Fort Nature Refuge,North Smithfield, RI

Fort Nature Refuge

North Smithfield, Rhode Island

Fort Trail Map (42.55 kB)

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Howdee all,

This past weekend Jeff and I visited our daughter in Rhode Island. We share a love of the outdoors and hiking,so we chose this Audubon Refuge for our hike of the day.

 The Fort Family donated the land to the Audubon Society after they had created a nature refuge for themselves, Ruhren said. Trails wind through a forest of hardwoods, mixed with evergreens. In some places, there are stands of healthy hemlocks and patches of planted pines, white and red. via the ProjoA stream connects three ponds, creatively named First, Second and Third. They are the headwaters of the Woonasquatucket River which flows down to Providence and into Narragansett Bay.via The ProjoWe did a loop starting with the Blue trail..yellow, red and back to the blue.

Most of the leaves had fallen…

A bench in the waterGuess we wont be sitting here..Quartz still life..Pinkness…Anyone know what type of bee/hornet lives here?

We walked on crispy crunchy Through the forest to vernal pools..The water here is flowing over the road..good thing the trail didn’t go that way..Beautiful reflectionsDuckweed, leaves and Pine needles in water…I flipped this image…the reflection of the trees taking back their watery leaves and needles..We found signs of Beaver in the forest..downed trees, and worn areas where they crossed the path.Still some nice color..Looking for Birds…

Samarrah and Jeff discussing the routeA Green Island..with mini pine treeLuscious Loveliness Amazing natural rock CairnsPine needles cushion the ground..The sun comes out and shows us blue skies reflecting in the water..

Everywhere I look…Beauty

Beauty is Before Me

by Navaho (Anonymous)
(19th Century) Timeline

Original Language
Navaho/Dine

Primal/Tribal/Shamanic : American Indian

19th Century

Beauty is before me,
And beauty is behind me.
Above and below me hovers the beautiful.
I am surrounded by it.
I am immersed in it.
In my youth I am aware of it,
And in old age I shall walk quietly
The beautiful trail.

In beauty may I walk.
All day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons may I walk.

Beautifully will I possess again.
Beautifully birds . . .
Beautifully joyful birds

On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk.
With dew about my feet may I walk.

With beauty may I walk.
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty below me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me, may I walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.

It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.

A Navajo Indian Prayer of the Second Day of the Night Chant (anonymous)

When I saw these mushrooms I thought Morels, of course I knew they weren't morels..as Morels are a spring mushroom and these looked a bit different.

On closer inspection I saw that this mushroom came out of an egg shape..below the ground.Stinkhorn mushroom

by Michael Kuo

Stinkhorns are amazing mushrooms, notorious for popping up suddenly and unexpectedly in urban settings. They are very diverse in appearance, but all of them share at least two features:

Some part of the fruiting body, at some stage in development, is covered with a foul-smelling slime.

The fruiting body arises from an "egg," traces of which may disappear by maturity.

Beyond these shared features, however, just about anything goes, and stinkhorns range from looking rather like Morels to appearing like, um, a portion of canine anatomy, or odd marine creatures with tentacles, or crab claws, Wiffle balls, Chinese lanterns, and so on. Via Mushroom Expert.com

 We had a wonderful walk..Its so nice sharing our love of nature..…

What we weren't happy about was the ticks we found..both Samarrah and I found ticks..and I was bitten three times by the same tick I actually felt it biting me ..but didn’t find it till after the third bite…lets hope I don’t get Lyme Disease again….ugh..

Happy Autumn

Watch out for Ticks…