It's really wet out there people

I borrowed my daughter's rubber boots and went for a walk in the preserve today. I really can't stand walking on the road around my neighborhood. I just can't. Too many cars. I never know if they're honking to be friendly or just because they're assholes. I always end up walking in the ditch, and for some reason, walking in the ditch next to the road just annoys me no end.

So it was boots and blisters and I didn't care. (Note to my daughter: your boots have leaks in them. On the upside, now I know where the word "squelch" comes from.) Lots of water out there, but look what I found!

Eggs in the water! It has to be tadpoles, right? And this is where all those adorable little toads are coming from. They're still out there, even weeks after I first saw them. Still hopping across my path. They make me smile. So different from walking on the street. I don't mind moving over for baby toads, you see. I don't mind it at all.

Marching onward

I have stopped running through the woods anymore. My knee has suddenly grown old and tired and refuses to put up with that kind of behavior. Now, me and the dog, we march. Quick-step, arms flying forward and back (except when my companion stops to pee or poop or sniff something, which is pretty often, and then my leash hand stays behind me and doesn't resume the fro-ing until Miss Daisy catches up again), striding forward through tall grass (don't they mow here anymore?) and muddy bogs, I look ridiculous I think. This kind of walking looks out of place here, I am sure. This poor turkey gaped at me for a full minute and a half before turning and quickly striding off into the woods, exactly as though he was afraid to be associated with such an odd person.

 But the wildflowers didn't mind at all.

 Nor did the crooked tree.

 The dew ignored me.

And this baby toad just hoped I wouldn't step on him. So I didn't and took a picture instead.

I thought I got up early

I thought I got up early this morning but someone beat me out to the woods. Here's a bike track.

And here's a dog's paw print.

And someone thoughtfully knocked down all the spider webs before I ran into them.

Oops. Missed one.

Find the toad!

The past few weeks there has been a hatching of tiny toads out in the woods. They hop and bounce all over the trail and I dance and skip to avoid stepping on them. Finally decided I was a force of nature and quit worrying about it. The dirt is soft and my shoes have many, many toad friendly depressions in them. I took some pictures this morning and when I got them off my camera realized that I had a hidden picture game here. So, find the toad! If you need a hint, email me and I'll tell you right where to look.

Burned out

They've been doing controlled burns at the preserve again. The air is toxic. When I look at the black ground and the ashes it's impossible to remember what it used to look like only the day before. The burns are done to protect the houses that are around the preserve.
The contrast is so stark from one side of the path to the other. The morning after the burn I walked along the trail between the two different preserves, one blackened and still smoking and the other green. There was a mockingbird calling from a burned tree stump.

I've been through here after a much larger burn. That one left a haze of smoke for days. It felt like post apocalyptic hell in there. That was in December of last year.

But then, six months later, it looks like this. 

And if I didn't have the pictures I wouldn't remember what it looked like before the green.

Waiting for the dog

Sometimes, when you're waiting for the dog to finish whatever it is she's doing, you look up and there's a nice picture waiting to be taken.

What you see isn't always what you get

I found this caterpillar on an orange tree in my front yard. I've been watering the citrus, trying to help the trees weather this drought we've been having and I noticed something moving on a branch. It was a caterpillar, but with some funky coloring on it. That's when I realized it was masquerading as bird poop. I ran inside to get my camera, and miracle of miracles, managed to get a focused shot using the macro setting. He's really amazing, in a blecchy sort of way.

It got me to thinking, is he very tasty and that's why he's disguised this way? Or is he yucky tasting and this is how he advertises the fact?

Morning is best

Have I mentioned that I love walking in the woods in the morning? If I have, pardon me for repeating myself, but it's true. I hear birds singing and fluttering in the saw palmettos. The noise of early morning traffic is muffled by the trees, like distant surf. I especially love it when it's foggy out. The dog gets spooked and hangs back instead of tugging ahead on her leash. Multiple layers of trees and grasses, in greens and browns and blacks loom out at me and then, as they recede into the mist, become gray ghosts. When you look up, the sky is bright blue with pink clouds all across it, like cotton candy.

Lucky me

I'm cultivating gratefulness lately. Can't remember where I heard it. Maybe it was a podcast. I listen to them a lot when I'm out walking the dog. Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, This American Life, Science Friday, Too Much Information, Poetry Off the Shelf, Meditation Oasis. Hardly ever music. If I do listen to music, it's usually belly dancing music. Or it's music in my head. In which case, I always wish that I'd brought my iPod, or if I did bring it, that the batteries weren't dead.

Anyway, today I was in a hurry to walk the dog between dropping Sam off at the college and getting Nick to his dentist appointment and avoiding the men with chainsaws out in Tilly Fowler park, when I rounded the corner and suddenly saw this guy. I was so happy to see him. I couldn't stop to admire him properly so I snapped a picture with my phone (no camera! When will I ever learn?) before moving on to the dog's favorite pooping spot (before you ask, everywhere is her favorite pooping spot). He cheered me up, though. And I am definitely writing him down in my list of things to be grateful for tonight before I go to sleep.

He's green, which is perfect for St. Patrick's Day coming up, and he's perfect. Apologies for the low res image. Next time I'll remember the camera.

It's like shooting on LSD…

That is, if I ran while tripping. I trip while running, but that's not the same thing. I used to do this a lot back in Michigan, take photos while running. I would get some really neat effects, depending on the light, the season, how hard I was jogging. The thing is, when I'm running, I don't like to stop, because it's so hard to start running again. And it's really hard to run and then stop and take a photo without shaking. So then I thought, why bother stopping at all? So this is the result. I maxed out the saturation in iPhoto, but the rest of it is just pure random magic. If you click on one of the pictures, you'll see a larger image. I think they look like paintings.

This last one, I like especially because it's a shot of the woods where a prescribed burn was done a few weeks ago, but it just looks so beautiful there now. All the pine needles have fallen to the ground so it's carpeted in orange and brown and yellow and a lot of the shrubbery is burnt red. Really cool looking. Hot, I mean. Hot looking.