challenge myself with December.

At least that will be easy for moment. There have been some great morning and evening skies to admire.

A long time friend that used to be a neighbor and I went with her son on Thursday evening just after sunset for a night hike along old 131 trail in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve.

When we dropped from the ridge to the valley, the temperatures dropped at least 10 degrees. My friends commented on that and I suggested we walk up and out of the valley. We did. As we walked, we were able to catch glimpses of meteors streaking across the sky. This was at 6PM when the meteor shower was not supposed to be at its peak. 

We were able to find the Milky Way and searched for any other stars or constellations we could recognize. I'm not very good at that at all. We found the Big Dipper on the northern horizon and the Milky Way stretched overhead from East to West.  I wanted to take a couple of shots, but that takes time to do.

I asked Briar who will be turning 12 next week to be my model. He was cold but he agreed to stand still and look up into the sky with a headlamp on.

This was a one shot deal and thankfully, I got it!

Those guys were chilled, so we hiked back to the car and drove to their house where we visited for a while before I left.

I got up early the next morning to continue my early morning walks with Charlie. I normally hike across the fields so I can watch the sun come up and enjoy the quiet sounds of the rest of the world waking up.

I was not disappointed at all. The skies lit up like fire. 

I set the camera in the cornfield and put it on a timer. I trotted out a little distance so I could capture myself enjoying the show.

It sure was incredible. And it seemed as if it were never ending.

Charlie and I walked back towards home and noticed that the only sounds we heard were a few birds and some dogs barking off in the distance.

We had the whole world to ourselves.

Tonight we are supposed to have patchy fog and rain. Sunrise on the ridge tomorrow morning might be worth looking into. Fog always makes things much more interesting.

The colors aren't just in the sky for December. I hope to find something exciting in the forest also.

Looking for colors in December.

A good challenge.

Thanksgiving Day....

Here is what I dreamt it would look like!

I decided to do my first ever Turkey for Thanksgiving supper. 

I chose the Jennie-O breast that looked like even an idiot like myself... who can make Rubber Chicken.....

could successfully cook in the oven. 

Step 1: Take it out of the outer bag
Step 2: Slit the inner bag
Step 3: Put in in the oven and bake for two hours until it is done.

Stove top stuffing. Easy peasy!
Cornbread! Yup, I made it too!

Veggies from the garden....

and our feast was complete. 

 Meanwhile my woodland critters gathered for their little get together:

The neighbors to the east of us are hunting the meadow relentlessly for a very large buck. I hope the monster buck makes it through this season. I'd like to find his sheds.

[This shot was taken two days ago on our land by our trail camera. The fence can be seen behind the buck that separates our land from the neighbors]

I'm still stuck indoors. Grounded because the guys in the meadow are hunting and hubby doesn't want me anywhere in our woods. 

I carried on a Thanksgiving tradition of my own. 

Purging, vacuuming and cleaning the little basement. It is a job I won't do unless I am forced indoors. 

Success! I cleaned out 3 large totes! Hubby would have a fit, but I cleaned out all of the old hunting clothes that were merely blood stained rags and light overcoats of blaze orange.

They were full of holes from 40 years of hunting. Many of the jackets had rips all over them and were passed down from the days his father hunted. 
I save the good jacket but bundled up all the old stuff.

My motto is that if it hasn't been used in years? Well ... it is gone! None of these items have been used in over 7 years. 

Let's just say that I filled the back of the Subaru Outback with old items that even wouldn't make good hand-me-downs.

I vacuumed up and swept and purged and cleaned.

The past few mornings and evenings have been amazing as far as color. The shots below were taken from my porch or through the windows. 

Last night as I finished doing dishes, hubby's daughter called and they had a nice chat. It is good to see my husband smile.

Whew. So far I've survived deer hunting season and Thanksgiving. 

Next up....

Wonderfully Full Sunday

 Early morning text:
Hey, when Aiden wakes up and has breakfast, we are so Up for a Birdie Hike!

A walk with Olive and her little boy was what I'd been looking forward to for a while. Aiden's reaction when he sees a large bird now is a riot. When he sees or hears a goose, he becomes so exuberant that it seems as if he just discovered a live dinosaur.

