It was cloudy start to the day with the nearby rumbles so it was a bit dark in the understory yesterday. Most of our time was spend in the bottoms seeing what we could see. And we found plenty to enjoy.
Here is general view of where we traipsed around in the bottomland. As you can see it was mostly open. When we have heavy rains, standing water is frequently found here.
Though the cicadas were not calling, I did find an exuvia of one.It is most certainly easier to see the woodpecker holes in the fallen trees.There were very large Box Elder trees in the bottoms. Consequently, the roots were dark because of the water that often stands here..Some of the roots had a bit of moss and you can see that the sapsuckers had worked on this one too. You can tell by the horizonal ring on this one.A tree with a dead branch sticking out had a wet slime mold covering it and weeping down.A close up look at the brownish slime mold.We could not stop admiring the magnificent roots. Moreover the grapevines were huge and hanging all over. We liked the pattern at this bend in the grapevine.Jeanne noticed the roots coming out the side of the grapevine. I pulled on one and it left the white part behind. Clues were left behind for us to imagine what animal had been before us. Perhaps a bobcat sharpening its claws. Come along with me in tomorrow’s post as I will continue on with our exploring!
What a fun day! Loved the ice cream article too!