Getting Creative

First Annual Pod Party!

                                                              The entries

Never underestimate the creativity (or competitive nature) of a group of nature nerds!  When the "pod contest" idea first came up, talk was of day-glo paint and glitter.  I thought I was being clever by using pipe cleaners...I never could have imagined the amazing works of art that would be the result! 

Thanks to all of you who joined in the fun - pod-ders, delicious treat and wine bringers, all so generous!  It was an evening of good fun and good food, shared among beautiful friends.  Marcia and Tracy, we missed you both and were very sorry you were unable to join us.  But, there is always next year!  (See below.)

Here is the official declaration, by popular vote, Pod Queen Kim H!  Congratulations, Kim!  You certainly earned it with your amazingly decorated basket.  Kim proudly wore her Pod Tiara, and realized that with royalty comes responsibility - it is her turn to host the party next year, and to come up with the contest idea.

The winning creation!

HRH PQ Kim

The voting was tied for  Pod Princess, so we made one designate as Pod Princess and one as Pod Duchess.  Newly honored Pod Princess is Lorayne, who earned her honor with her amazing bird creation.   (Sorry the photo does not show its beauty...)  Incredible detail and use of many natural touches made Lorayne's bird a sight to behold (is a pod in the hand worth two in the bush?). 

Congratulations, Princess Lorayne!

Our new Pod Duchess is none other than Alison, whose graceful Pod Shrine was also very popular - despite the fact that some of us (duh!) did not immediately pick up on its graceful representation.  Beautiful!

Duchess Alison's Pod Shrine

As for the non-royal entries, they included Marcia's lovely pod ornaments:  two smaller single pods, and a very pretty pod angel.  Even though she was too sick to attend the event, Marcia's pods were delivered by her lovely daughter Kylee.  A true competitor!

Marcia's pretty pod ornaments

Using the aforementioned pipe cleaners and other silliness, Kim G. created a collection of "critter-pods."  Most were plays on words, but the bird pod is, for now, nameless.  If anyone has a suggestion, please advise.

Clockwise from upper left:  Octopod, 7 Pods-a-Swimming, Arachnopod, Centipod, part of the un-named bird pod, Tripod, Eyepod, Pea Pod.

The Queen & her court:

commoner Kim G, commoner Carol, Queen Kim H,

Duchess Alison, commoner Sarah, Princess Lorayne









Getting Hungry

Lots of activity at our feeders, as birds (and the shrew) fill their bellies with winter sustenance.  This beautiful Cooper's Hawk has been stalking near our feeders, especially since the shrew showed up.  She (I think it's a female, due to her  large size) has been quite close to the house at times.   Look at those talons!  Run, shrew, run for your life!

Getting Shrew-d

Not a great photo, but this is a little Northern Short-Tailed Shrew.  He was very busy under our bird feeders on Thursday morning.  Was in an eating frenzy for a few seconds, and would dive back under the snow.  He would pop up from another spot, resume eating, repeat.  Reminded me of that "whack-a-mole" game, but my critter-expert friend Pam informed me that moles don't pop up/down that way...This little guy was kind of cute, about 4" long with a long nose and big pink feet.  First one I've ever seen, and I'll be watching for him as winter goes on.

Getting Those Seeds Mixed

The Masked (and one unknown, unmasked) Marvels in the seed mixing barn:  ?, David, Sarah, Alison & Kim.  On
Dec. 3,  the Forest Preserve seed team mixed seeds collected during the season.  The seeds have been processed and are combined for future use in area preserves.  They are sorted and combined according to types of seed and environment (woodland, wetland, prairie, etc).  We all enjoy this event at the end of harvest season - it smells great and is good to see what's been collected.  There is often a lot of dust/pollen, hence the stylish masks.

Afterwards, we celebrated with a potluck that is always delicious and bountiful.  It was a great chance to chat and laugh with fellow team members, pick on Pete, and initiate our new volunteer coordinator, Robb, into the abuse.  He realized he was better off sitting alone on the couch!  Welcome to the group, Robb!




A sampling of the lunch menu



A sampling of the dessert menu!

Burning the milkweed fluff

Feasting!  Sarah, Kim, Ben, Pete, Amy & Alison

It was great to see everyone and enjoy another fun gathering.  By the way, the 1st Annual Milkweed Pod Craft Competition is ON. 

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

Getting the Girls on the Road

Alison, Kim H, Sarah, Tracy and I hit the road to Indiana to see the migrating Sandhill Cranes at Jasper-Pulaski.  On our way, Sarah suggested a stop at Fair Oaks Farm.  We got delicious ice cream made with fresh milk from this huge dairy farm.  We wandered over to the Birthing Barn, and were lucky enough to witness the birth of this female calf!  Here she is, just a few minutes old, being licked by her attentive mom.

