We took a lovely little 3.6 km hike in the woods and around a bit of a little lake yesterday, it was the yellow loop, come join us on the hike in a series of photos I took!

It always amaze’s me that everywhere around me there are these amazing rock, and yet on my own farm.. no rocks..

Some of the photos are just there because I liked them, not because they are showing the route or the area so much I just thought they caught my eye on the walk.

We reached the lake and part of the goal of the hike, besides a nice walk in the woods, is always to play games of “what can you find that could be used” so at the lake, we found lots of clam shells, minnows, bog cranberry, tons of cattail, frogs and tons of frog eggs

The cool thing about the board walk on the side of the lake is that it’s a bog walk, you can look into the swamp and channels on your right and the lake shore front on your left, then it leads off into the swamp for a good while..

The wet lands yields up not only some very pretty photos but also we found 9 different types of mushrooms, only one was of eating quality that I am aware of, but I found three that I know how to use medically, and the others were of unknown origins.

Most of the forest walk was off the board walks, and on a local trail that showed us some very nice starts to local wild food, we found wild strawberry, Grape, Blackberry, raspberry and lots and lots of ferns!

We flushed two sets of Quail out, we spotted a male robin, two piles of deer poo, and tracks that showed that there was rabbit to found locally, we heard but never could spot some woodpeckers.. on the other side of the trail you go back into a very heavy wetland area and are on the second boardwalk but it’s very different woods from the first..

Now as fate would have it, we saw the only bigger wildlife on the walk near the end, as we were just about to join up to the smaller walk to the lake and back, and it was this handsome big fella..

Now the funny thing about this about this was that I heard him coming in the leaves and we had stopped to let him cross the path, he got about half way there and stopped and sat up on his rear for a better view and was clearly alarmed.. I could not see or hear anything yet, but knew that he and we had the wind,  I shifted a foot and he gave me the eye, came down and moved another foot or two and then went back checking out the area, then I heard it.. human voices.. including a high children’s one.. and the critter was frozen and smelling but clearly unhappy (Odd I thought, he is not reacting to us and he know’s we are there) and around the bend came a group of three adults, one child of about eight and a young pup, not on leash, not even with collar or harness for quick catching, just loose with them, the child had got a splinter and was very upset, and they were making him hold his hand above his heart (hear me groaning and kinda laughing at the same time) so that it would not bleed  as much..

The porcine went back to the right and was frozen again in a threat pose, with tail at ready, when they reached where the trails joined, and the pup seeing us, of course started our way, lady looks at us and say a tentative hello to these two folks in wood colored colors, I point out that she might want to call back the pup, as the porcupine is right! there, and I take two sets to set him off and up the tree.  They chatter excited about how they have seen them on TV but never in real life and the lady goes to walk closer! I say, I would give him some space and we continue on our way. Wow, they didn’t even have a thing of water with them, let alone a first aid kit for a bandage.. the lady was in sandals! no coats, no gear, no water, no food.. nothing.. 

Then we headed home and I spotted a garage sale on the way though a tiny village, and ended up coming home with 3 1 gallon glass wine or vinegar bottles with tops, 2 med size glass oven roasters with lids and a very old cut glass vase with a flower holder top, like my grandma used to have.. Great outing that is for sure.. but I am not quite done.. we took a new route home and we passed this, and I am so going to go back and check them out!