You Gotta Love Nature!

It's been a busy couple of weeks and unfortunately, I didn't have time to blog. 

First of all, I must mention that sadly we had to let our sweet Sedona cross Rainbow Bridge.  She fought the good fight, but after several different attempts to get her well from pancreatitis, we knew we were fighting a losing battle.  She crossed over on October 26th.  She was only 8 years old, but the vet told us we did the right thing...so I am at peace with our decision, and I know she is too.  So, I've added a picture and a little bio of Sedona to my second page on this blog called, "Fur Kids, Present, Past and Future".  The tab to that page is at the top of this entry.

I've been mostly busy cleaning the house and preparing for Thanksgiving.  Now that that is behind me, I can take a bit of a breather before I have to get busy for Christmas.

The Christmas decorations are all up, and I think I have all of my gifts ready...they still just need to be wrapped.

Lots of crazy family stuff going on too that has me a bit out of sorts, but I've decided just to move on and let the crazies fend for themselves!  One of these days, they'll see what they have done...hopefully.

Today was a bird counting day for Project FeederWatch.  I've been participating in this program for 6 years, and I get more excited every year to start the season.  The season begins in November and runs through part of April. 

As the years have passed, I can tell that a few new birds are beginning to come more often to my feeders.  Of course, I love to see the hawks come too.  They don't eat from the feeders, but they keep their eyes on the little birds that do.  I certainly, don't want them to catch any of the little birds at my feeders. so I'm happy when they fly off without a kill.  I'm sure they find food elsewhere...which is fine with me!

Here are a few pictures from today of a Cooper's Hawk.  Unfortunately, one is a bit fuzzy.  The other two, it's face is hidden behind some leaves.  Some of the pictures were taken with my phone, some with a camera.  I need to remind myself to change the camera batteries more often.  After lunch I changed the batteries and got much better pictures of a yellow bellied sapsucker.

These two pictures were taken with my phone.

This one, with my camera before I changed batteries.  I'll learn.

 I'm really happy I got some pictures of the yellow bellied sapsucker.  I can prove to myself that I really saw him!

These pictures were taken with my camera, after the batteries were changed.  I love that we can see all of his beautiful colors!

Here is a picture of a yellow bellied sapsucker actually sucking sap!  Haha! I just had to say that, and of course you can see his yellow belly too!

You gotta love nature!!

Miami University Natural Area Hiking Trails

It's always nice to find a new area to go hiking.  My daughter led us to Miami University Natural Area in Oxford, Ohio.  It's not too far from where we live, so Herb and I headed out last Sunday.  We left our dog, Finn at home because we weren't sure how difficult the terrain might be.

This was the first sign we saw!  Cool!  I want to see coyotes!!  We're headed for Kramer Woods!

It was quite a trek for me...lots of ups and downs.  Not that they were unusually difficult, but I'm still careful with my new knee and my old knee.  Some of the terrain was iffy for me, so I was glad I kept Finn at home.  I didn't need him pulling me all over the place.

This is me, heading up hill on one of the many bridges we crossed.

 Lots more downhill pictures.

There is another bridge in the middle of this picture.

Here is Herb, taking a few minutes to look around.

We finally made it to Kramer Woods...we didn't see any coyotes though.  Maybe next time!

This is a deer exclosure.  Designed for a long term scientific study.

We came across this log just covered all over with the fungi...really cool looking,  I think.

We eventually found our way along a creek crossing over to several different trails.

The roots of these trees are definitely on the edge.  I wonder how long before they fall into the creek below.

We were nearing the end when we had this hill to climb.  My knees can take the up hills pretty well.  However, this hill just about had me beat.  The "steps" to one side were so steep, I had a very difficult time pushing myself up from one step to another.  I must work on my quad strength more.  It was difficult to move laterally from the steps to just the hill itself.  I was afraid of slipping downhill.  Once I stopped, I lost my momentum. It was a challenge!  I should have taken my hiking poles along.  Hopefully, I'll remember them next time.

Here is the map of the entire area.  The area encircled is the area we covered on Sunday.  We really did a lot of hiking.  Looks like we have a lot more to do!!!  Looking forward to that challenge soon!

Blue Jay Alert!!!

I haven't been hiking the last week because I've been busy with other things, like getting my bird feeders ready for the Cornell Ornithology, Feeder Watch Program that will start soon. 

Herb, who works at Lowe's always brings home things he sees on special...most of the time, things we don't really need.  However, he brought home a new bird feeder hanging pole, so I can hang even more feeders!  I think it's more for hanging flower pots, but I claimed it as soon as he brought it home!

So I filled up some of the feeders to get the birds interested and coming back again.  I didn't really keep the feeders full over the summer. We also bought a bird bath...we should have had that during the summer, but better late than never.

I love blue jays and I'm always listening for them.  When I hike, I like the way they spread the alarm to all of the other forest creatures that we are coming and to be aware.  While in the house, one day, I heard all of this racket the blue jays were making.  I looked out, and spotted nine of them!!!  At the most, I've seen 2 or 3 at one time.  I don't know where they all came from this time, but it was fun seeing them all and trying to get all of their pictures.

Some of these pictures are not that great, but wanted to include all of the birds I could see.

Love this little trio:

And where did that Cardinal come from?  Such pretty colors, both blue and red!

This is my favorite picture.  I didn't realize there were 3 blue jays in this picture until I enlarged it.