11 May 2013 Walking the Western Reserve GeoTrail

We never seem to finish this geotrail, but we always enjoy our time on the path. It was a grey day with a few spots of rain so we had most of the trail to ourselves for the day. We did get to see an unusual closed bike along the trail.

Eva was having a good day and seemed to enjoy her walk.

This old railroad line includes sections with super wildflowers. The variety ranges from carpets of phlox and wild geraniums to large groupings of bloodroot and false solomon's seal. It makes a pleasing walk.

They look so well behaved when there is a dog treat in play. ;-)

This is the first place I have seen bluebird boxes attached to the outer rails of pedestrian bridges along the trail. There were no bluebirds in view this evening, but we have see a number of them farther south on this trail.

8 May 2013 Looking for Wild Hyacinths

I stopped for a walk on my way home to see if the wil hyacinths along the Chagrin River were in bloom. They were still a week or two away from peak, but I did fins some buckeye trees in full blossom along the trail.

6 May 2013 Wild (and not so Wild) Flowers

At Our Home

State Game Lands 152

5 May 2013 Cook Forest and Clear Creek

There are thirty caches in the DCNR Legacy of Conservation Geotrail. Over the last three years we have found a few of the caches, but had never focused on finished the series. Now the series will end June 30 so we either need to finish or walk away. Since Eva was doing well, we decided to give her another visit to Cook Forest so she could play there once more. It also gave us an opportunity to add to our finds in the Legacy of Conservation series.

4 May 2013 Benson Swamp

Eva suddenly bounced back from multiple days of being sick and listless. We knew the bad news was most likely to be confirmed early the following week so we decided to take her to Pennsylvania to enjoy the trails as long as possible. There were a new series of caches at Benson Swamp so we stopped for those. Benson Swamp is a mix of swamp and forest. We started at the swamop end and made our way to the wooded area. We were both hoping for a few wildflowers on the way, but were happily surprised by one of the larger spring wildflower displays we have ever seen. It was a special mix of carpets of one type of wildflower mixed with a large variety of different flowers. Our last stops were a high terrain climb to a nice overlook. Ali spotted a number of interesting fossils on the way of the trail. We were both glad to have another day of Eva with us to enjoy the trails.

3 May 2013 Surprise News

There's a few ritual places I pencil in each year to relax. One of those has been the Holden Arboretum plant sale. Today was the day of the sale. It's spring and even my thumb is green. Before we went to the plant sale, we made a visit to our vet. Our dog Eva had been sick for a couple days and didn't appear to be improving. A short time after our arrival at the vet, we knew there was bad news when the vet came into the room battling tears. Eva had a large cancer growth pushing against her heart and windpipe causing her sudden illness. Sometimes you know there's no long term happy news. This was one of those times. We still went to the plant sale, but it was with heavy hearts.

1 May 2013 Lake Erie Sunset

Spring... convertible... geocache... ice cream at Coopers... sunset on a swing at Osborne Park... :-)