3 August 2018 Nesting Bluebirds

We've had house wrens and house sparrow use our bluebird boxes this season. It's good to see a bluebird pair raising young ones in a box.

29 August 2018 End of a Long Weekend

Our long weekend was ending today. We were planning to finish the qualifications for the Ohio Great 880 challenge and get home for dog pick-up from the sitters. We needed a number of finds in two counties and a long drive home. We started our day in Shelby County in the sleepy town of Lockington.

The small town hosts the remains of five locks which gave an almost seventy foot elevation rise along the Ohio and Erie Canal. The lock remains are mostly intact and make for an interesting visit. The geocache we searched made for a futile dnf. I didn't help by leaving my gps at the cache coordinates and needing to re-visit the site for the retrieval. The town

Locked one at the site was preserved a number of years ago.

The other locks are mostly intact and in remarkable condition for being over 170 year-old construction.

With little water in the late summer, they were an easy walk through.

As a small town, Lockington is dying. It has lost about 38% of its residents in the last twenty years dropping to 137. Eventually only the locks will mark this old town and it's history.

The locks were the highlight of the day. We seemed to start rolling through missing caches as we continued our quest to complete the Great 880. We did stop at a Tawawa Park in Sidney, Ohio. It was a fun place to spend time on the trails, but it too seemed to be missing a number of caches which were listed as active. We found the remains of one and had a replacement small in the backpack so we were able to replace the heavily damaged container. It's been found five times since we left a new container and trashed out the damaged on so that is a good thing.

More pawpaw fruit on the trail.

We needed sixteen finds between Shelby and Logan County. In the end it took us six and a half hours to find them. We were 3 hours from home and needed to get the dogs from camp. This was not the best day's adventure for the Great 880.

28 July 2018 Preble County

We were nearing the end of our journey to find ten caches in each Ohio County. Today's target was Preble County. We stopped on the way through Vandalia at Jim's Donuts for some pre-caching sustenance before making our way to Fort St. Clair to enjoy out donuts and start to work off those calories with a walk around the historical grounds. The fort was built in 1792 and appears to have been the scene of one large battle with multiple casualities. Today the grounds are a quiet park with the graves of soldiers who were killed at the site and memorials to other more recent military actions. The entrance is marked by an old tank and the grounds appear to be home to the local holiday light display. We enjoyed our walk, the caches we found, and a few of nature's sights.

Ohio Spiderwort in bloom

Southwest Ohio has some well preserved covered bridges. We made a stop at the popular Harshman Bridge on our journey.

This was an interesting old fastner inside the bridge. I have no idea of the purpose of the piece and can't find more information on line. Still, it was something I haven't noticed on other covered bridge constuction.

Hueston Woods was one of the first state parks we visited together many years ago. We were eager for a return trip and a visit to the trails. The caches weren't stellar, but it was fun to return. There are a reasonable number of paw paw trees which survive near home, but they rarely fruit. The state park had a number of trees bearing fruit today.

A pearly eyed butterfly along the trail

Our trip back to the hotel included a stop for a cache at this old steel bridge. These are vanishing in Pennsylvania. It was great to see this one had just received a refurbishment.

Vandalia also was the home of Airline Dairy Creme. While the airport across the road looked lightly used and sleepy, Airline Dairy was very popular among the locals. The offered lemon soft serve which made a very tasty cone when mixed with chocolate.

27 July 2018 Montgomery County

We had cached briefly before in Montgomery County and enjoyed our visit to one of the Five Rivers Metroparks. Today our first stop was at Carriage Hill Metropark. Carriage Hill is a mix of old farm remnants, prairie areas, and Cedar Lake. We started on a trail which led us by the old farm. We quickly spotted a pair of nesting wrens along the fence line for the pasture. It was feeding time in the nest and one of them had captured a spider for the young.

We passed by one end of Cedar Lake before heading to the trails and the old farmland prairie areas. This end of Cedar Lake was home to frogs and turtles.

A bee visiting teasel.

26 July 2018 Watching Hummingbirds

Every year we try to set aside time to visit Smith and Bigelow Cemeteries. We missed them last year as I worked through a super busy year at the office. These small spots of prairies are protected lands in central Ohio and have large stands of prairie wildflowers. We came here years ago to see the cemeteries and the wildflowers. Now each year's journey is at least as much focused on our best chance to see gathering of hummingbirds at Bigelow. We planned for a longer weekend to relax a bit and hike in a different area. We started our day in Marion County hoping to reach fifty finds in the county. It wasn't to be today. We had a few finds and enjoyed some wildlife sightings before moving southwest.

This goldfinch and a gew others were feasting on the flower seeds.

Our first prairie stop is always Smith Cemetery.

Bigelow Cemetery has great wilflowers including royal catchfly and prairie dock, but it really has hummingbirds. They gravitate to the flower selections. They buzz madly around searching for the perfect nectar and looking to chase away their fellow hummingbirds. It's like a miniature aerial dogfight carried out each day over the cemetery. This year was one of the best for numbers of hummingbirds and the opportunity to view them.

25 July 2018 Sunny Lake Turtles

A sunny day was the perfect day for a lunch time walk around Sunny Lake. The turtles along the eastern shore are usually skittish and slide into the water as visitors approach. Today, they were slower to respond and easy to capture in images.

Quite the plank