March 17th, 2020

  I'm back!  It was a nice little break but I am back with photos and stories to share.  I hope all of you are staying healthy and happy and adapting as best you can to this new temporary (we all hope) normal!

Yes, yes, things are closed everywhere...restaurants, theatres, museums and  more.  Events are cancelled and we are all trying to be smart and be safe.  But luckily for me, they have not banned hiking or picture taking.  We are still allowed to read and play games.  Puzzles are ok as is conversation.  And personally I am taking advantage of this extra time to do some major (and much needed) cleaning!

Speaking of hiking and taking pictures, as you can see, last Thursday Joy and I were at it again.  (That's Joy with an Iris in her camera sights above)

This time we headed to another unknown (to us) preserve called Deer Prairie South.  If that sounds at all familiar to you,  it's because I wrote of the  feral hog encounter Joy and I had earlier this season at a different Deer Prairie preserve.  Thankfully, not this one.  But I will say that due to the similarity of the names I was more than a little hinky as we walked along, always looking for the revealing fresh hog sign.  

It was a lovely walk, quiet and beautiful.  And I got what turned out to be one of my all time favourite photos here!  Woohoo!

It's a Bluebird!  I assume you've heard that a bluebird is a sign of happiness, right?  Well I tell you getting this picture surely did make me happy :)

And it wasn't the only bird picture I got either. Usually I have trouble snapping birds because they move really fast and I am not good at tracking or anticipating their actions.  However, I must have been having a stellar bird-day because I also got these:

There was a dam on one side of this preserve with a trail on the other side but of course we had no idea how to get there, other than wading through the water or balancing along the top of the dam.  We opted to do neither and found the second, far more accessible, hiking trail wwwwaaayyy on the other side.  

As always, there were some very sweet little posies along the way

And because apparently this is the season for it, a few dragonflies

And a few random things that are impossible to otherwise categorize;

We were out there for hours and still didn't cover all of the trails. We will most definitely be making a return visit. Hopefully soon.  And the best part was the relief I felt when I saw zero wild hogs. None at all.  Yay!

​At least not until we were driving out of the preserve. Then of course we saw this:

Why does a wild hog cross the road?  Well it could be just to unnerve me. But it's probably just to get to the other side.