The morning was chilly and overcast, but we went anyway. Aiden rode in a backpack that mom wore. Aiden adores it, he is up where he can see everything we can see. Here is 30 seconds of fun with Aiden. We even got to hear Peepers!

The photos are nothing to write home about, I just took them to put together some bird photos for Aiden to be able to see.

Apparently he loves bird videos, so mom or dad plays them for him when he needs a distraction.

It was too nice in the late afternoon not to be outside, so I headed up to the little pasture above the Buckthorn woods and started to work on two large dead limbs that had fallen a couple of years ago. 

The wood was dead enough for me to use my machete to bust things up and pile it for burning on top of the weeds I'd pulled.

When I finish with this, the mules will stand under this tree again for shade on warm days. They can catch the north breezes and stay cool.

Piles of weeds and branches to burn.

View looking north on a section I still need to work on.

I think I have actually made some progress over the past 5 years that I've been working at this. It is a lot of hard hand work, but 6 or 7 years ago, you could not see through this section because of the overgrowth of Elderberry trees and Burdock.

Somewhere I have a photo of mules threading their way through the Elderberry forest that shaded the ground in the spot. You will just have to imagine it. This year, I plan on picking both elderberry flowers and berries. 
Apparently they make great tea for your immune system????

Olive was looking for some access to them last year. 

So I got way off track. 

Sunday's sunrise and sunset were stunning and I guess that is another reason I like these longer and somewhat more temperate days.

And that's a wrap.....

Looking west from the porch:

Looking north from the back door:

Quiet day

I was up early, not to put the turkey in the oven, but to have some coffee and breakfast before meeting up with my neighbor as we had both signed up for a fund raiser 'rowing' & movie event at the gym.

This is what greeted me while I walked up the road to catch a ride with my neighbor, Olive. I only had my cell phone and IF I'd had my camera, I would have been tempted to spend a good long time photographing different aspects of this scene!

Sometimes I wish I lived on the ridge...not during winds and storms though!

The gym owner is a fire fighter and very community oriented. The rowing event was conducted with a free will 'donation' in a little drop box where we donated money for a family that needed help. 

He put on the movie Elf and we started rowing. I had a couple of young sisters as team mates and we each rowed until we wanted a break and then the next person took over. It was fun. While waiting my turn I could catch up with other members of the gym that I hadn't seen in a while and talk with the sisters.

I couldn't really hear the movie, but it was fun to watch it anyway and visit. It is probably the biggest social event I've been to in the past few years.

When I got home, I found Rich doing this:

He had gotten bored while waiting and pulled out some pieces from the pie tin we had the bits in and put together little chairs. He did this without looking at the instructions of course! I was pretty amazed as he has terrible tremors which really frustrate him. But somehow he got this done!

I turned off all my electronics and spent part of the day cleaning and purging items from the closet under the stairs. I found a box that contained pictures and items that my brother had sent to me a long time ago. I'd put the items in the only closet space we had at the time.

Anyway I found some fun drawings I did as a kid. 

I recall being fascinated by the history of the Roman Kingdom and the violent world they lived in. Latin - Roman Wars -- drawings I did as a 6th grader.
I loved it that my Dad kept all sorts of our kid artwork. It creates warm fuzzy memories of childhood.

I found a beautiful blow up photo of my favorite shot my father took in 1965 of the after math of the eruption of Kilauea Iki in 1959.

Here is my shot from 2001 of the same tree

and a photo of us dated 1965 walking up the Devastation Trail at Volcano National Park.

In 2010 I went back with my father's ashes to put them in the place he was always the happiest.

Another trip down Devastation Trail was made and this was the result.

I think I need to go back and really get the angle right! Though to do so, I think I'd have to step off the trail. In 1965 that was dangerous as the lava field was apparently a bit sketchy to walk on.

The fond memories set me in a quiet mood. Some days I wish for those days again. You know, when we were kids and exploring as a family together. Pre Later Life Drama. 

I cleaned and vacuumed the tiny basement area while I dug out the Christmas boxes of stuff. I have no idea what I'll do this year for decorating. I'm going to lean towards a simple prelit and fake birch tree and go from there.

Rich took his afternoon nap and Charlie and I spent time snuggled and reading on the couch. 

The sunset was as spectacular as the sunrise:

BLTs for supper and an episode of The Santa Clauses Series on Disney +. We get good laughs out of the comedy Christmas programs.