This is the fall migration for Sandhill Cranes.  They are on their way south for the winter, and make a stopover at Jasper Pulaski  in Indiana (among other places).  They are large birds: stand 3 1/2 feet tall, weigh 10-12 pounds, and have a wing span of 6+ feet.  They have a loudy, "croaky" call that is very distinctive, and was amazing to hear with large numbers of birds.  Although we did not see the 10,000 that were estimated to be there last week, we did see many, many birds.  The cranes arrive around sunset, spend the night in the field, and at sunrise they take off again to forage in nearby fields and wetlands.

OK, so that's the nature-fact part.  The girls' road trip part?  Hmmm.  We decided to all ride in my Jeep, and we headed east on the tollway.  Sarah provided her I-Pass.  I rarely drive tollways any more, and boy, you crash thru ONE little tollbooth gate and the crowd gets ugly!

Then there was the time zone thing.  Depending on which map you checked, Rensselaer (location of our Holiday Inn Express) is in central time, and Jasper Pulaski (location of the birds) is in eastern time.  We never quite knew what time it was.  Overall, not a concern, except when it came to discussing the times for sunset/sunrise, and what time we should get up on Thursday morning.  The more we discussed, the harder we laughed, the more confusing it got.  Poor Kim H did her best to clear it up, only to cause more hysteria.

We wondered how we would decide room arrangements.  We had adjoining rooms - seems that Sarah & Kim H like to crank up the heat, Alison, Tracy and I like arctic temps, so that made the decision easy.  We Eskimos made the Equatorials close the middle door and keep the heat on their side.

I nearly forgot to mention dinner!  When arriving at JP, we stopped at what passes for a visitors' center.  It's really a place for hunters to check in.  Did I forget to say that it's hunting season???  Lots of camoflaged guys around, and we could hear gunshots from time to time.  We got a little info from the fellow behind the desk, and someone asked him to recommend a place for dinner.  I somehow did not notice that he had few teeth, and we later laughed hysterically over that, too.  Not laughing because he had few teeth, but that we were taking dinner recommendations from him!  Funnier still - we took his advice, and the little place called Schnick's (in Wheatfield, IN) turned out to be quite nice.

The Holiday Inn was quite nice as well.  Our rooms were clean and comfortable (except for Alison's pillow struggles), no sign of bedbugs.  After seeing the cranes take off at sunrise, we returned to the HI for breakfast.  Hey, it was free.  Sarah did have to settle for a toaster-style waffle instead of the make-your-own kind, but they did have pretty good scrambled eggs and cinnamon rolls.

I had a great time, and I'm pretty sure the rest did as well.  Nothing like girlfriend time, some good food, and a hefty dose of nature thrown in.  And if I ever drive the tollway again, I'll be more aware of those annoying gates!

Getting Busy at Home

So....it's back to the midwest, and facing the long winter ahead.  I still don't have my head around the fact that winter is nearly upon us, and recently "under-dressed" for two outside activities.  Layer, I need to layer!

Attended seed harvest in Batavia last week, and not long after we got started, the rain came.  I was collecting Elm Leaf Goldenrod, trying to lean over my bucket to keep out the rain.  I was wearing a rainjacket, but not dressed nearly warm enough for the damp chill.  Big thanks to Sarah for letting me wear a hoodie she had in the car.  As much as I love seed harvesting, I was not sorry when Ben had us stop after an hour.

Yesterday was "Survival Supper" - one of our LFE classes (Learn From the Experts - or "Eccentrics" - as I have also heard) .  Despite once again not dressing warmly enough, I enjoyed the 3 hours out at Tekakwitha Woods with some other nature nerds and wonderful forest preserve staff (and you too, Pam).  We learned about some essentials to have on hand for survival, about some edible plants (and inedible ones, too).  We collected dried leaves, milkweed fluff and sticks and a roaring fire was a most welcome sight.   Imagine my dismay at finding out that no, S'Mores are not essential to survival.  Well, that just can't be right!

Another welcome sight was Valerie, wearing her skunk-skin hat.  Not so welcome, to me at least, was when she pulled both male and female pheasants from her vest!  Valerie is probably the only female hunter I have ever known.  I am not opposed to hunting (with the exception of sport hunting), but I have no desire to participate in the process or the results.  I distanced myself from watching the birds be plucked and prepared for cooking.  It also meant I distanced myself from the fire...but the added chill was better than watching the procedures.

