I’m off adventuring again. Mostly alone, though I did spend a day on a river with a college friend. But first, as most of my adventures go, I began with barns.
Because it’s hard to drive anywhere from my home without seeing at least one barn.
I was hoping to find yellow soybean fields, but mostly they’ve already gone brown. That was sad, but it was such a pretty day I couldn’t stay sad for long.
And eventually I made it to the river where I met a friend from way back in college, and she and her daughter and I paddled in the warm fall sunshine for a few hours.
It was totally unlike my previous times on this river when we had most of it to ourselves.
This time we were out on the river on a sunny fall weekend afternoon. There were lots of other people there too.
But we managed to make our way through the crowds of tube floaters and enjoyed people watching while we were paddling.
An interesting combination, a totally different vibe, but lots of fun regardless.
After we left the river we drove a few miles north to walk the Empire Bluffs trail. Turns out Empire was having some sort of car race. The little town was inundated with people and race cars.
It took us a long time to find a way to get to the trail, but once we did we enjoyed the scenic walk out to the bluffs.
It was late in the afternoon by the time we arrived at the end of the trail, and we didn’t linger out there for long, but it was definitely worth the walk!
On the way back I got distracted by the low rays of sun glowing in the woods, spotlighting plants along the way.
We had a little bit of a drive to get to the hotel, though, so we moved along.
And then had dinner at The Painted Lady Saloon.
It was a pretty darn good day, and it definitely made me smile.
So, you saw mama’s Wordless Wednesday post yesterday with the cherry tomatoes? Yea. I did too. But I bet you didn’t know how much I love tomatoes. I watched daddy plant a bunch of tomatos in my back yard last spring.
Yum.
Yep. I know exactly where that garden is and I check it out daily. Several times a day if I can get away with it. Daddy says he put the fence up around it to keep out critters like deer and raccoons and rabbits and groundhogs and stuff.
But I know the truth. Daddy put that fence up cause of me!
You can’t see me if I hide behind this plant. Right?
I like to pick my own ripe tomatoe right off the vine. Every day I pull mama or daddy around the back side of our house when I’m supposed to be looking for a good spot to do my business. They used to be fooled, thinking I just wanted to pee in a new part of the yard.
But they’re not fooled any more. (Sometimes they are smarter than I calculated.)
They’re hoarding all the good stuff!
Mama looked up whether tomatoes were good for doggies and she found out that green ones were very bad and red ones were OK in moderation.
Moderation? I’m a sheltie. I don’t do anything in moderation!
I think daddy needs my help in the garden, mama!
Anyway, they say I can’t have any tomatoes because I’m having trouble with my tummy and my poo. I told them they are way too interested in my poo. They should get another hobby if you ask me.
Shhhhh…don’t tell them.
So I’m a sad puppy. I’m stuck here eating canned pumpkin and boiled chicken and rice and the Royal Canin kibble. I like all that stuff a whole lot (and my folks are relieved I’ve got my appitite back) but none of it is the same as a fresh cherry tomato picked right off the vine by yours truly.
Do any of you other doggies out there love tomatoes like me? Mama says I’m a weird little girl.
I’ll take that as a compliment.
Giving mama the stink eye cause she said “NO” when I tried to eat one!
I feel as if summer is sliding away from me, days turning into minutes, weeks into moments. Yet it’s only the beginning of August, there’s plenty of summer left, especially for a retiree. Right? Being retired is enough to make me smile, but my walk on a midsummer’s morning made me absolutely grin.
The dreaded first sighting of goldenrod.
I was out at my favorite park this past Thursday, while it was still July, while I could still consider it mid-summer, and yet I felt fall encroaching.
Beautiful, but I’m not ready for leaves turning yet.
I went with my biggest lens, the better to see birds in their natural space versus standing on my outstretched palm.
But of course I did have a few birds in my hand. Can’t not do that.
But what I found instead was a whole forest filled with youngsters. And I don’t mean the busses of preschoolers that arrived as I was leaving. Thank goodness.
I don’t know what this is, but it was pretty.
I have so much to show you from my walk in the woods, I don’t know if I should break it up into two posts, or if you’ll have the patience to read one long post.
Joe Pye is beginning to bloom.
