SHARPE SPRING

Yesterday was another good day so I decided to take the youngin' on another short hike. Actually I upped his mileage to a mile and a half to get a little more strength into his legs. Instead of going back to Hemlock Cliffs I took him to the Sharpe Spring trail east of Leavenworth, Indiana. The trail is only about a mile long but it's got a lake and creek that makes things a little more interesting. We found a Canadian good standing one legged in some shallow water and a couple of pintail ducks were swimming about until they saw us then made a quick exit. Near the back of the trail is Sharpe Spring. This spring is one of the biggest around and with the spring rains loading up the water table it was pouring out plenty of water. On days like now you can expect to see tens of thousands of gallons of water coming out of the rock wall in the background every hour.

There are several big rocks around the spring which makes it a nice place to have a snack or take a break. On the other side of the stream is a place a person can even camp out if they wish. With the stream right next to the campsite it makes a great place to get water if you need it. Since I wanted to get Clayton a little more mileage we went ahead up one of the horse trails for a few hundred yards. I checked out another creek bed that turned out to be dry and then we turned back. With temps climbing into the upper 70's the little guy wanted to go back to the spring for another break. He seemed to be pretty content at this place.

I found this streaming moss whisping in the water next to a limestone rock. The moss was like hair dancing in the swirling water complete with gracefullness. Finally we headed back toward the truck. I asked him if he wanted to go on another walk but the little guy said he was ready to go home. It might have had something to do with a video game he hadn't finished yet. We'll be going out again. Before long I'll move him up to two miles and see how he handles that.

SPWING EXPWODES!!!

A couple of weeks ago I had on here about the daffodils blooming on my first big hike. Well since then spring has just exploded into all kinds of things. The forsythias (I have no idea if I've spelled that right.) have brightened everything up everywhere. One forsythia bush we have (this one in the picture) is about 30 feet across and about 10 feet high. We just keep mowing around it and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Something else that has come back are the bees. The last few years have seen a bit of a shortage of bees here, but then again maybe we just didn't have enough to feed them. Whatever the case with our bradford pears are all in a bloom and the bees have come back in full force and seem to be lovin' it. This small bumble bee was gorging himself on the nectar from these blossoms as were a few hundred of his closest friends. He was working every blossom for all it was worth and then some. I don't even think he knew I was there taking his picture.

The wind had picked up a lot during the time I was out shooting on this day and just below where the bumble bee was at, on a longer limb a honey bee was working several other blossoms. I slowed the shutter speed down so you could see all the motion in the limbs. That dark spot just above center is the bee that was hanging on for dear life as the gusts tried to shake him off. At one point as he was working near the bottom he was holding on with just his two upper legs as his body just kept swinging out away from the flowers. I'll say this. He was every bit as strong as any ant I've seen. For him the wind was like being in a hurricane.

In this last picture I was looking at some creeping phlox on the back deck and saw this one little guy who seemed ready to party. Another blossom in the upper right looked like he was trying to come out but I think he was actually thinking more about sleeping in. The other one though was all bright and bushy tailed. As you can see the rest of the little guys are all still tucked into their little beds. Not anymore. I was outside just a few minutes ago the party was going on wild and strong. I got a little ambitious yesterday and dug the weeds out of my flower garden in my driveway circle. Last year I was a little lazy and it turned into a flowering weedbed. This year I'm going to add some more color to it although I have no idea what I'm going to plant. I guess I'll do the eeny-meeny-miny moe thing.

Today when I went got out on the roads other things were bustin' open. The redbuds have started their new year with some bright purple blossoms. One of our favorite friends, the dandelions are also shoving their royal yellowness into the mix. Oh...and let's not forget our friendly yard grass. They're already getting close to needing a haircut. Like they say...let it grow, let it grow, let it grow.

FIRE

Fire...it can one of three things...something of beauty, something to warm up next to on a cold day...or something very destructive.

With the first, fire can be like a dancer, swirling and moving from side to side with long arms with its reds and yellows. At hotter temperatures the flames can turn blue or even white adding more color to the mix. Through a telescope with a solar ring you can see flames hundreds of thousands of miles long flung out into empty space, or on a much smaller scale watch the single flame of a small candle move back and forth in a small breeze.

On a cold day fire can be something to get the blood going again back into the fingers, arms, face, and toes after you've been outside for an extended length of time. Sitting up next to a roaring fire in a fireplace while it's snowing outside can make one very comfortable.

But this story is about neither of the two. This is about a fire just this morning that had the makings of a disaster. At about 6:30 a fire chief from a neighboring county drove by the house you see in these pictures and saw giant flames roaring out of the back of the house. He quickly stopped his car and ran to the house and started banging on the doors and windows in case somebody was inside. In this case there were, a man and his teenage daughter. They got out of the house but only with what they were wearing and a guitar the girl had (the girl wasn't even able to get a pair of shoes and walked around in the yard barefoot. Firemen from Marengo and English, Indiana were both called to the scene. Because there was no nearby hydrants water had to be trucked in from two different directions.