If I can get over my post-Arizona slump, I will take advantage of the coming milder temps to finish some things in the gardens.  I never enjoy putting the beds to bed for the winter, but it's a necessary part of the change of seasons.  I really am having a hard time adjusting to the the fact that we are almost in mid-November, it is now getting dark around 4 pm, and Ken and I are already squabbling over the temp in the house.  With the thermostat at 65, he is freezing and I am roasting.  It's going to be a long winter...

Getting Wowed

A kaleidoscope of leaves carpets the trail at West Fork.  Wow!  This trail runs 3.2 miles (you can go farther if you want to wade) in Oak Creek Canyon north of Sedona.  The trail crosses Oak Creek 13 times.  It winds and rolls through a spectacular forest of maples, oaks, and ponderosa pines.  The canyon walls tower above it all, and it is one of the most incredible places to spend an hour or a day.  Today was my last full day in Sedona, and I enjoyed every minute of this glorious fall hike.

A maple blazes in the bright sun, under a turquoise Arizona sky!  I chatted briefly with a woman hiking just ahead of me.  We were both oohhing and aahhing, and taking many pictures.  She said "It's a total viewgasm."  Excuse me?  "You know," she said, "like a foodgasm."  My new favorite words!

Three bugs ride a maple leaf raft along Oak Creek.

Thanks to everyone who has kept me company out here and I hope you can come out and visit some time.  I love playing tour guide!  It will be good to get home and I'm glad I missed the huge windstorm.

Getting Crazy

Stairway to heaven?  I was warned that this trail, the Grandview, is steep.  Steep?  That does not begin to describe it! 

The weather finally cleared over northern AZ and I was able to spend a day at the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  This trail is east of the busy Village area, is less used and not maintained.  It begins at 7481' and after going about a mile on the steep switchbacks, I stopped at a little saddle at 6332'.  OK, I did the math!  That is a drop of 1149'.  This trail makes the S. Kaibab and Bright Angel look like cake walks.  Was it worth it?  Every step, every gasp for breath, every creak in the knees, without a doubt.  I could have gone another 2 miles to Horseshoe Mesa, which was my original goal.  I will save that for another day, when I can get an earlier start.  It was an excellent adventure!

These views of the canyon make it all worthwhile!

My trusty hiking pole shows the how narrow this trail is in some areas!

This is the outside edge of the trail, (looking up from a switchback below) showing how it is "supported" on the slope!  Probably a good thing I didn't see this before heading down.  Ha!  The remnants of a copper mine are at Horseshoe Mesa, and this trail is what the miners used.  Can't even imagine how they built this thing!

This is where I stopped and had my lunch before heading back up.  The most tragic part of this hike?  I stopped at a switchback to catch my breath, remembering that I had an apple in my pack.  I took it out, was zipping up my pack...and dropped my apple!  I watched in horror as it rolled a few feet and then...thunkthunkthunk as it went over the edge!  NOOO!  That was a yummy Honey Crisp, and now some critter will have an unexpected treat.  I did not mean to feed the wildlife...I meant to feed myself!

Getting Winded

Two very steep trails today in Oak Creek Canyon - Telephone Trail and Harding Springs Trail.  Tough on the lungs going up, tough on the nerves coming down!  Telephone was steeper and longer, but it provided views like the above, and the really cool spot was The Peepholes - a wall of rock eroded into a series of windows.  Harding Springs went through the forest and it smelled wonderful.

Some of my friends have voiced concerns over my hiking excursions, and that I often hike alone.  What you should be concerned about...is geocaching!  If you don't know what this is, it's sort of a treasure hunt using hand-held GPS units to find "treasures" placed by other cachers.  I am amazed at where I will go to look for a cache!  If a hiking expert told me to go these places, I'd say "no way."  But, I will walk along wet creek shorelines, climb up rock slides, hike steep trails and look into crevices and hollow trees and under boulders.  Why?  Because my GPS told me to!  It is great fun when you have success, great frustration when you don't.  I searched for 5 today and found only 2.

I picked up a lot of trash today, mostly on the parking aprons along the highway in the canyon.  So sad.  I hate that people come to such a beautiful place (or any place, for that matter) and leave such ugliness behind.  And here it is - anyone who leaves a dirty diaper any place other than a trash can, deserves to be rolled in honey, left in the hot sun in a red ant pile, with a dirty diaper taped over their nose and mouth.

