Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Living Next to a Nature Preserve

Aside from the tiny bedrooms, I love the house we currently live in.  One of the reasons is that we're next door to a small nature preserve.  On our side of the nature preserve, there is a very short trail that our neighbor maintains. Josh, Maddie, and I like to go walking on the trail nearly every day.  While I don't do "nature study" formally, we're kind of getting it anyway.   I take my camera along and capture some great little details on a regular basis.


I caught this great photo of an ant crawling on a leaf.


There are two large ant hills near the trail.  They are very busy now that it is spring.


This is the view of a lake at one point on the trail.


I have no idea what this is but they are beautiful.  They bloomed later than other flowers I've found in the preserve.


I found these mushrooms inside a rotting stag.


This tiny wild roses are adorable.


When I explained that the ivy would eventually take over and kill the trees, he became concerned.  He now tries to pull off a few ivy leaves on each visit.  There is a group that is working on ivy removal in a different part of the preserve.  Hopefully, they'll move over to this area too.  I'm planning on buying some good gloves and getting the older kids involved in helping out.


These were on a different trail but I just loved the clumps of mushrooms along it.


The trout lillies have already come and gone.


We found trilliums in three different colors.  I had only seen white before so it was a nice surprise.  I love purple.


We've found several slugs.  This one is by far the most handsome of them all. We found him just today.


Several times now, I've seen flocks of tree sparrows skimming the water's surface.  It's really neat to watch.


I took my littles for a walk and found nine ducklings and mama sitting on the log.  Mama saw us and called her babies away.


I just love close up photos...even ones of a fly on a leaf.  I love the detail!

The other day I didn't have my camera, but a bald eagle swooped just over the tree line and over the water just as we were at the water's edge to see him.  It was fantastic.

I love living here.  

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2 Comments:

Ginger said...

Great photos! I envy you living next to a trail and reserve like that. We love to walk but have no where to do so without going for a drive.

HeatherLee said...

It is beautiful. It must be so different than a couple of houses ago. What a beautiful life for the kids to enjoy.