More from Reeds Gap State Park

Honey Creek. Reeds Gap State Park, Pennsylvania.

Today has been filled with sunshine.  A perfect day for working around the house and outdoors, getting a head start on the spring cleaning.  It’s too chilly to open the windows and air out the house, but just letting the sunlight in seems to have cleansed the place.  It also showed me what needs to be cleaned.  There’s nothing like the light of day to show off all the dust.

As promised, I have more photos from Sunday’s short hike at Reeds Gap State Park in Pennsylvania.  Reeds Gap is a small state park (as state parks go), about 220 acres, located in the New Lancaster Valley.

Honey Creek created a natural water gap which is a popular watering spot for wildlife and as such, has been a popular hunting ground with the Native Americans who lived in the area and then the European settlers.

In the mid-19th century, a sawmill was built along Honey Creek by Edward and Nancy Reed.  After many years of operation on Honey Creek, the sawmill was moved to Virginia by the Reeds’ son, John.  I’m guessing that move coincided with the fact that there were no trees remaining to cut down and mill.

I was surprised to read that about the trees.  Some of the hemlocks are so large that I thought they must be very old, certainly more than 100 years old.  The land that comprises Reeds Gap State Park was purchased by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1905 after all the trees were gone, and the state probably had something to do with the regrowth of the forest and the trees that exist there today.

Light in the forest

If you look carefully at some of the photos, you’ll see patches of snow on the ground, mostly around the trees.  It was cold in the woods, but the brisk hike soon warmed me up.

The light was gorgeous.  One of these days I’m going to try an early morning hike to catch the golden hour on that side of the day.

Post processed in Picnik.

The Ring-necked Ducks have returned to the pond here at Breezy Acres.  They visit us every spring, stopping at our pond for a few weeks before continuing on to Canada for the summer.  I woke up this morning to see they had arrived sometime overnight.

There are four of them so far, two males and two females.  I like to watch them dive.  Unlike the mallards whose bottoms bob to the top when they dive, the ring-necked ducks completely submerge themselves.  They usually dive all at once and after a few seconds, they pop to the surface together.  Synchronized diving.  Very cute.

Well, that’s about it from the Bogs for today unless you’d like a rundown of the cleaning I did (and I’m pretty sure you don’t).  Thank you for stopping by to visit.  I hope you’re enjoying the hike at Reeds Gap.  I’ll have more photos from there tomorrow unless something new comes along and captures the attention of my camera.

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