Weekend Roundup

After running 5K Saturday morning, I spent the afternoon walking along my little street gathering signatures in order to have the city look into putting speed bumps in to slow down the traffic. Every neighbor I've talked to has a story to tell - everyone who has had to park on the street has had their cars hit and several people have lost pets to speeding cars. Cincinnati received a grant this year to spend on street calming initiatives and hopefully ours will be one of those to benefit.

I went hiking around Caldwell Nature Preserve early Sunday morning and I was the only person on the trails the entire hour. I spent a good fifteen minutes with the trio pictured - the fawns were very curious about me and kept inching closer as I stayed as still as possible and kept snapping photos.

This preserve has scads of pawpaw trees and I spotted lots of unripe fruit in the canopy. I'm planning a return visit once the fruit starts to ripen later in the year.

I also joined up with the Cincy Paddlers group on Sunday for an easy five mile run down the Whitewater River in Indiana. I hadn't been on that river for many years and was pleased to find how clean it was (notwithstanding the case of beer cans I picked up from the banks) compared to how I remembered it. The highlight of the trip for me was spotting a lone osprey hunting along the river. I also picked up a good tip from another new member; the Elkhorn Creek down in Kentucky looks like a lot of fun.

Weekend Report

Saturday morning I got up bright and early and dashed down to Findlay Market to see what goodies were available. I found (and brought home) asparagus, spinach, sorrel, eggs and a pot of thyme, all locally grown. I also found fresh fava beans at Madison's so I grabbed some of those as well. I'm going to make sorrel soup from the recipe I found on the Cincinnati Locavore blog tomorrow night.


I'd planned to spend the rest of the weekend at home finishing my spring cleaning, but today was just too nice outside and I dropped everything this afternoon to get in a quick two and a half mile hike over at French Park. I'm glad I did; I heard reedy calls of Gnatcatchers several times and I also heard the first Red-Eyed Vireo and Hermit Thrush of the season. Larkspur and Blue-Eyed Mary were in bloom as well. Unfortunately, French Park seems to be a bit sparse on native wildflowers and heavy in the introduced and problematic Garlic Mustard; there was scads of it blooming on the hillsides. I guess deer don't care much for its flavor.

Blue-Stemmed Goldenrod

Blue-Stemmed Goldenrod
Originally uploaded by lilysecret42

It's not the greatest photo in the world, I know. Back in the old days, before I carried a digital camera on all my hikes I used to carry several field guides in case I came across a bird/tree/flower/mushroom I didn't know. It made for a very heavy pack. Now I take pictures of the things and identify them later. Sometimes much later. I took this photo last October and have just now got around to looking it up. As best I can tell, this is a Blue-stemmed Goldenrod (Solidago caesia). I found it growing in Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore park (which is a lovely place) and there was a lot of it around at that time of year.

In other news I had my yearly performance evaluation at work today. It was all very positive; there were about a dozen anonymous comments from various co-workers singing my praises and saying how much they like working with me. I'm going to file them away and pull them out on those days when I feeling all blue and unlovable.

Hiking in Germantown

As usual, I decided to forgo any Super Bowl related activities today and went for a seven mile hike instead. I walked the long loop at Germantown Metropark, which is southwest of Dayton, Ohio. It's a great trail, wandering through old growth forest, cedar groves, riparian bottom land, a meadow and across a dam. It circles a portion of the valley through which the Twin Creek flows. The Twin Creek itself looks like it might be a tidy little river to try in the kayak during warmer weather.

The deeper woods were full of the calls and hammerings of Pileated Woodpeckers. I even saw a group of three cavorting through the treetops. It may seem like the dead of Winter out there but the Pileateds have Spring in their blood. There were other woodpeckers about as well, the common Red-bellied and the less common Hairy Woodpecker made themselves known. I even spotted a grizzled possum trundling along through the leaves in broad daylight.

It took me a ridiculously long time to walk the trail though, about four hours. The combination of having short legs and a naturalist's curiosity make for some mighty slow walking. Also, the last mile or two of the trail was often steep and icy; after I'd slipped and fallen twice I slowed my pace even further. During the second fall my trusty hiking staff saved me from crashing onto one knee and so I arrived home without injuries, not even a bruise. I sometimes get odd looks and comments from other hikers in regards to my stick, but it's saved me from nasty falls on more than one occasion.