I don’t even know if I have the patience to write one long post.
The grasses are maturing.
You can always scroll through and just look at the pictures. I have a feeling the words will be minimal anyway.
Wild grapes are beginning to pink.
I got to the nature center early in the morning, but on the drive through the park I noticed my favorite willow tree island had a beautiful swan. So after I parked I walked back along the bikepath to capture her as she preened.
Was she using the water as her mirror?
Notice the grey pile of fluff off to the right? That is her baby, or maybe more than one, I couldn’t really tell. Her partner is swimming behind the island, couldn’t see him well either.
Her little one (or more) are well hidden in the shade.
But she (I’ve decided it’s a she, I really don’t know) sure was taking her time getting beautiful that morning.
Looking stunning that morning.
Then I walked back to the parking lot at the nature center to get the rest of my gear, and found this exhausted and hungry mama, right beside the bike rack.
Eating at the parking lot salad bar.
With my long lens I was able to get quite close without interrupting her breakfast.
And beside her, on the other side of the bike rack, were the normal crane parking lot greeters, getting spruced up for their shift of collecting the lot fee from everyone arriving to enjoy the trails.
Hurry up Henry, we’re going to be late for work!
Lucky for me I got there before they clocked in.
So I headed into the woods…
The bridge to the woods.
…and met this guy right away. He already had breakfast so I didn’t offer him anything more.
You’re not going INTO THE WOODS, are you?!
It was right about then that I noticed a sense of fall seeping into air. I shook it off and ventured further into the dark cool green, and interrupted two moms and their little ones having some breakfast of their own.
Family brunch interrupted.
I stood there a long time watching them watching me.
Mama and her mini-me.
This little one was intensly curious about me.
Should I run or should I stay?
And then I heard a titmouse, just over my right shoulder, angrly asking why I wasn’t providing a snack. So I handed off a peanut and moved on.
Hey Lady! Fork over the peanut! I know you have one!!
I only saw one other person my entire walk in the woods, and that was another photographer.
I see something right over there…
As soon as he got down from the bench and moved on this mama came out of the brush.
Is he gone yet?
I took a different trail and moved deeper into the woods. The long lens wasn’t really the right choice with so little light. But I didn’t want to stop to change it because you just never know what you’ll see.
Oops, thought it was another deer!
Or how far away it might be.
Way over there on that ridge is another exhausted mama, chewing her cud and watching me.
But the mosquitos were beginning to follow me. I pictured myself running out of the woods with a swarm of bugs trailing me, sort of like a Bernstein Bear cartoon. I moved faster.
After clambering over a downed tree that crossed the trail I was shooting an image of a tree damaged in the recent storms where the fresh wood had a similar color to deer, confusing me for a moment…
Kind of the same color as the deer roaming these woods.
…when out of the corner of my eye I saw more of that reddish brown.
Another mama and her baby hoping to have an undisturbed meal.
These two didn’t seem to realize I was there. Until mama did.
Lady, you need to move along now.
The baby didn’t seem too bothered by me at all, but I went on down the trail so they could enjoy mama/baby time alone. Plus I was beginning to get hungry myself, it had been a long time since my own breakfast, and I was still deep in the woods with a long walk back.
See you later, lady!
I tried not to stop anymore as I booked it out of the deep woods. Except when I saw something interesting. Or fun. Or both.
This says late summer to me for sure.
But mostly I was trying to get back into the open where the breeze would keep the bugs from swarming around my head. Yes, I had applied bug spray before I left the car, but not on my hands, because I knew I’d be feeding birds. I guess that made me fair game for the mosquitos.
Bet you didn’t know crocodiles lived in the woods!
Back out in the open I had a nuthatch and a chickadee makeing big noises about getting a treat, but they wouldn’t come down to my hand. I finally figured out that maybe they were this year’s young, and not quite confident about the whole process of coming in for a snack.
Tell me how this works again, lady?
But eventually they both came down, after doing a fly over or two to check me out.
This peanut is almost as big as me!
The sky was getting dark and I figured it would soon rain, so I headed back to the car. Climbing the stairs to the parking lot I could hear people, cars and busses.
Change of shift for the swallows.
