Goose Pond Mountain Fire Hydrant Road, 05 June 2008

Kat reflects on our outing...

We had originally planned to meet at the Old Road, but perhaps the presence of the relentless mosquitoes on our last outing there deterred everyone. After waiting a bit and deciding no one else was going to show up, Laurel and I moved our cars over to the spot where another old road led into the state park. The road was partially paved though in terrible shape. A bright red hydrant was still there, looking oddly out-of-place in the green and brown of the forest. I had tried to follow this road once myself one evening, wondering if it would lead us to the stream that feeds the wetlands (but is out-of-reach from the boardwalk location); it got too dark before I could really explore it.

We had just started walking in today when we heard someone calling; Terri was here! She, Camille, and Elisa unloaded and caught up to us in no time. We weren't sure about this location as we really hadn't been here before, but we had seen tons of Bloodroot and Dutchman's Breeches blooming in early spring, so we had wanted to check it out. It was great to have Terri and her girls joined us on our test run.

Within seconds we were glad we had come. Ebony Jewelwing dragonflies, a black-winged dragonfly with a bright irridescent blue body, flitted around us in the Jewelweed. As we got to the hill near the hydrant Laurel captured a young American Toad. This could have been one of the toads we saw emerging as toadlet last spring. I put it into my little carrier and the kids took turns holding it as we walked.

We continued our walk into the park along the shady trail, noting that the sun didn't reach through the tree canopy very much. This could have been the reason why we started spotting fascinating fungus after fungus, Dryad's Saddle growing out of a fallen log and witch's butter erupting from a twig.

We saw a number of clumps of the parasitic plant, squaw root, rising from the buried roots of an old oak tree.

The leaves of another tree yielded both a Ladybug and some kind of beetle larvae.

Just before we got back to our cars we saw a millipede as thick as Elisa's finger and an empty but perfectly built bird's nest.

Perhaps the bright blue Robin's egg we saw on the path used to be in the nest. We were happy we came today and will be sure to return.