More of Congaree National Park

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Today I am joining Nicole for her Friday Face Off and Gillena for her Friday Lunch Break.

   Thanks everyone for your wishes for success with the new batch of bees. And I love reading your bear comments too. 

     This past Sunday I shared some photos from my recent visit to Congaree National Park which is about a half an hour outside of Columbia, South Carolina or about 2 hours outside of Charleston. Here's the post if you're interested :   An Ode To Trees.   

    Today I'm back with the rest of the photos from the walk on the boardwalk that my husband and I took that day.  OK, these first couple of photos don't have any faces. It looks so peaceful and quiet, doesn't it?

   When we arrived at the park's visitor's center, we had a really hard time finding a space to park. One of the reasons it was so crowded that morning was that the park was celebrating. 2026 is the park's 50th anniversary. Since they are a National Park, run by the federal government, they were also celebrating the US's 250th anniversary. One thing they had going on was that at a few points along the boardwalk they had music students from the University of South Carolina playing music. 

   The music was great. Most of it was traditional American tunes.  The students were also very willing to answer questions and talk about the music. We even  later spoke with one woman who was a combined music and environmental science student. She was thrilled to be able to combine her 2 loves here at the park.

 These woodwind players had climbed down into a dry patch below the boardwalk.

I thought their music stands looked  lonely but also interesting in the woods.

 

    There was also a chorus singing in another spot just off the boardwalk, but I didn't get any photos of that. 😟

The further we walked, the sounds turned from human music to the songs and sounds of nature.
   

     You can really see the muddy forest floor in this next photo. This is the area where they were  constructing the new boardwalk.

    And there's more wet and muddy forest floor in this next view.

   We had a paper trail guide, and along the boardwalk there were marked spots.  One marked spot had an old still set up from Prohibition when bootleggers found this area to be a perfect hidden-away spot to produce their alcohol. FYI- Prohibition was mostly during the 1920's. You can tell in the photo that this still covering has been sitting in the forest for a long time.

   And here's South Carolina's state plant, the palmetto.

And of course these cypress trees with the cypress knees were quite interesting.

    And there was wildlife. I have never seen so many pileated woodpeckers in one day or in one area.  Can you see one in the next photo? They were hard to get a picture of because they hopped around the trees and flittered out of sight a lot.  I read they are the largest woodpecker in the US too. I didn't know that.

    There were also lots of grey squirrels too, including the one running along the boardwalk.

    The park is known for their Fox Squirrels, but other than this sign we only saw Gray Squirrels.

  But we did see quite a few reptiles, especially down at this pond.

   There were a whole lot of these snakes in the water. I think they are Brown Water Snakes, but I could never get a clear identification.

 And I'm not sure if this next creepy crawly is some kind of lizard or a salamander as it was below me (since I was up above it on the boardwalk). It was also near the snakes, and it's skin looks pretty smooth and not scaly. But of course, I wasn't close enough to see very well.  The blue on the tail makes me think it's a juvenile type of skink (Blue tailed skink-a type of lizard), as they have blue on their tails which disappears as they age. 

   And then we saw this turtle/ tortoise crawling around.

   I really don't know much about turtle/tortoise identification, and I couldn't find a picture online that helped me ID it.

  And ha ha how about this cute guy you could buy in the gift shop. I must say I thought about it because he looks like he could be fun to play with. 😉

   I'll leave you with that face. I hope everyone one has a wonderful rest of your Friday and start to the weekend ahead. 

Bear Unnecessities

  Hi everyone. Happy mid-week. It's chilly, grey and rainy  in the forecast in my area today, and supposed to be pretty wet for the next couple of days too. Well we could use the rain, although  you will see later in this post, why I wish it had been sunny today. 😏

  It's been very exciting around my house this Wednesday (or this past Wednesday, depending when you read this) morning.  It was only 10 AM as I started to write this. My day started last night about 3 AM when Pete was barking. It was not a very aggressive bark, so I lay listening to him and thought it was only a deer, raccoon, opossum or maybe even an owl in the back yard. Then he went off for a drink of water, and when he came back, his bark became extremely aggressive and if he barked at you like that, you'd be cowing and backing away slowly. It was one of those barks that makes people afraid of dogs.

