If mayhap you noticed the failure of the writer to respond to your comments, I should now tell you that the blog was on autopilot this past week. We were with our Christian Campers Fellowship, for the season has started! And what a beautiful week at Mounds State Park. Ideal camping weather, dry and sunny in the daytime, warm (well, most nights) and dry at night.
These little beauties were everywhere, springing up in the grass, popping up through the duff.
This poor hickory tree is sorely afflicted. From our campsite we saw this very black tree about thirty meters into the woods. I don't know what it has, but it is not good.
Lots of these rascals. The woods are alive!
Kent and his mother enjoyed hiking; I not so much.
This is my best photographic accomplishment of the week. I spotted this Eastern swallowtail about three steps away. It posed, then flitted away.
I do not know the "bird" but I am glad it did not show up while I was hanging about. The eggs are about the size of a volleyball.
BBBH, the hawthorne, the gatehouse and Old Glory.
A dugout canoe Native American style. Beautiful is reading James Alexander Thom at the time, and she was relating the experiences at the Mounds to the tales she is reading.
Sadly, I learned a hard lesson about carrying the camera in a pocket. Walking through the woods, I heard a rustling in the duff. There, about five meters ahead, was a large bird scratching in the leaves. I said, "Hello, Chicken," though I knew full well it was not a chicken. It looked up as I was fumbling to retrieve my camera. It was a pileated woodpecker. I, still fumbling, the bird flies to a tree about three meters farther away, perches on the trunk, watches me a bit. I still have not gotten the camera out of the pocket when it swoops away.
Next month: Summit Lake
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