I was glad I’d gotten my walk in the woods finished before the masses arrived. Time to head back home to the princess who would just be getting up from her morning nap.
Earlier in the morning there were deer and cranes.Now bikes rest while their people explore.
When last I left you I was being overrun by hungry birds. A few of them might even have been angry birds, but I don’t like to judge.
The new camera did a fabulous job, notice the detail in the feathers!
As I moved further into the woods I noticed I was being followed by lots of little birds. So I stopped again to see who was hungry. Naturally the titmice dropped down immediately.
We have lift-off!
And the chickadees, who were very noisy about waiting for their treats.
“I’m so excited I dropped my peanut!”
But most intriguing was a female red bellied woodpecker who was watching me while keeping some space between the feeding frenzy and her perch high in a tree. Yet…the longer I fed the little ones the closer she got. She’d move to a different tree and then feign indifference as she checked out her new position for any stray bugs. Then she’d move closer.
I decided to ignore her, turned my back and kept feeding the busy little birds. And suddenly …
I wasn’t sure I could trust you, lady, but I’m really hungry.
She watched me for a bit, both of us seemingly holding our breath. Then she picked out her breakfast treat.
You can make this and any image larger by clicking on it. Check out how beautiful her eyes are.
She went up to a nearby tree to eat her peanut, but she was right back for more.
“This peanut looks good.”
Each time she visited my hand she flew off with her prize to enjoy just feet away.
Displaying her red belly and her amazing wingspan.
She came down a total of three times, and I felt like we were becoming best friends. She chased all the little birds away each time she arrived. After her third trip I tossed some seed on the ground for her or anyone else and I moved along.
The little birds were grateful. The blue jays were jubilant, they’d been screaming about being left out for several minutes.
“Than goodness she’s gone! I thought I’d never get anything else to eat!”
I kept playing with the settings on my camera, intent on catching the wing of the birds as they landed and took off again. Each time I fidled with the camera birds became impatient.
“Hey lady, you know little woodpeckers are pretty cool too!”
The blue jays followed me for quite awhile, picking up the leftovers.
They’re pretty, but man they can be noisy!
And a male red bellied woodpecker followed me too. He wanted to come down for a treat. He’d get close, but couldn’t quite make himself do it. My shoulders ached from holding one hand out with seed, and the other hand holding the heavy camera ready just in case
Little stinker would wait until I moved along, then come in for the leftovers.
I guess he figured I wouldn’t leave him out, and I didn’t. I always left him a couple peanuts on the trail.
Least you think I wasn’t paying attention to things other than birds, I assure you there were plenty of pretty things without wings.
I don’t know what these seeds were from, but I thought they were pretty cool.
It’s just that every time I concentrated on something else, every time I rested my tired shoulder and lowered my seed filled hand, someone would fly around my head in protest.
Double incoming!
The day had started out cold and very windy, but as I wandered in the woods the sun broke through, and I warmed up. Trapising up and down hills while being pursued by birds warmed me up too.
A little chickadee ready for takeoff.
I thought about sitting on a bench for awhile, just take it all in.
Morning light on one of my favorite benches.
But there were more and more people wandering in the woods, and I had plenty of pictures to share. Plus, I’d been there a couple hours longer than the original few minutes I had planned on.
Sunshine makes everything art.
So I headed back toward the car…past the crane parking lot greeters who were now wandering down the path. They were much less interested in me than they had been when I arrived, when they almost mugged me for something to eat.
A crain and her shadow.
The sun was out now, the sky a brilliant blue. Part of me wanted to stay, but my shoulders and back ached. And since I had forgotten to eat breakfast before I left home, I was starving too.
It was turning into a beautiful day!
I didn’t think the birds were going to give me anything to eat, so it was time to go. I had a wonderful time even if it wasn’t anything at all like what I had come to find.
That’s the cool thing about this park. No matter what you plan, no matter what actually happens, it’s always going to be beautiful.
Katie here. Hey! Bet you’ve been wondering what I’ve been doing lately – right? What? You’ve been busy with all the craziness going around, the virus, the election, the weather?
I’m not on your radar?
At a new park!
Huh.
I think mama’s been slipping. I hired her to be my agent, my marketing advisor, and my general manager, but maybe that’s too much for her, what with her being elderly and all.
