A Michigan Meditation – Rifle River Recreation Area

August brings quiet to nature in northern Michigan. The song and movement of birds in the nearby brush or forest canopy is less. At times not much seems to be stirring. But later, as we paddle a lake framed in lily pads, a faithful kingfisher proves us wrong as it continues about its business noisily taking flite from a nearby shore. King birds, a…

Lily Pads and Dragonflies

We remembered from past visits that Kiser Lake, about an hour and a half drive west of our home in Columbus, had a lot of lily pads. Consistent with our experience in previous years as summer moved from July into August, we found ourselves increasingly enamored with our insect friends, particularly dragonflies and butterflies. What better spot to look for dragonflies than a lake…

A Quiet Day On Alum Creek Reservoir

We almost didn’t go. The forecast for the day was perfect, no wind, temperatures in the mid-70s. Perfect that is if you left out the significant chance of rain. After a string of less-than-optimal days as motivation, we decided to chance it and explore the northern reaches of a reservoir not far from our home. We loaded the canoe up with camera equipment, rain…

A Walk In The Woods

Clear Creek Metro Park, about 40 miles southeast of our home in Columbus, is a different world. It is an area where the glaciers of the last ice age stopped their southward advance. It is a world of hills, deep ravines that quietly resonate with the gurgle of small spring streams, imposing hemlock and beech, and spring wildflowers that are hard to find closer…

Trout Lilies

During spring in central Ohio, before the overhead canopy leaf’s out, magic might be found at your feet off well-traveled paths near home. The less often seen yellow. Thanks for stopping by.

Migrating Into Spring

For some living things it is a migration through time that ushers in their seemingly too brief visit each spring. For others it’s a journey through both time and space. In each case April brings “magic” to the central Ohio woods and meadows. It’s a time of beauty in small things as the grander landscape has just begun to put on its coat of…

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Takes Up Residence

So far this spring it’s been colder than normal and rainy. Migrating birds and the resident wildflowers that would have enchanted us in the first week of April continue to be illusive. A couple of days ago we returned from a local metro park with just the barest of photographic evidence that spring is actually here. Today, as I write this, snowflakes can be…

Spring Walk

Despite a colder than normal spring with some trees showing just a hint of green, the longer days and the now more persuasive rays of the sun continue their call for nature to awake. Recently our walks in the wooded areas of local city parks have carried with them the unavoidable expectation of the season. Sometimes with the expectation of the season comes the…

Whisper Of Spring

On some days in early spring the whisper of life is not heard above the howl of wind through still bare branches of waking trees. A warm embrace under sunny blue skies one day turns into a gray freezing flurried rebuff the next. With it’s fits and starts spring makes doubters of us all. The woods do not yet invite. A stark barren seemingly…

A Michigan Meditation

An epiphany occurred a few years ago when I realized I was never going to to see it all no matter how far and wide my travels took me so perhaps a more satisfying approach would be to strive for more intimacy and dig a little deeper in familiar places closer to home. With that in mind for the past ten plus years we’ve…