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Random Thoughts and Around the Web
Cool stuff on the web Kal has some cool Christmas desktop backgrounds to download, plus a plethora of other creative things you can buy for Christmas. Kasie has a recipe for pumpkin whoopie pies…um, yeah!!! Mom, make these! Elizabeth reaffirmed my dreamy nature in admitting she too wished to marry Prince William. We are both already off the market, but now Prince William is too. *drat*. Renee’s apple drawing made me want to bust out some art supplies. Check our her calendars, too. Chiot’s Run is also putting out a calendar for next year. It looks super awesome! We debated doing one before we started this job but the job…
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Trail Tales 13: Connecticut
Relevant posts: New England Once inside Connecticut we climbed Ten Mile Hill. The day had turned overcast from a mostly bright morning. On the north side of Ten Mile Hill we met some Student Conservation Association volunteers reworking parts of the trail. I know that in general flat rocks on the trail are looked at as being nice, but I personally feel like they are just too slick to walk on and would much prefer bare dirt. I’m not talking about trail that is already littered with rocks, but when a trail has specifically been maintained to add rocks to the trail. Lunch was at the Ten Mile River Lean-to…
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Silent Sunday
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The Big Thicket
The Big Thicket is a patchwork of forest in east Texas that is run by the National Park Service. It is similar to Big Cypress National Preserve in that hunting and other recreational uses are allowed unlike many other national parks in the system. I had been here 9 years ago in a wetlands class in college but didn’t quite remember everything about it. We went to a few different trails, the Sundew Trail, the Pitcher Plant Trail and the Beech Woods Trail. The last ivory billed woodpecker verified in the United States was seen in the Big Thicket near the Neches River. Interesting stuff! We found a black rat…
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Trail Tales 12: New York
When we arrived in New York we did not hear Frank Sinatra singing to us the ode we all know, instead we were dripping with sweat and moving along slower than we were expecting. We had though we’d passed the Village Vista Trail which would signal we had about 2.7 miles to the road where more ice cream was waiting, but when we arrived at the sign we were greatly disappointed. Luckily the trail smoothed out a bit and we breezed down to the road and had ice cream before dinner. The Bellvale Creamery was heaven 0.2 miles off the trail and it was also packed. We got a few…
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Trail Tales 11: New Jersey
New Jersey is a state that most people don’t equate with mountains and nature, but it is a very beautiful part of the trail. When we left Delaware Water Gap we stopped at Sunfish Pond, the only part of the trail that Chris had been on previously. We ran into the Traveling Circus, Moose & Tetherball and Cubbie and Dilly Dally while there. It’s an easy hike up to the pond and the pond itself is a popular day hike destination. It was sprinkling a little that afternoon but we made a nice day out of it. We were planning for camping somewhere after near Blue Mountain Lakes Rd and…
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Floating Along….
Things started changing around here last week at work so I ended up on the trash crew instead of the drill crew because that section of the project was ending. My technical title is Biologist, but right now we have switched to being monitors for the trash crew that is going back and cleaning up all of the flagging that lined the trails through the woods. There are miles and miles and miles of this. I walked a four mile section with the Mexican worker that I am monitoring last week, and that was only for two hours. We get up even earlier for the safety meeting which is in…
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*Contest: Name That Fauna*
Contest Rules: Take a stab at what the animal is in this photo by Friday at 6pm CST. The first person to guess correctly will win an 8×12 open edition print of your choosing from our new photo website and gallery that will be debuting in a few short days. My apologies to those who are not heavily interested in wildlife, but we’ll have another contest soon, I promise! If no one guesses by the closing on Friday I will post a second photo hint.
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Here
I’m here. Been working longer hours as the project shifts gears. Been working on the website, too. Have 5 days off this week and am hoping to get a jump start on some things. Or not. Who knows. Just feeling lost without a home base right now. Missing the Big Dog and the Big Tiger right now. Hopefully more productive blogs this week.
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The Fall Glow
The late afternoon is when the forest glows so beautifully. The morning has its moments, but I am fond of afternoon sunlight. How is it November already? Sometimes I wonder where the past three months went. It will be almost three months ago that we were on Katahdin. I am certainly not where I thought I would be. I think I figured we would have a place of our own by now and a ‘real’ job. Still waiting for both. Red lycoris lining the side of a forest road; a house is nearby. I finished reading one book last week, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. On the whole I thought it was…