Once more with pictures

So here is today's walk around the Scrappyhood.  We start out taking the greenway south along the vast array of soccer fields along the river.



First picture, for you newbies, is the feeder canal I mentioned last night- a plethora of the prettiest weeds you'll ever see.  The second is a distance view of the lovely new soccer fields the Plex is replacing the old meadow with (boooo!!!)

This was a fun shot to get.  Scrappy, seeing himself as the star of the shot, kept chasing the butterfly away.  As I watched it fly away, I turned to scrappy and scolded him for his ham-hood.  By the time I turned back, this butterfly had took the other one's place.  Popular flower!

One of the paths I rarely take branches off the greenway along the south fence of the IPFW main soccer field.  this fairly remote trail was busy today- we passed a Japanese couple on the way down, and a mother and son on their way back.  Back from what, you say?  Well, old timers here remember that this path leads down to the mud flats near the river.  The Japanese couple followed us down, but must have went back whence they came, as they never emerged behind us.

Heading north now, the also-fenced IPFW practice field sits just offset to the main field, along one of the many indents along the river.  This indent was actually mowed, the first time I've ever seen it user-friendly outside of late autumn and winter.  And guess what we found there?

A beer bottle in the middle of nowhere- and a cap I didn't have!

There it is, a bud tall twist.  I had a regular crown like this, but not an aluminum twist.  That gives me now 30 Budweisers.



Scrappy, however, was more concerned with what he knew waited at the end of the trail- easy access to the river!



There's a lot of little river twists and tongues of land in this area- It can be a real jungle.  We had to weave our way through a stretch of said jungle in order to return to the path along the practice field.

Here's Scrappy while I dug a stick out of the bottom of my shoe.  Can you say new desktop?

The line of woods in the background extends up into the fields, effectively separating the practice field from the main body of the Plex east fields.  As we worked our way along the woods, I happened to,look in and saw what at first looked like a fuzzy pumpkin.  Reversing to look again, it was actually one of our foxes, curled up on a cool spot of mud.  Of course, she immediately split;  and I'd have been hard pressed to get a picture anyway.  Fox is not among the scents Scrappy gives high priority (as are rabbit, deer, ground hog, and dog), and was annoyingly trying to keep on going, oblivious to my little friend just yards away.

The thing that amazed me is that, not 10 yards away on the other side of the tongue of woods, were 2 fields full of teen socceristas in full practice.  My friend was awfully calm resting there in light of the noisy chaos not far away.

So we looped around the fields to continue along the river, checking trails to find a certain spot we hit last night.  Along the way, we heard fishermen relaxing on the water.

And then we found it:  A spot that Scrappy could again venture into the water.

This was actually a shallow spot along the bank, complete with Raccoon tracks everywhere.  You'd think that might interest the mighty hunter, but as I said, Coons are not on the short list.  Last night, he was scared to make the six-inch drop to the water- residuals from a spill he took off a temporary construction pier a few years back.  He had no problem this morning, though.

Next, I thought I'd take you newbies over to the green hole.  Somewhere around here I have a picture of the hole when we found it... hmm... hmm... ah, here.

But as I said last night, the algae hasn't had a chance to work its magic yet.

Of course, the area is full of holes and dens, which Scrappy loves.

Hey, Ghosty n@na! How's this for a ghost tree?

Now our trail is coming to an end.  Here's the main crossing over the feeder we use to go from apartment complex to greenway.

Overgrown much?

And finally back home.  Did you have fun, Mr. Boy?




Yes, I did!