Today Last Year

There wasn't much snow on the ground today last year. There were growing mushrooms so I expect it was warmer as well, though it is supposed to get to almost 50 F today. The rain will likely make it feel colder. I was flipping though last years photos, and flowering bulbs are only a few weeks away. The cold will be ending, and spring will arrive. The yard is now down to only 2 inches of compacted ice, or 6 inches of snow depending on whether the dogs can get to an area. Soon the season of mud will appear and I will yet again curse not digging up the yard last fall and planting new grass.

Daily Photo - Whoops

Missed a day so here's two. Both from July of 2009 at Broadmoor.

Orange fungus Dragonfly from before I owned a flash.

Broadmoor

I took a jaunt around Broadmoor this afternoon. I remembered immediately why I don't hike on weekends. Too many people... and shrieking children. I did see dozens of these guys. Only one wanted to sit still. The trail around the wildlife pond is flooded and full of frogs. There was just one damselfly. I also saw one far off dragonfly, but nothing else but bees. There was some nice fungus too.

Daily Photo - Fungus

Moose Hill Farm 6:15 AM

After being unbelievably lazy all February and not doing anything during the lovely weekend we just had, I got myself up at 5:30 AM and went to Moose Hill Farm. It's not a bad place to walk though it isn't as nice as Daniel Webster can be at dawn, but it does only take ten minuets to get to from home, unlike 45 for Daniel Webster. With the 20 minutes I have to take to haul out of bed and get all the critters fed close to home wins.

There was plenty of convenient frost this morning but winter has largely stolen any interesting colors from the landscape. So while the frost is nice, what it gets attached to is often rather boring.

There were some greening up patches of moss in the woods. The ground in the woods is also no longer frozen making for much softer walking. Last time I walked here was in ankle deep snow and just the two mole loop was exhausting with the iffy footing. There was a little mud in places and the ground under the power lines was still frozen but overall the footing wasn't too bad.

I spotted a chipmunk so Spring really is coming.

There were several of these clustered under a dead tree near the fields.

I didn't see much else by way of critters. To punish myself some more I went home and walked Boomer for 3 miles before I went to work. I am going to have at least one dog who can walk down the street and not attack any other animals or jump on every person who passes. He's doing quite well. Leave it works quite well on joggers and medium sized dogs. However he seems to still be confusing small dogs with squirrels.

I may or may not do this again tomorrow. It mostly depends on how tired I feel tomorrow at 5:30 AM... Nope too tired. I went back to bed.

Yard Cleaning

With all the snow and rain I've been quite lazy about cleaning up after the dogs. I spent an hour or so this morning filling 5 trash bags. I'll probably need to fill two more before I consider it done. This cleaning led to my first fungus photo of the year.

Moose Hill - cont.

Squirrel Track.

The snow had a very interesting consistancy. The holes I think were from a warmer rain we had earlier in the week, and the tiny white balls were a dryish snow we had after.

Fungus in Snow. Some of the trails need some grooming of winter downed branches, but there weren't any significant blockages.

Another maybe coyote.

Deer track with all 4 hooves. most of the ones I saw only had the front two. There was a nice running track on the main trail into the sanctuary.

I realized how tiring it can be walking on snow when I got back out to the street. My feet seemed to be celebrating the ground not sinking anymore. It was odd, as it was a harder snow, with very little give, so I wasn't sinking much at all.

Daniel Webster

Another Sunday morning at Daniel Webster in Marshfield. I'm extremely lazy about going out in October and November, partially due to the weather, but also due to the fact it now gets dark within an hour of getting out of work. It keeps raining on the weekends, so I keep getting trapped at home. Above and Below are only different due to a twist of the circular polarizer. I took some colorful leaf pics before my basic proclivities reappeared and i noticed all the fungus covered tree limbs that fell down the day before. There were plenty of weird berries and such ready for the critters willing to eat them. Canadian Geese, there's a closeup farther down. Even the Poison Ivy is changing pretty colors. Reflections of sky. There were a few dozen of these guys all over the place. Oddly enough the only other birds I saw in large numbers were crows and starlings. Overall I had fun, though it wasn't as interesting as it has been before.

Daily Photo - Mushroom

This is growing out near my parking space at work. I rather liked the pattern.

Moose Hill - Part 2

These are all from the Forest Trail, which I'd never walked before. Yes I've been going to Moose Hill for 3 years now and had never walked this trail. I found it quite nice. I also found plenty of things to add to my list of finally seeing them.

Two interesting mushrooms.

The ferns are giving up... I love the ferns when they start coming up in the Spring. they've been beat all year and now it's time for them to sleep. I still think hibernating for humans is a sound concept. Just hide inside until Winter ends. I got a pic of the tops, but it wasn't even half as interesting as the bottoms. To be added to my list of new things seen. I'm not quite sure what it is yet, but I'll find out. This is just one part. There was a stem crawling along the ground with a bunch of these all sticking up from it. My first surprise spider of the trip. I almost walked face first into this one, who is much smaller than it appears. At first I though it was a spider dragging a leaf or something, but that is all body. I looked it up and came up with this, a female Spined Micrathena (Micrathena gracilius). Also a first. An American Pelecinid Wasp (Pelecinus polyturator), also a female. Why in the bug world does it seem only the females are noticeable. Either a Comma or a Question Mark butterfly. I couldn't get good pics of this one, as by the time I saw it and focused it would move again. Playing with swirling the camera while focusing on leaves above. I liked the effect on this one, but the others didn't come out as well. This is probably Clavulinopsis fusiformis, or Spindle-Shaped Coral Fungus. I find it to be a little less common, or maybe it's just coming up where I don't see it. I love this type of fungus. It doesn't seem to matter how many pics I take of it, anytime I see a new color, or new growth I end up with a picture. It's some type of bracket fungi. Black Racer. At first I thought this was a Black Rat Snake. Thankfully I stayed fairly far away, as Black Racers can be very nasty if they feel threatened. The snake was huge, or at least I thought it was huge. It was around 4 feet long and rather thick which is why I first thought rat snake. It looked a lot like a fat black corn snake. Also a first sighting for me, as I normally only see garters or ribbon snakes. Another face dropper. This one dropped down as I stopped to look back at the pics I took of the snake. It was easily the size of my thumb. A marbled Orbweaver (Araneus marmoreus), also a female. I got lazy, okay I stayed up until midnight, and didn't go out this morning, even though the pouring rain might have stirred up some interesting stuff. Maybe I'll go to Broadmoor on the way home.