So this time we take the long road to IPFW. First stop is out the Plex and onto California road.
California road is not usually this dry; it runs right along a swamp on the south.
Along the way, there was a deer across the channel from us. Of course, by the time I could react, he was a fluffy white butt flying through the brush. He was but a harbinger of what was to come- unfortunately, the wonderful pictures a good camera could take were generally lost on this one. That model again is GFM model DV150.
Rounding the curve you get your first view of the really nice foot bridge IPFW built.
About this time Mr. Bunny Rabbit made a brief appearance. Scrappy gave him little notice, because here is his favorite place: the "beach"- actually an old boat landing. Note the warning sign for the dam.
Here's the bridge from on board, with views toward Coliseum Blvd. and back towards home.
On the other side is IPFW, with its magnificent tree walk. Over a hundred different species with plaques explaining each one.
Yes, that's my thumb and not a bald midget.
About halfway down this walk (which is as far as we went) is a nice picnic area with a gazebo. Across from it is a tree-filled garden, which was full of flowers in the spring. At its edge is a mammoth Beech with all the "Joe loves Jane" carvings of the ages.
I tried desperately to capture this cute family of Momma Duck and 3 ducklings, but not much luck.
By this time, Scrappy was ready for a refreshing dip. Come to think of it, he is a ... well, never mind.
We came back a slightly different route. Across from the bridge is where the former IPFW ball diamond was before they moved to the much-better watered Carrington Field. I think it will someday be IPFW parking, but for now it's a park with a stone road down the middle. Beyond this used to be fallow field punctuated by a pond, but now the telltale signs of construction are everywhere. In the background, so's you know where we are is the Coliseum and the Holiday Inn.
And this is the hidden entrance to the IPFW woods.
Going out the south entrance, you enter "fields #s 15-19" of the Plex. Yes, there are THAT many fields.
There are three breaks in the fence row that separates these fields from the main body of the Plex. We went through the south one, only to see another deer. I managed to take the first two of several attempts to photo the deer here, thwarted time and again by this camera's far-sightedness. The deer went through to the other side, so we went through at the second break to try some more. This time he was just to our north. While he got a good look at us, Mr. Boy was as yet oblivious. We crossed back and went through the north break, this time coming out north of him. Scrappy by this time had finally picked up his scent, though he never saw him until we moved closer and he ran off to the woods. Scrappy tried to chase, but amazingly was too tired to bay at him.
If you click on these and really squint, you can see the deer left of the nearest goal in the first picture and galloping between the leftmost and center goals in the right-hand picture.
Finally we head home, and as we cross into the addition we run into a cat that actually runs from Scrappy and Scrappy actually tries to chase- both very unusual occurances.
So when you factor in the post this morning and the chipmunk at IPFW I failed to mentioned, we are now up to 17 deer sightings, 11 bunnies, and 2 chipmunks for the year.
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