  OK, time to get up, and when I did, I got half way down the stairs, and right outside the sliding back door on the deck, was a big old black bear. There was just the door glass between him and Pete. And he didn't seem very worried about Pete. 

   He did react to me though, especially when I flipped on the back light. He turned around and trundled off the deck, not in too much hurry.  He was up there because even though I wasn't sure this was the best place, I've been putting my bird feeders into the screen porch (only the door is opened at this point because of our cold spring) at night just because of these possible bear visits. 

   Luckily I was there when I was because he probably would have ripped off the screen door and had a seat in the screen porch to eat his 3 AM snack if I'd ignored the situation much longer.

   And luckily I thought to grab my phone, so I even got a few photos of him as he trundled off across the back yard.

   The "funny" part of all this was Miss Maddie. Remember she is blind. She also sleeps in bed with my husband and myself, and our room is on the second floor. I'm downstairs with Pete and the bear, and she wants to be so she hops off the bed. I hear my husband keep repeating "Wait for me before you go down the stairs." but no, she comes running down the stairs like she was a puppy and could see. Then she starts her aggressive barks, which I think the bear finds much scarier than Pete's because that's when he speeded up his movement a bit.

    In this next photo, if you look at George the bigfoot and then look slightly to the right, you might be able to make out Mr. Bear standing and waiting for the lights to go out.  He's cutting off the bottom of the 2 trees and kind of looks like a black rock in the photo. Bears are smart, and they will wait and hope you go away so they can come back again.   

   That means I waited up a bit for him to finally lumber off into the woods. 

  You can also see the bird feeder pole in this last photo which was how it looked at 3:30 AM. The only 2 feeders I didn't bring in the previous evening  were the humming bird feeder, which was now empty and the oriole jelly feeder, which was also empty. But I didn't lose either of those.

    But the pole was cracked almost all the way through so when I tried to straighten it out this morning, it broke. Luckily it's one of those feeders that comes in pieces that clip together so I think I only have to buy the bottom pole part. As some of you have read before, this seems to happen once every year or two.

   My next big worry was the bee hive which has a lot of honey in it. Luckily this bruin seems to understand the electric fence, so that was just fine.  Phew! 😓Good thing because this morning at 7 AM the post office called me to tell me my next batch of bees had arrived. I didn't need to deal with a wrecked hive and start a new hive before the rain started.

   I was totally shocked there were so few dead bees on the bottom because this package shipped last Thursday and took almost a week to get to my local post office. 

    The bees had to be put in because they can't live in the box for a long time (which with shipping their time in the box was already pushing it), so luckily the rain held off long enough for me to get them put in this morning.

    The can contains bee food to tie them over until they get into the hive.

    Once the can is removed,  I can get most of the bees out. There's always a few that want to wait and go out on their own later.

   Once the box was mostly empty, I added some food into the hive. That food will hold them over until they can make enough from their foraging. Then the top went back on the hive.

   I pushed the almost bee-free shipping box up as much as I could so it would be under the hive entrance. Then I put a tarp on the top of the hive just because these bees haven't had a chance to make the inside of the hive all toasty warm yet. With the 3 days of rain coming, it hopefully will hold in whatever heat there is.

  And now as I finish writing this at around 11:00 AM, I'm wondering if I've already done enough for the day. Maybe I can justify a lazy rainy day reading on the couch. Ha ha. 😉

    

   

  

Time for a New Challenge

   Hi everyone. Since it's Tuesday it's time for a new challenge at Try It on Tuesday .

   But first, let me thank everyone who joined our last challenge. I guess numbers wasn't the most popular choice. 😏 But thank you you everyone who joined in. There were some really fun pieces with numbers. I'm also saying thanks to Janet from Tiny Paper Blossoms who was a guest designer for that challenge. ❤

    For the next 2 weeks, our challenge is Keep It Simple.

   This is actually a journal page in a small journal.  Simple is not my usual style, but I hope you like what I made.

