Nature with a Bit of Nurturing

Sunday we visited Churchville Nature Center. Kevin and I pass by it all the time when traveling back and forth between our houses but we weren't sure if it was worth checking out. Since it looked like rain and we wanted to be outside but stay close to home, we decided to finally give it a chance.

Churchville Nature Center

We saw these composters before we even parked the car. Kevin was pretty excited until we got closer and saw how neglected they are.

Our compost system looks way better than these! And Kevin turns the pile frequently enough to get faster results than most of these probably do :)

Then we jumped on a trail and headed into the forest:

Dichautumny

It seemed that nature couldn't quite make up its mind.

Green or gold?

Rain or Shine?

Is This Even Still the Path?

Wildlife Sightings

We managed to spot some wild animals even with the excessive barking from the family who just had to bring along their dog (despite about 6,000 Please, No Dogs signs they had to walk past to get back as far as we were when we ran into them).

Unfortunately, we didn't think to measure everything we encountered in chapsticks. Just this Churchville Nature Centipede:

But wait, there's more!

We're not sure what kind of animal made this one. Teenagers, maybe?

Kevin snapped these next two: "A train was just here: There are its tracks" and "Pennsylvania's state flower: the highway cone":

Wherefore Art Thou?

Lots and lots of artsy shots too!

We had a laugh when we got home and compared pictures to discover that we'd each taken the "same" shot, although as Kevin put it:

I love how I was just like, "Oh, this looks cool. <snap> Moving on," whereas you were like, "Let me think about what angle I should shoot from. Let me play with the focus. Let me put any thought at all into the photo I'm taking :D

Here's his version:

Here's my version:

...And he has the nerve to say that he's Artsy and I'm Fartsy!

He got a few neat shots though:

As did I!

Hannah Banana

Monday night we got to meet our new niece who is only a few days old!

Kevin doesn't hold babies until they're several months old, because he's afraid he's going to break them. So stay tuned in the new year, I guess?

Dark Hollow, Visit #1,684

Tuesday I called out of work because my back and my shoulder were acting up, which would have made the work day tricky and unpleasant but didn't really have any effect on going for a walk.

Kevin suggested we do Dark Hollow since we hadn't been there in about 10 minutes. I do like that it's been completely different each time we've come though!

Sometimes it's dry, sometimes it's wet, sometimes it's summer, sometimes it's autumn:

Sometimes we find part of an old gun in a tree:

Sometimes there's a sign that says we're on camera even though we're far out in the middle of nowhere (and it's more likely that whoever leaves all his tools back there to build moguls and obstacles for his dirtbike is probably just trying to discourage anyone stealing his stuff or undoing his work).

But since Kevin and I have both submitted our fingerprints to the government (me for work several times over the years, and him to make international travel less of a headache), he decided we didn't need to be leaving prints on a strange gun even if it is way past the point that it could ever fire again.

He threw it into a deep part of the creek where nobody else is likely to find it :)

Meanwhile, I snapped a few artsy pics: