Nature walk...

So I decided to go for a nature walk today. Felt like I deserved a treat after all that busting butt on lily beds, and I wanted to see how some of the wild seed was coming along.

I took pics of the milkweeds. The one up by the house and some more down by the pond- which I'm pretty sure there are two kinds of that are different than the one by the house, and perhaps three different kinds down by the pond, I'm not sure. I sent the pics off to someone on Gardenweb that can help me ID them.

Then I ran a load of kitchen towels and hung them out on the line to dry- duty before fun.

Then it was time for my walk, and all over I did! Went to the wild yucca and harvested some seed pods-

Went over to the wild sweet pea patch and collected the early pods that were ready to harvest

Took a pic of some very tall somethings growing out there

Then I went across the creek- man, you can tell no one has been using the trails over there since last year- everything is incredibly overgrown. So I didn't do too much exploring, didn't even get down to where the jewelweed patch was a couple years ago. But ah well, there's more area to explore heading north anyway.
Got to see three red-tailed hawks on the thermals, very lovely!
And spotted this little guy snuggled into the grasses:

Dunno what kind of snail it is, but sure looked neat all suction cupped to the plant like it was.

Then I got in under the trees- it's so lovely, and the trails there are pretty easy since some folks use them for four wheelers. I decided to take a path I never had before and ended up walking the top of the ridge over the ruins path. Took it all the way to the big lake where I found masses of jewelweed growing:

Jewelweed is a wonderful weed- it's lovely and invasive... But it's great for treating skeeter bites and poison ivy, and purported to be great for athletes foot and acne too. Hmmm, might have to go back out and pick some to make salve with.
By then it was time to turn back to home. I took the ruins path back:

This is a large lovely patch of pickerel weed that grows along the right side of the marshy area bordering the path. Maybe someday if I have hip waders and a lot of bravery I will harvest some seed from there.

And this is the vista off to the left of where that patch of pickerel weed lives. Don't let the grassy fool ya, it's all wet out there to the other side of the clearing. In the spring you can see a lot of standing water in this area.
Along the trail I saw this little guy, and he held still long enough for me to take a pic:

I'm not positive, but I think perhaps he might be a Blanchards Cricket Frog.

Saw some neat mushrooms along the path-

These were growing out of wood

And these were growing out of the dirt in the middle of the path.

No, I didn't pick them, I don't know squat about mushroom hunting yet.

And heh, I decided to cut across to the dune pond, and skirt around it. Holy crap adventure walk there. On the other side I found little purple flowered weeds with bumble bees having a snack fest.

I have no idea what the weed is, but it is pretty and apparently makes the bees happy.

Along the walk I collected a LOT of turkey feathers. They lose them here and there, but there is one spot along the paths that I'm guessing is a serious hangout because there were many feathers right there.

Turkeys are good mojo, and their feathers are gifts from Mama N. Once I have enough collected I'm going to make myself a lovely fan of the feathers.

I decided to trot the back line across the properties to get back to the house. Was mostly tall grass and low scrub, so not too bad, lol. And when I got home, I only had one tick on me, which my love promptly destroyed. Still, it was good to get back in the house and cleaned up, it was quite the hike!