This fire was a stubborn one. Because of some dangerous circumstances the firemen were unable to enter the structure. There was a danger of the roof collapsing, which also kept fireman from getting on top of the house the knock holes in the roof and allow the heat to vent out.

For two hours both fire departments pumped water from all four sides of the house and the roof. As the skies lightened overhead the damage was more easily seen. The inside of the house was gutted to the point there was little to salvage. Besides the severe fire damage itself the smoke and water damage was almost total. The house was insured so the family will be able to rebuild if they decide to. The best thing to come out of this was that there were no injuries. Had not this fire chief from almost 40 miles away stopped and alert the two inside this story would not have any kind of happy ending. The sun came up bright this morning.....in more ways than one.

First Big Hike of the Year

Finally, after working my butt off during basketball season here, I have finally got a few days to myself and last Wednesday came as perfect day to hit the trails for a much bigger hike. As seen on this blog I did manage to get some short hikes in but now I really wanted to go double digits so I went back to Perry County for one of my favorite hiking trails, The Two Lakes Loop Trail.

The weather was perfect at the start with temps in the low 50's. To be honest I wasn't quite sure how my body would take this first long one, 12 miles, as it had been 10 weeks since I had been out for a big one, the last one being on New Year's Eve at 11 miles. When I started it was a wee bit of a struggle but about 15 minutes into it I began to find my stride and got into a comfortable pace. The creeks that I have to cross on the 12-mile section were down and it made it easier for the first few miles. The creek that I normally have to take my boots off to cross was down enough I was able to hop on a couple of rocks then take one giant step and only get a slight bit of water on the boots. That alone cut between 10 and 15 minutes off my time. I was going at a pretty good pace and just two hours into the walk I had put away 6 1/2 miles.

I finally reached Indian Lake and came up on my first daffodils of the year. This particular spot had a large area of the bright yellow flowers, about 20 feet in diameter, and they were getting some good light from the sun. There was also a slight breeze and they seemed to just dance in the wind. I'm sure Beethoven or Bach could have easily put a symphony together for them as they moved around. Sometimes I prefer to look at the little things around me instead of the grandioso views you get in some places, although I won't turn down a clear view from a mountain top at any time. Sometimes, though, it's the things you normally aren't looking for that are the most facinating. Most of our time is spent looking up but there are also a lot of things at our feet that are much more interesting. As a sample one day in the woods I just happen to see a small worm crawling on the ground. An ant from a nearby hill came over to check the worm out but he found he couldn't do anything with the worm by himself. He left for just a minute to go back to the hill and when he came back he had a true army with him. They attacked the worm from all sides. As hard as he tried to fight them back there were just too many. Finally the ants had ahold of him at both the front and back. With some very powerful ant muscles the army dragged the ant down into their nest. It definitely goes near the top of interesting things I've seen.

Around noon the southern winds began to bring a little more heat to the day and it was enough to begin to slow me down. I stopped at a place near Celina Lake and downed a good ol' peanut butter and jelly sandwiche and half a bottle of water. I'll admit I might have taken off at too quick of pace at the beginning and it was beginning to talk to me a bit. About two miles from the truck I came up on two gentlemen who were doing a short day hike. While we were talking I heard a very quick approaching roar and intantly knew what it was. Two F-16 fighter jets from the Air National Guard base at Terre Haute were out on a training run. They shot across the ridge tops at only about 400 feet off the ground and had to be doing every bit of 600 mph with full afterburners. Needless to say that gave me a little punch of adrenaline that helped during the next mile and a half. Near the end, however, the body was telling me it would be glad when we got back to the truck. I didn't set any records with this hike at 5 hours, 15 minutes but that still wasn't bad considering it had been ten weeks since I had really exerted myself.

That puts up to 17 1/2 miles for the year and leaves me with 482 1/2 to go to reach my goal of 500. I'm not too worried about getting there. I've got several much bigger hikes planned for later in the spring and this summer. I'll be going back to the Smokies for one hike where I plan to start at the bottom of Cade's Cove and hike to the top of Clingman's Dome. I've got my 70-mile Michigan hike in June and I've also been invited to go hiking in the Rocky Mountains in September. If it all works out I'll be back in the Smokies the second weekend of April. I've also got some miles to make up down at Land Between The Lakes in western Kentucky from where we were cut off last year. I'm thinking about doing 28 down there, starting at the north end and going to the place where we quit last time then back tracking back to the truck. And this year instead of slacking during the summer like I did last year I'm going to be out in the woods a whole lot more. Yep, I'll get to that 500, even if I have to crawl to get to it. My big pack is already set to go. Now all I have to do is just do it.

Hikin' With The Grandson

Just over a week ago I took my six year old grandson on a bit of hike. I had taken him once last year and he liked it enough he was ready to go again when I brought it up one day.