Like a Rock

The hike to the top of this bluff is always a bit tough and last night I had two 30 somethings accompanying me. Teri was my ex neighbor and we've been friends for about 12 years and her pal came along also.

We thought it would be fun to hike and sweat and get a cardio work out hiking to the Rock. Once there we shed our extra shirts and took up spots to watch the valley below us.

I have to admit, I kept crawling around the rock taking photos and chatting. 
Duh. I'd ID a bird call or point out the obvious. I guess it must have been  obvious that I don't get out often with others. Generally I just mumble to myself and answer myself.

We fell into silence for a long time and just enjoyed the view. [I think I was quiet for about 3 minutes.] I really need to shut up.

I've never been to this rock in the evening. I'm so glad I did. The skies were rather bland but as the sun sank lower, the oranges came out brighter.

There were no clouds but the river and valley moisture was becoming apparent. 

A two shot pano looking east to south.

I commented that I could sleep up on the rock so I could watch the night sky and listen to the night sounds. My friends said I was nuts and I'd fall off the bluff. I laughed. 
Can you imagine what an adventure that would be?

It was time to freak my friends out. I crawled to the edge of the rock as twilight came and took a shot straight down over the edge. You may be able to make out the trail below.

I think the elevation from the trail head to the bluff is about 200 feet.

There is not a lot of room to maneuver around but I sure enjoyed seeing the sights.

We headed down as darkness descended. 

We got into the forest and turned off our lights to listen to the night creatures. There was what we decided could be some kind of bird making some really odd noises.

I said it had to be a baby Sasquatch.

When we got back to where we parked we were amazed at the sheer volume of fireflies. They danced and whirled silently, lighting up and glowing, then darting here and there.

I set up my tripod and entertained my friends by showing them how to 'catch' a photo of them.

We parted after discussing another adventure we hoped to do this summer. Stars or moon watching from the KVR Dam site.

I talked about light painting and had shown them on the bluff how fun it was...example below...

We thought it might be fun to engage in some light painting on one of the covered bridges.

They took off and I started to leave but something made me stop.

20 years now
Where'd they go?
20 years now
I don't know
I sit and I wonder sometimes
Where they've gone
And sometimes late at night
Oh, when I'm bathed in the firelight
The moon comes callin' a ghostly white
And I recall
I recall....

Bob Seger [Like a Rock 1986]

I didn't linger long because I knew Teri would be watching for my headlights to make sure I was coming down the road too.

Like

a

Rock...

My hands were steady
My eyes were clear and bright
My walk had purpose
My steps were quick and light
And I held firmly 
To what I felt was right
Like a rock...

One Longgg Day

I woke up at 4ish something o'clock, that gave me time to drink my decafe and pretend that it was caffiene coffee thta would give me a jump start on the day. Sunday was the lunar eclipse day! Yipee! I get excited about the strange things.

Charlie and I went for a nice early morning walk to check out the different trees I had tried to ID last year to see if I'd learned anything. 

By 7, I'd finished up my crazy Saturday blog stuff and went out to wash stock tanks and move critters around. Well. Let's keep it short. I was like a busy bee all morning.

I promised myself that I'd take a midafternoon nap because I wanted to stay up and watch the lunar eclipse. Hah. I didn't take a nap. I went Morel hunting and it was a flop!

Me, waiting for the sunset before watching the moon come up.

Sunset:

Moon rise...I was afraid the clouds would cover it all up but we got lucky!

The photos didn't turn out that well. I am not that great at doing moon shoots yet. The clarity still evades me, but these are some samples of what I got.

I tried to get the clouds moving through and it just really flubbed up the photo! 

The following is 57 seconds of the first half of the eclipse. It is wiggly because the moon of course kept moving out of frame. IF I had a movie/video editing program I suppose I could have edited the clips to make them all nice looking. However I rarely do any video work. ON1 has a nice time lapse feature which I used to do the sunset ~~ that was 27 seconds in camera and like 3 seconds at the frame rate the program has for choices. 

Keep watching to the end because it looks like the moon disappears...it does into clouds but I recorded until it went black!

57 seconds of the eclipse:

I didn't get to bed until wayyyy past my bed time. 

Monday proved to be a most excellent day.  More on that tomorrow.