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.

Everything has gone to seed

I like how all the flowers have put on their fall finery. It's poofy white hats and clouds of seed dresses. Or something like that. The rows of white puffs look like snow drifts to me.

Running to keep up

This is progress. At least she's running along with me in this picture and not stopped somewhere behind me, sniffing at deer tracks or looking to see who's catching up. I'm running again, if you can call it that. I imagine that it looks more like shuffling in a semi-upright position. I imagine that if you saw me you'd think, "That poor woman looks like she's in a lot of pain. Why doesn't she stop?" I can't stop. I read an article in my local paper about someone who started running when she was in her sixties and was now a champion at age 93. My husband says she's probably just the only one left alive in her age group. So that just means I have to outlast everyone else to win. I can do that.

Tiny moon

I apologize for the dark pictures lately, but it's horsefly season and those buggers chase me right out of the preserve when they're active. I've been getting up and out by 7 in the morning when it's still cool enough that flying pests are still asleep.

Three different days

 This from two days ago. There's something very wonderful about vapor trails in the sky, especially first thing in the morning. All those people going someplace, who knows where? And here we are, me and the dog, seeing the streaks of their passing.

 Early yesterday, I was out looking for wild blackberries to dig up and take home and there's a short cut through this field of grass, all dead now, but it glows orange this time of day, and Daisy is just a ghost walking through it.

These little flowers are so pretty, tiny and delicate, strung with little bits of spider webbing. I can never resist them.

Handlebars--In the Wild!

Big Wheel scat.

Walking in Ravine Gardens

My husband and I spent a pleasant few hours wandering around Ravine Gardens State Park in Palatka, Florida. The Azalea Fest was last week but there were plenty of flowers out and we took lots of pictures. I like my floating bee best because it was so big and shiny. There were lots and lots of bumble bees out visiting the flowers along with us. We saw a bitty alligator and a tree frog and the resident barred owl, too, although my picture of the owl is too blurred to share.

Shiny black bumble bee

Azaleas were plentiful.

Iris in the ponds at the bottom of the ravine.

Smallish alligator.

Bottom of the ravine, looking toward one of the footbridges.

Bottom of the ravine, near the springs.

Treefrog clinging to a palm.

More azaleas.

Nice couple we met later on the trail. They'd spotted a couple of woodpeckers.

Almost green

I made this extra large because I love the almost green color in the sky behind the clouds and though you might like it, too.

Have you seen me?

Whatever was inside these curious looking things, they'd already escaped by the time I found them. I feel ambivalent about this.

Fog and scrag

Interesting that the shapes of trees turn more menacing when they're cloaked in fog. The dog was completely spooked for the first twenty minutes of our walk on this day. But typically, she got distracted early on and forgot to be scared.

Walking the firebreak

So this is a portion of my walk through the Julington Durbin Preserve. It's along the firebreak, which isn't the usual hard packed path that we follow, so it takes a little longer to get through. I took pictures every little while. Going this way adds another twenty minutes or so to the walk. I'm hoping that if I walk through here often enough, I'll wear a firm path through it, and it won't be quite so mind-consuming. Because as it is right now, I have to watch where I put my feet.

Kayaking on Julington Creek

 A good friend kindly loaned me and my husband a pair of kayaks, and this morning the three of us paddled down (up?) Julington Creek. It was a really fine day, 70 degrees or so, no bugs at all and quiet. Steve saw a water moccasin coiled in the water, and there were egrets and a duck and a flock of wild turkeys in the woods. We saw several big fish jumping.

Someone made a ladder on top of an old stump hanging out over the water.
Floating under Old St. Augustine Road on the way back to the landing at Palmetto Leaves Park (across from the Kohl's plaza). See the little flame graffiti overhead? There were some little boys standing on the overpass, watching us come in and they asked if we'd seen any fish.

Webbing

The spider webs are coming back, so it must be spring.

Red trunk

It's red because it's damp outside. Maybe. I seem to recall that the trees in the school forest in Ludington would get rosy during the spring, too. It's sort of spring here in Jacksonville, now. At least, it's raining a lot.

Patch of blue

It was overcast this morning, but then the sun came out all of a sudden, and I turned around and there was a pretty juxtaposition of clouds and sky and grass and sand and scraggly trees...

I still love this shot

Even though I've taken it a bajillion times.

Close in and far out

 Pine cones are the coolest things.

And this just looks like a galaxy leading off into someplace interesting.

Small things

 This I liked because it looks like a heart and I thought about using it as a sort of natural bumper sticker, "I heart walking here."

 This is all about the bands of color.

 This is a giant frilly bow on a present.

 This is a perfect pine cone perched on a limb that fell off the tree.

These saw palmetto leaves were wet and patterned in the most interesting way. I wonder why they have diamond shapes on them?