When the day came he had his Mutant Ninja Turtle backpack loaded up with something to eat and water to drink on the way. The hike we were doing was down at Hemlock Cliffs. It's a good place for a youngster like him to get a taste of being out on the trails. There's some decent hills on the mile and a quarter trail and you really never know what you're going to see out there. I know because the three days before I was on the trail and when I came around one of the curves I looked up to see a pair of yearling deer running right down the trail straight at me. They didn't stick around however to introduce themselves.

He did a little better on this hike than what he did the first time we did the loop together. The first time his legs began to wear out after the first mile but this time he wasn't wearing out much at all. We went to one set of cliffs and was going to eat lunch but he changed his mind and wanted to wait till we got to the main cliff. When we did get there we found these large ice masses that were leftovers from some of the large icicles that had formed there earlier in the winter. He definitely thought those were cool. There was still quite a bit of ice hanging from the rock walls but most of it had all turned into running water.

He's still got some things to learn yet but the good thing is he likes it enough to keep going. I've got to teach him how to use the hiking poles. The pair I gave him already had some good memories as they're the pair I took to Mt. Washington with me in 2004. They saw a lot of miles before that trip and a lot of miles after the trip. He did a pretty good job of keeping up with me although I must admit I did slow down so I wouldn't walk away from him. In this picture he went with a fruit drink during a break. That's more leftover ice at the top of the picture from a icicle overhead that was still there. This particular spot, when the ice is heavy, creates it's own refridgerator affect. When the ice is there it can be 50 degrees on top of the cliffs but the air at the bottom of the gorge can still be down in the 30's from the ice on the walls. You can have a jacket on down below but then you have to lose it up on top because it's so warm. Basically what you're talking about is Mother Nature's very own air conditioning using.

After a couple of hours we finally made the climb back up to the top of the valley. He actually did pretty well climbing out even though it was a bit steep. I'm looking forward for when he gets a little older so he can go with me on some of my bigger hikes. I've already said something to him about hiking in the mountains one of these days and he's ready to go now. I figure by the time he gets up around ten I can get him on the good trails. You have to start somewhere and this is a good place to do it.

ALIEN INVASION???

That's what a lot of people would have thought back in the 50's and 60's during the UFO craze had they seen these pictures. Friday afternoon here on my hill in southern Indiana we had one of those rare treats to see something really amazing in the sky. Because of high winds that day and the perfect conditions we had an invasion of lenticular clouds fly across out hill.

Lenticular clouds are those strange saucer-shaped clouds you might see on very windy days, especially in areas where there are large hills and mountains. Some are small and some can be really large. High mountains like Mt. Ranier, Mt. Fiji in Japan, Mt. St. Helens have been capped with very large lenticulars that made them look like they were wearing an umbrella. Mt. Washington in the Presidential Mountain Range in New England is one of the best places in the world to catch a lenticular because of the winds there. I've been fortunate enough to actually watch them form over Mt. Jefferson below me during a visit there in 2004. They've very easy to distinguish from all other clouds because of their saucer shape and many times they have been called in to airports and military bases as actual flying saucers.

I've always known the winds did some strange things as it has crossed this hill. I've watched storm fronts come in and then suddenly slow down as they approached our ridge. My theory has always been that the strong winds coming across the valley to the west suddenly shoot up the ridge and in front of the storm, slowing it down or even temporarily stopping it before the winds behind it finally pushed it across the tops of the hills. From what I saw Friday I'm an even bigger believer or it.

I noticed that as the clouds approaced the hill a round smoothe cap began to form on top of it. This was a very windy day and I'm sure the winds at the upper altitudes were well over 100 mph. Our winds on the ground were at times gusting to 40 mph. When these winds hit a large hill or mountain or mountain range it causes a wave affect with the lenticulars forming on top of the waves (a later picture shows some of those waves with one cloud in particular). (Jeff if I'm wrong please correct me.) The caps on the puffy cumulus clouds didn't start forming until they began to come in contact with the wave. That would be about a mile away from the top of the hill. When contact was made the lenticular caps quickly appeared and began riding the waves. I guess you could say in a way the clouds were doing their own bit of surfing on air. In a few cases the caps became very large giving the cotton ball cloud a nice umbrella to shape itself with. Needless to say I was going a little nuts watching all of this happen right in front of my eyes on my own little hill. This much activity usually only happens on the best mountains.

To help really bring the clouds out I snapped a polarizer filter over the lens. I think this particular cloud was my favorite although the first picture of the string of lenticulars is pretty cool too. The other strange thing is the entire even lasted only about an hour and a half. When the winds began to die down the lenticulars began the break up and disappear. Not long after these pictures were take it was just the same old puffy cotton balls floating around. I'm adding some more pictures from that day I spent watch this in awe. Of course we knew they weren't really flying saucers. But then again....we didn't really know what was on the inside of the clouds either. Hmmm....kind of makes you wonder doesn't it.