11 May 2019 Stopping at Crossingville

We had tried to to make a couple visits to the gamelands at Crossingville.  We passed on our first visit with snow covering the ground.  A second drive to the area ended with a rainy decision to leave the visit for another day.  Today we were here with blue skies.  The field was actually a very wet marsh area and made for a wet start to our journey.

Early fungus

We had a great time in the spring woods with our cache hunts

and spotted a few spring wildflowers.  We also were surprised to see an afternoon turkey crossing.  I was surprised enough to miss an image.

We stopped later for a walk at Anders Run to see if the orchids were up.  We found an early one with a spike.  We also enjoyed the rest of the wildflowers on the way.

10 May 2019 Egrets at the Office

I'm getting used to seeing great blue herons at the office pond.  It's still exciting to me, but now the water appears to be a regular stop of them to look for a meal.  Spotting seven great egrets at the water was a an exciting surprise.

8 May 2019 Finding Hidden Treasures

This post isn't really about geocaching.  The hidden treasures were a pair of woodpeckers I spotted while out for a lunchtime walk.

There is a geocaching twist though.  I stopped at the park to walk for a bit and see what spring wildflowers might be in bloom.  The spring wildflowers were mostly past bloom so there were little blossoms to see.  Noise in the trees gave me a glimpse of these two flickers moving from tree to tree together.  I was lucky and managed a few images.

The geocaching twist is a puzzle at this park.  I have been in my new office for three years.  It is close to this park which had an unfound puzzle cache I solved when my office moved.  Over the three years, I have stopped and looked and repeated the process.  I finally stopped looking last year.  Today, with the excitement of the flickers, I decided to take a walk and look once again.  Within minutes, luck was with me and the log was signed.  It was a good lunch break

7 May 2019 Trilliums

When we moved into our home years ago we were thrilled in the first spring to see a handful of trilliums leaf and bloom.  Now our springs are filled with multiple large round clusters of these wonderful flowers.

6 May 2019 Spring at Moebis

I missed grabbing images of the turtles basking in the spring sun, but was able to gather a few images of the birds enjoying a spring day at the pond.

5 May 2019 Our Woods

Everyone needs a yard toad.

We had many bloodroot plants this year, but couldn't spot any blossoms.

Enjoy the flowers of the season...

4 May 2019 Walking the ANF

We were happy for some warmer, dry weather to take a walk in the ANF.  It was still early for seeing much growing, but we were able to enjoy some sites while getting in a long walk.

We used to have rose-breasted grosbeaks at our home in Ohio.  Then we would see them in the front of our Pennsylvania home and on bikerides down the road.  It has been a long, long time since I have seen one.  This afternoon, Ali started to hear them and then she saw one.  Then she saw another one.  She spent time gently guiding me with where to look and eventually I spotted one too!  Then I saw a second one.  It made the day.  😊  The image is poor, but the experience was priceless.

27 April 2019 Alone With the Dogs

Ali was back east to visit with family so I was dog and house sitting.  With spring there are always chores to do so keeping busy and usefull outside wasn't a problem.  I did take time to see what was blooming.

Crabapple

Magnolia

Serviceberry

Closer to the ground, our grape hyacinths were blanketing the edges of the lawn.

The chores were so consuming that I hadn't time to head southwest to a favorite bakery in the Old Brooklyin area.

I wanted to take a short hike and hunt a few caches.  I had decided to make a visit to West Creek Preserve.  It has been 14 years since my first visit here.  On that first visit the park was a mess.  It was a dumping ground for the locals.  Cleveland Metroparks has made a wonderful transformation of the area.  My walk today included spring wildflowers, mallards, and the cleaned stream.

26 April 2019 Garter Snakes

It's spring and the garter snakes are back at our property.

21 April 2019 Spring Planting

We always enjoy visiting the Holden Arboretum Annual plant sale and look forward to buying native wildflowers for our woods.  Buying them means planting day.  It was raining most of the day, but the plants still needed to get in the ground.

For years we have searched our property hoping to find ramps.  We've always failed.  Until this year!  We were doing early pulls to fight back the dreaded garlic mustard and clearing some wild grape vines when we spotted these.  Now that they have some space, hopefully they will spread so we can pull a few and enjoy.

A few blue cohash was in its short bloom season.

The stream was looking attractive today with rain water giving it a nice flow.

The rain was giving plenty of moisture to our bluebells as they started to bloom.

Trillium leaves are up too.

In the deeper woods, rue is in bloom.

My planting today included turtlehead.  We have tried for a few years to establish turtlehead.  We've had some success with returning plants so we were excited for the opportunity to extend the planting.  Our excitement would be short-lived with a severe flood.