Getting Mooned

Wow, what a sky!  We have had so much cloud cover the last few days, that there was nothing to see.  This morning, however, the sky is clear, the full moon is spectacular.  Even with that bright light, many stars are visible.  A meteor shower peaked a couple of days ago, but the clouds prevented any hope of seeing it.   I did see one shooting star just after stepping outside.  That enticed me to grab my 2nd cup of coffee, wrap up in a blanket, and sit on the deck for a while.  Perfectly quiet, no breeze to rustle the trees, the only sound - the crowing of a rooster down the road. 

The last time I stepped out to see a full moon, a tarantula came back inside with me.  You can be sure I am on heightened "arachnid alert."  Before coming back inside, I did quite the jig to discourage any hitchhikers.  I love nature - as long as it stays outside where it belongs!

Getting sunny!

Looking down on West Sedona this morning, from Airport Mesa loop.  The top of Thunder Mountain is obscured by clouds.  Finally, a dry day although the clouds did hang around off/on.  Yesterday was awful - dark, dreary, chilly, and it rained all day and night!  Almost unheard of out here in October, and I hope we've seen the last of it.

Sedona's small airport is located atop a mesa, and the loop trail goes completely around it.  It provides 360 degree views of Sedona and is a very nice, winding trail.  The east slope is covered with 1000's of prickly pear cactus, many with fresh javelina bites (see proof in photo below).  But do I see any javelina?  Noooo.   I thought sure I heard them hiding and laughing at me, and then realized it was my stomach growling.  Good thing I had that apple in my backpack.

My shoes and pantlegs were a muddy mess, but it was a small price to pay for another great morning out on the trails!

Getting Wet

It was a stormy day in and around Sedona.  This is Thunder Mountain, shrouded in clouds late afternoon.  So much for "it never rains here in October."

I attended a great lecture this evening, sponsored by Keep Sedona Beautiful.  The subject was "Effluent to Asset,"  If you are laughing at the title, you do not qualify as a Nature Nerd!  It was very informative, about creating constructed wetlands to deal wtih waste water.  Sedona is just beginning phase one of such a project.  Constructed wetlands are a cost-effective, eco-friendly way to deal with effluent, while creating wildlife habitat.  They can be enlarged in phases as needs increase.  There is little expense after the initial creation, and Sedona currently has adequate funds for this project.  Sounds cool to me!

Getting Up Early

Spectacular sunrise this morning, on my way to hike.  Worth getting up for!

I hiked an old favorite trail, the Jim Thompson.  The trail winds and rolls along below Ship Rock and crosses below Steamboat Rock.  Great views of Midgely Bridge (or as the signs sometimes read, "Midgely BridgeLY."  It ends at the junction with the Wilson Canyon trail.  Steamboat tank had lots of water from recent rains, but as usual, I saw no wildlife.  It was on this trail a few years back that I got a great photo of a fresh mountain lion print!

My friend Kristi says that when she hikes, she attracts snakes.  Note to self - do NOT hike with Kristi.  Ha!  I, however, attract unleashed, unruly dogs with rude owners.  Has been happening far too often, including this morning.  I do not find it pleasant to come around a bend in a trail, to be met by two unleashed, snarling dogs and an owner meandering far behind.  When  I politely ask that they call/leash their dogs, I am met with appalling hostility.  Come on, people, do what's right!  Protect your pet (Hello?  mountain lions, coyotes, snakes and other hazards!) and be considerate of others.

My biggest dilemma out here?  Where should I hike tomorrow?
Aahhh, Life is Good!

Proud member of the following organizations:

Grand Canyon Association

Member and Trainer

Kane County Audubon

Getting High

The Arizona Gold Rush is on!  Hiking in Flagstaff on Sunday provided a spectacular show of aspens in the ever-changing light.  It was a somewhat overcast day, which muted the colors.  The peeks of sun illuminated pockets of aspen, and an occasional breeze brought delicate leaves floating down to the forest floor.  I walked the Lamar Haines trail, and then about half of the Kachina trail.  Both are located along the Snow Bowl road, and both were crowded on a Sunday.  I finished the adventure by stopping at the trailhead for Humphreys Peak, where the trees really put on a show.  There is already snow on the peaks, and the darkening sky was a sign of more to come.  I hope to do the Humphreys Peak trail next summer, at least getting to 12000' where the Bristlecone Pines grow.

Getting started

It takes some of us many years to find a true passion, and for me that passion is nature.  Hiking, birding, volunteering, photographing - all outdoor activities in amazing places.  A friend encouraged me to start a blog, so here I am.  I hope others will find it interesting to share some of my journeys, be inspired to find their own passion, and enjoy memorable experiences along the way.