Sliver
Originally uploaded by Alyoshka

Today we took a hike up our mountain to eat some wild blueberries we found last week and ran into an awesome surprise – a timber rattler! We’ve known about them ever since we moved here but never saw one until now. Trish caught some movement out of the corner of her eye, right along a log. She thought it was a chipmunk and had trouble seeing it until it moved again 5 seconds later.
It was absolutely brilliant and looked exactly like the one …

This is what I love about hiking: the utter quiet, except for the sound of leaves under my feet; the methodical rhythm of looking down to avoid tripping, looking up to see the trail, and hearing my own breathing as I labor; putting to use my waterproof hiking boots when we hit a swollen stream on the trail; planning the route; looking up the history and points of interest; seeing M’s happy face when he can run ahead on the trail without fear of cars; the fun of teaching my …

Yesterday M and I took a wonderful hike with a new local group called Nature Strollers .  We went to the Goose Pond Created Wetlands area at Goosepond Mountain State Park .  I’ was already planning to begin a nature notebook with M, so I figured this hike would be a great start for it.  Of course I haven’t actually gotten around to buying the actual …