Its Raining leaves and nuts

Howdee all,

It is Autumn here in North Carolina.

The hickory leaves and nuts are falling..I love the way the leaves nestle themselves in the front of our Homey..

Ballie goes for walks on the harness…he likes chewing on grass.

I gave him a bath yesterday,so he looks a bit scraggly.The hickory trees in the photo below have lost their leaves…can you see all the nuts still on the tree?These are the Hickory's above our Homey..leaves and nuts falling now..

Sounds extremely loud from inside when a nut falls on our roof.Yesterday we had hundreds of what looked like Turkey Vultures flying overhead in the thermals. I changed the contrast on the photo below so you can see just the crazy amount of birds.Wish I knew what else was flying with them…

One more bird added to this visits Yard list

Turkey Vultures

 

It was very warm and breezy yesterday…lots of Hickory nuts and leaves falling..

Beautiful…...

Its Rainling Leaves and nuts.

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…

View from here

Howdee all,

Been busy lately…seems like I am always writing this.

I have spent less time on the computer, though, some would say that’s not true.

The view from Homeys window in Mom and Dads driveway.

The bird house is empty now…The dogwood is showing is fall splendor

And the last Cleome is blooming…

There are Juncos, White-throated sparrows, Robins, and Grackles a plenty.

Today a Junco hit our Homey window… It died in my hand, so sad

 

Just a few weeks and we head south…

North Carolina…will it still be autumn there? What birdies will be waiting for us?

Sicksta…Did you fill up the feeders?

Are my flying Squirrels waiting for me?

What treasures await?

Hickory Nuts, hitting our homeys roof?  Sicksta said she picks up five wheel barrels full a week..YIKES..

Looks like we will make some Hickory nut tea, hickory nut stew, hickory nut loaf, and whatever else we can think of.

See you Soon!

Lantern Hill Hike, Ledyard/North Stonington, CT

Howdee all,

Still enjoying the amazing foliage.

Lantern Hill VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Sunday we hiked Lantern Hill with my Sicksta Tammy and her hubby Joe. Lantern Hill is not to far from where we are parked in my parents driveway in Ledyard, Ct.

Nearby City:
North Stonington/Ledyard

Length:
2.6 total miles

Elevation Gain:
Minimal around 400ft

Trail Type:
Out-and-back

Skill Level:
Moderate, steep climbs and bare rock

Season:
Year-round, weather permitting

 

We started out hike via Wintechog Hill Road. Directions here. I found this online GPS map that is pretty cool. The author started his hike from Foxwoods Casinos Two Trees Inn.

Check out the graph then x out of the black box to see his route.
Lantern Hill

EveryTrail - Find trail maps for California and beyond

The hike started with a gradual uphill climb.

The trail splits….the trail to the left goes directly to the summit, we took the trail to the right that skirts around the summit and then took a trail to the summit.First views of Lantern Hill pond.Beautiful oranges, reds and yellows.

I always think of Trix cereal when I see these colors.Below you see the remains of a Silica Mine.

Lantern Hill gets its name because its white cliffs are said to shine in the sun when seen from the sea (Caulkins p. 97; Crandall pp. 107-108; Detwiller). Some believe that Lantern Hill was also known as "Tar Barrel Hill." In August 1814, during the War of 1812, barrels of tar were set ablaze atop a hill to warn residents of the British approach along the coast. It may be unlikely that Lantern Hill is Tar Barrel Hill, being so far (on the border with Ledyard) from the more populated coast. A more likely candidate for Tar Barrel Hill is Jeremy Hill, about 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) to the southeast, on the Stonington/North Stonington border (Haynes and Boylan, p. 51; Heermance, pp. 246-247). The barrels were put in place on May 15 and set on fire on August 9, 1814 (Haynes and Boylan, p. 51). The smoke from the burning tar, not the light from the fire, may have been the warning signal (Grotz p. 32; Haynes and Boylan, p. 51).  via ^{The Story of the Yawgoog Trails}

The hill's quartz was first mined by David D. Mallory in 1870 ("A Growing Industry"; Haynes and Boylan p. 74). With a purity as high as 96.84% silicon dioxide, the mineral had many uses, including glassmaking, filter sand and construction aggregate. Lantern Hill quartz was used as an aggregate in the concrete faces of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts (Altamura, Tectonics, Wall-Rock Alteration pp. E31, E15). Paul Slade and his Gang reused narrow-gauge rails from the quarry to build a short marine railway where Yawgoog's sailing center is today. The railroad was used to move 28-foot (8.5-meter), surplus navy cutters into and out of Yawgoog Pond from the 1930s onward (Williams and Anthony vol. 2 p. 28). Lantern Hill is spiritually significant to the Pequots (Detwiller; "Bozrah's Healing Waters"); the tribe protected the quarry site by acquiring it from the U.S. Silica Company in 1994. To the south, it can be seen that much of one of the hill's lower summits was removed before mining ended.
via ^{The Story of the Yawgoog Trails}

^{See Foxwoods Casino in the distance?}

Here's a better view.Jeff and Joe checking out the scene.

The hill is composed mostly of high-purity milky quartz and it occupies the inactive Lantern Hill Fault, which runs south into the Atlantic Ocean. Analysis of the quartz reveals that it is 238 million years old—the mid-Triassic Period of the Mesozoic Era in geologic time. The formation of the fault and the quartz are associated with the early formation of the Atlantic Ocean (Altamura 1995; Altamura 2003).[5] [6] 

Via Wikipedia

We continued to the summit…east side

Back to the western summit and we start our hike down to Lantern Hill pondWe leave the Reds..for a forest of Gold.To the pond where we see, Wood, Mallards and Black Ducks.The golden forest was busy with Chickadees, Titmice, Juncos, Downy woodpeckers  and Wood thrush.Wowee colors…The peachy colored leaves in the trees below are Dogwoods.We continued that trail thru the forest of gold and green..We didn’t have a map..so we hoped we were taking the right trail back to the car.Old foundation….wonder who lived here…We made it to the road we came in on..the car was just a hop, skip and a jump away..

Happy Hiking!