27: Leaving the creek

Part Two of the Three Hour Hike.  If you missed part one, you can find it here.

We left the creek after our snack and made our way through the woods where we introduced ourselves to some of the trees…

… some of which were very BIG trees…

The trees were quite impressive.  The Holden Arboretum has over 3500 acres of land, making it one of the largest in the U.S.  Their collection includes 9400 different woody plants and they specialize in plants that can be grown in the northeastern Ohio climate.

The sun made more and more appearances throughout our hike, making a nice display of light and shadows in the woods.

We eventually made our way out of the woods, to the Strong Acres Loop Trail which circles around a large meadow where we hoped to see maple trees in their blaze of fall glory.

(Exiting the woods.)

Alas, we were too late.  The maples had lost their leaves already.  There was still plenty of color to be seen, though, and I’ll share that with you tomorrow.

Today’s walk

Since I’ve been spending so much time in the woods lately, I thought I’d do something different and take a tour of the meadows today.  The meadows are an important part of our little habitat here in the Bogs.  The meadows provide food and shelter for a lot of the little and big critters that hang out in these parts.  For instance, when I got back to the timothy grass meadow I could see where the deer have been bedding down for the night.  (I wonder where they go during the day??)  There is so much grass flattened that there are either a few who move around a lot or it’s a pretty good-sized herd of deer.  (Do deer come in herds or is there another name for a group of deer?  I just checked.  Yep, it’s a herd.)

Sharing the photos from Sunday’s hike is making my posts photo-heavy so I decided to show you some of the highlights of today’s walk in video form.  I’m thinking I may have to learn how to add music to these things now that I know how to turn a group of photos into a video.

Today’s weather report:  It started out foggy but cleared up quickly.  By mid-morning we had some beautiful puffy white clouds move in and it’s been mostly sunny with occasional cloudy spells ever since.  It is cool, brisk, and invigorating.  My cheeks were nice and rosy when I got back from my walk.

I’m going to have a small surprise for you all when I reach day 30.  Be sure to stop by on Friday to see what it is.