More exploration

We didn't take the camera with us this morning; seeings as it was 28 degrees I doubted we'd go exploring again. But then I come up with the bright idea: with everything getting froze last night, we might be able to make our way over frozen muck to the creek mouth! Cutting through the woods-tongue near the IPFW field (since they were playing soccer at 9am- go figure) we soon found my hypothesis correct and worked our way past the smaller of 2 weed "islands" to the banks of the stream, which was between a yard- yard and a half wide and no deeper than six inches as it crossed the sandy mud. Scrappy had no qualms going right on across, but I hoped to find an easy place to cross. Working west away from the river, along the weed island, it got progressively muddier, forcing me to forego the examination of two marrooned shopping carts that looked to have been swimming for some time. We turned back, with Scrappy vainly trying to get me to go in one or more of the narrow paths into the weed island. I told him I preferred to have just a little bit more warning as to what lie ahead, thank you. We walked down to where the creek turned along the side of the "finger", but there the water widened and deepened. Eventually we picked a spot about midway that I just hauled off and jumped over-almost- and proceeded along the south bank, where the water still in the shadows of the "finger" was frozen. Scrappy doesn't enjoy nearly as much wading through water that breaks. So then we turned back and exited the river where Scrappy usually goes in, at the landing above the IPFW bridge. My feet and his butt and legs were a muddy mess (so much for the shower he took yesterday). So I led us through a bunch of tall, dewy grass- through the old ballfield lot, down the back end of the ravine, back out onto the woods trail, and across the meadow to clean both of us fairly efficiently. Not totally efficiently, as Laurie sent us both to the showers yet again.

Speaking of Laurie, we took her to the Spot Thursday night, and we saw a raccoon ignoring us as he dug an old log for bugs (I presume). I add this to several more deer sightings (including the one about 1:30 Friday am in the back yard) and update our animal count. 52 deer, 19 rabbit, 7 bat, 4 skunk, 6 raccoon, 5 groundhog, 2 opossum, 7 fox, 4 black squirrel (which never made it down here; Msnkrey, you're south of us, do you come across any black ones in your area?) and that pheasant I'd almost forgot.

Further explorations at the "End of the Earth"

Here you see where we went yesterday, and again today. Today's goal was to find where Stony Run Creek (running left to right on the left side of the map, then turning down about halfway to meet the river) enters the river. To get there, we had to repeat part of yesterday's journey through the jungle- following the south end of the soccer pitch, crossing that muddy stretch right at the corner, and following that wooded "finger all the way to the end.

Of course, that was "plan 2" as far as achieving our goal. the original plan was to wrap around the corner and follow it that way. But this is all one big mud flat...



...complete with all the tracks you'd want to find.








So it was that we quickly decided to hug the "finger instead, working our way until we finally saw the creek...



..and then got up to it.

Right there Scrappy made an executive decision that we would have to brave "the finger" once again to reach our goal. Believe me when I tell you, this is no easy feat. Unlike the mainland woods, there was not a convenient "trail" to follow. It was a fight with every step, until filally we reached our goal- "the end of the earth".

This was hugely mucky, and after trying to convince action dog that muck was not in my further plans, we made our way back whence we came. We learned that once you get off the tip of the "finger", there is a rise where the going is much easier, though nothing like the trails that we are used to. We came back up to the soccer field, where Scrappy felt the need to go after the geese that have taken over the field just north of the IPFW pitch...

...and on the way home, we ran into a doe just at the edge of the Plex parking lot's north edge. I tried to capture it on film, but you know how that goes with our camera...

Thast little white dot is her butt bouncing out of sight once Scrappy finally noticed and tried to chase her.










We also got to see a couple of hawks fight over some unfortunate meal-sized rodent.