I might have to reevaluate her contribution to my franchise.
We had a pretty beautiful day to enjoy the park.
I guess I’ll have to tell you about an adventure I had last weekend myself. I can’t believe it’s already a week ago and mama hasn’t put it up on my her blog.
You might remember that last year I got to meet aother sheltie-girl, Abby. We met her and her mom down in Ann Arbor and walked in the Arboretum. We said we’d get together again, but you know how time flies, and here it is a year later and we still hadn’t gotten back together.
This is Abby and her mom Shawn just last weekend.
So I told mom she better get to getting and arrange another walk date with my friend. And you know what? She listened to me and the next thing I know I’m in the car and the ride is much too long for us to be going to my usual parks.
Isn’t she beautiful? She’s 13.
I got kinda nervous, but figured I’d trust mama this time, and I was happy I did. Cause we got out of the car at a beautiful little park in Ann Arbor, and there was Abby and her mom!
It was nice to see Abby again!
Both of us are a year older now and we don’t go on real long walks any more, but this little park was perfect, with lots of places for the moms to sit and talk while we rested.
Abby liked to sit between her mom’s feet.
Well, sometimes we rested, sometimes we asked how long the moms were going to sit around.
I liked to spend our walk breaks checking for treats.
Abby and I were OK with posing for the moms as long as we were maintaining our social distancing. It’s really not that hard, neither one of us understands why people are having such a hard time with this concept.
Abby will pose for NO TREATS! I’m going to have to explain my ‘one shot, one treat’ rule to her.
Anyway, it was really good to see Abby and her mom. We decided we might try to get together again before the weather gets too bad. But knowing mama, that will probably be next spring!
I think our beauty enhanced this park. Dont you?
Abby. She’s so beautiful, she still reminds me of a regal queen. Queen Abby and Princess Katie. We were quite a beautiful sight, as we were told by numerous people out there in the park.
Hanging out together, but not too close together.
People are pretty good at spotting royalty, even when we leave our tiaras at home.
Definitely royality.
Signing off for now,
Park Princess Katie
It’s good to have a girlfriend when you want to go on a walk.
Wow, what a crazy time we are living in. But this morning I received a gift and I thought I’d share it with you.
A couple weeks ago, while in a wildlife store purchasing thistle seed for my finches I heard that evening grosbeaks were being seen on local feeders even though their range doesn’t normally come this far south.
I’d never seen an evening grosbeak, so I looked them up in my birdbook and began to keep watch. Nothing much showed up, at least while I was watching, but this morning as I was passing by the glass door in my kitchen I noticed a shape on the railing that didn’t fit my regular bird visitors.
The early morning light is bad, but there she is!
Whatever it was was bigger than my little birds, and sort of the shape of a smallish robin. And then, in the early morning light there was a slight flash of yellow. And that white bar on the wing. The light was so poor, but I couldn’t help but grab the camera, change the lens to the long one, amp up the ISO and try.
I was satisfied with the bad photo because I had proof of my visitor. And that made me smile.
Then the bird, I think it’s a female, flew up into the tree above the birdfeeder, watching the chaos that always surrounds morning breakfast.
A little more light, but still not great.
Still the light was bad and I had to up the ISO until the image looks more like an illustration than a photo. But I was smiling.
She dropped down for a try at the feeder.
“Maybe I’ll grab a quick bite during this lull in activity at the breakfast bar.”
She made it in to grab a seed but the bully bluejays were right there chasing her away.
“Gotta be quick!”
I put the camera away to tend to the dog. But passing by another window I saw morning light slice across her as she sat on the railing, picking up seed others had left behind.
The rising sun gives us just a peek at how beautiful she is.
And then, wonder of wonder, she dropped down to the deck, right into a patch of light.
“Nom, nom, nom.”
I think she did that just for me.
I especially liked this shot, that shows the dog footprints on the frosty deck. Katie and I had just been outside, filing the feeders and sniffing for good stuff.
“Hmmmm…smells like dog around here.”
I’m sure glad she stuck around to show me herself. She’s definitely part of the good stuff around here. She was a gift this cold November morning.
Change Is Hard 