In the woods

Join me and my dog, Sadie, as I hunt for morel mushrooms.

What a day!

I started my day this morning with an hour-long ride on Blue. It was cloudy, but still a pleasant ride.

Cliff, who has never been able to find any morels, decided we'd mushroom-hunt instead of taking our regular walk, which suited me just fine. We split up so we could cover a larger area.

I found this white-ish toad. Or frog. I've never seen any amphibians this color before. He wasn't spookish at all, but stayed frozen to the spot while I took this closeup shot.

Another Mayflower growing through a leaf.

For the first time in his life, Cliff found some morels. Of course, it took the two of us two hours to find this many.

scenes from my woods

This is a scene from our woods; morel mushrooms abound on these slopes, if you can catch them at the right time. Those gullies are the reason my knees hurt; they are the reason I am currently walking with a limp.

It's beautiful back there, though.

Even when I don't find many morel mushrooms, there's always something in the woods to catch my eye.

You may not be able to tell it, but this is two butterflies mating.

Mayflowers abound in the woods. The little guy on the left, though, decided to grow through the middle of a dead leaf. So he's caught in a leaf hug.

Cliff and I like to do things together

I guess that's why we both came down with colds at the same time with the exact same symptoms. You know, the cold I described a couple days ago as "minor"?

Forget that! I'm thinking it wasn't the wisest thing to go riding the motorcycle yesterday, because we coughed and hacked all night; both our colds took a decided turn for the worse. Cliff said he didn't feel like going to work this afternoon, and I told him, "I know exactly how you feel, and I wouldn't go to work if it were me." So he called in for a sick day.

We've been napping off and on in our recliners most of the day.

Remind me never to brag again about not having a cold all winter.

Oh, I did take my choking, hacking self out to the pasture (slowly) to see if any poachers were on my place stealing morels; I unlocked the cabin so I could get Sadie a drink and noticed some sort of toad all flattened out by the door handle.

See him, to the right of the lock?

He didn't even budge as I approached for a closeup. In fact, when I closed the lock thing, it touched him and he still didn't move.

Isn't he cute? Click HERE and scroll down to "gray treefrog"; I think that's him.

I saw this little skull in the leaves below the cabin; a squirrel perhaps? By the way, ticks are already out and about. I discovered one latched onto my arm a couple of days ago, and I found one crawling up my ankle today. So I availed myself of the Deep Woods Off I keep at the cabin.

I always forget what these are called; they aren't violets.

It's easy to remember the name of these: Dutchman's breeches!

Spring must be here (and other short stories)

Sadie and I went for a walk in the woods today; she's so grateful when we go back there where she can run free.



We played her favorite game... Stick.


Over and over.


Oh yeah, by the way... our alfalfa is already growing like crazy! Let there be hay.