More About Squirrels and Oaks

I decided to do an "Urban Hike" today and walked around Eden Park, roughly following the route I mapped out a couple of days ago. It was quite a nice walk, but I find I really prefer trails to sidewalks. People drive too fast through the park and I found myself wanting to shake my tiny fist at them and shout at them to slow down. And get off my lawn.

I was still thinking about squirrels and oaks today, probably because I live in close proximity to both. When I took my laundry to the basement this morning (I have to go outside to do this) there was a squirrel chattering at me from the security of a hundred year old oak tree.

Every few years, oak trees produce a synchronized bumper crop of acorns, a process known as masting. The abundance of food for the squirrels in turn causes a furry population boom the following year; well fed squirrels produce more squirrel pups. In colonial times, when the forests were more extensive and less fragmented, this often led to huge mass migrations during September as the squirrels left the area in search of new territories. In 1803 Lewis and Clark witnessed one of these mass emigrations, noting squirrels swimming across the Ohio River. Lewis assumed they were moving south for the winter. Other historical records report masses of gray squirrels so dense that it would take a month for the army to pass through.

The following text was copied from this website, but I can't find the author's name, else I would attribute:

During modern times, squirrel emigrations have not been as spectacular because of the cutting and fragmentation of the vast hardwood forest does not normally allow the build up of the same size squirrel mess as previous eras. But in 1964, millions of squirrels emigrated from the north of Georgia to the south. "One squirrel was reported swimming across the Allatoona Reservoir and encountered a boat in his path. It didn’t stop him. He just ran up an oar, jumped in the boat, ran across the man in the boat, and jumped back into the water continued his swim south. Normally wild squirrels in the woods are scared of man but during migration they lose their normal fear.

In 1968, a migration of squirrels occurred in most of the eastern United States; Alabama, the Carolinas, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. In New York, one hundred thousand drowned squirrels were pulled out of one reservoir. The number of squirrels killed by automobiles was a thousand times as high as usual. Some estimates of the squirrels number went as high as eighty million.

65 Degrees in January

I did not call in sick today, though it was awfully difficult not to with the weather being such a temptress. I managed to get out of the office once for a brisk walk in the parking lot (five times around the building equals one mile.) I left the office early and dashed over to Sharon Woods to get in a quick walk around the lake before dark. I was nearly caught speeding in my car past a park patrol officer, but slowed down in time to escape notice. Which is a good thing, because getting a speeding ticket for being in a hurry to take a walk would be really embarrassing.

Yesterday I cooked a nice casserole, which I brought for lunch today. I received the recipe in an email from Vegetarian Times. It's called Three Sisters Casserole (it needs a hot chili or two in the filling) and the name is derived from the staple Native American crops of corn (or maize), beans and squash. The corn was planted in a small mound and would serve as a living pole for the support of the bean vines while the squash grew at the base, its large leaves acting as living mulch to keep out weeds.

I never stopped to wonder why the corn I see in the Ohio fields these years is not as tall as the corn I saw on my way to school in the sixties and seventies. I had assumed it was the usual distortion of time and age, a product of me remembering the corn as taller than it actually was. But according to Bill Bryson, the corn grown today in the Midwest today is a shorter and better producing hybrid. I've never been to a corn maze, but I wonder if the farmers who create them grow the old ten foot tall varieties of corn especially for their labyrinths.

Happy New Year!

Brilliant fungi
Originally uploaded by lilysecret42

I photographed this lovely fungi last week while on a hike in the North Carolina Arboretum. According to Peterson's Field Guide to Mushrooms, it is called Witches' Butter (Tremella mesenterica.) It grows on wood throughout North America and is supposed to be edible, though I'm not inclined to try this one.

Right. That's what I learned today.

Happy New Year!
May you live well
Laugh often
Love much in 2008

ETA: I also learned that House Foods Tofu Steak is really not good. I'm rather fond of tofu but this was no winner.
I also learned that okra is really high in vitamin C. I had no idea.

Hiking on New Year's Eve

Afternoon sun through winter trees
Originally uploaded by lilysecret42

I thought I'd better get my weekly hike in today, since it's supposed to get quite cold and blustery tomorrow. I hiked around French Park for about an hour. The trails were very mucky; I probably wouldn't have gone out had I known, so it's just as well I didn't. Birds of interest included a Hairy Woodpecker and a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers.

Stay safe, all those celebrating tonight. Me, I'll probably be abed by eleven as usual. I live on the edge.