   I used green cardstock and on the textured side I rubbed some darker green ink just to give the paper a little more texture. Then I die cut this TH flower, colored it with a marker, used a pen for some details and added a tad bit of  glitter to the center. Then I stamped this quote from an old Technique Tuesday/Allie Edwards stamp set.

   As always, our latest challenge runs for the next 2 weeks, and DON'T forget to check out the other inspirational ideas from the design team. 

   I always need ideas to make things simple, so I'm looking forward to any inspiration I can get. 😉 I hope to see you over at Try It on Tuesday.

T Stands for Mother's Day and 3 Drinks

    Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. Since it's the start of the new week, it's time for T day again also over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog .

   Last week we had one warm day and then some cool weather. It was the kind of weather when I was a teacher we used to love, because it didn't remind the kids of a beach day so we could all be productive. 😏 However, now that I am retired,  I wouldn't have minded a bit more sun and warmth, but at least with the cooler weather I didn't mind staying inside to avoid the black flies. 🪰😉

    I hope everyone who celebrates Mother's Day had a lovely day. I celebrated on Saturday, a day early, but it ended up being a wonderful way to spend a rainy day. ❤

   Originally my daughter and I were going to meet in Concord (New Hampshire) and go see a movie. Since it was raining, my husband decided to join us, which made it even better because I could spend a family day with my 2 favorite people.

  We all enjoyed the film, even my husband. How could you not with those 4 stars? It may be about fashion (which believe me my husband is one of the most un-fashion conscience people on the planet), but it's still a good story. And luckily for my husband, I forced (grin) him to watch the first one  from 2006 on TV earlier in the week so he didn't go into the film blind. (And he liked the first film too.)

    Here's my first drink for T day this week. Lunch was popcorn and Diet Coke at the movies.

    We didn't know how crowded it was going to be, so we arrived a bit in the early side. That worked out better because we could chat. And although not sold out, I'm glad we got there early since the theater was mostly full.

   Before we went into the theater my daughter handed me a package of hot dogs for Mother's Day.

    Hot dogs you say? (And yes, they went into a cooler before the film.) Of course there's a story behind them.

    Earlier in the week when we were on the phone I said I was craving a hot dog, which is something that occasionally tastes good in warm weather. (I like them grilled nice and black with mustard, onion and pickle relish- typical New England style.)  She mentioned how she always buys these McKenzie hot dogs, and I said I'd never heard of them.

   In her snarky way she went on and practically accused me of not looking properly at the grocery store. OK, so  when I then went to the grocery store, I spent so much time in front of the hot dog packages looking for McKenzie hot dogs, and no I did not see any.

 

   When we next spoke on the phone and I told her I couldn't find any, she told me I should have gone to Hannafords (a local grocery chain) because that's where they sell them, not Market Basket (the local grocery chain where I had been). She then decided she was going to look up these hot dogs on her phone. She's reading to me what it says on the website where they are sold. Then she says 'Oh I didn't know these come from Vermont and they are not sold everywhere."  She also added "Oh, they are sold at the Hannafords in my area (Keene), but no one in your area sells them." 

   She gave me a weak apology 😉, and I replied that next time I went to her house I was going to find some of these McKenzie hot dogs because now I HAD to try them.

   When my daughter pulled up next to me in the parking lot before the movie, she smiled and held up this package of hot dogs which she stopped and bought me for Mother's Day.  Ha ha. So on the actual Mother's Day I had 2 McKenzie hot dogs in the delicious brioche buns I had bought. They were black and served typical New England style. And yes, they were delicious hot dogs. 

   You also see my drink #2 for T day, my glass of milk.

    She also gave me one of these fun pop up cards.

    

Which will spend the summer sitting on my fireplace mantel.

       After the movie the three of us went out to dinner. My daughter suggested we go to a restaurant that I had never been to, but she and my husband had, called the Red Blazer, also in Concord. They served a variety of food, and all 3 of us opted for burgers. And another round of Diet Cokes. Here's drink #3.

    Plus I was happy to try out this restaurant. It made a really lovely day.

   I hope everyone has a really lovely week ahead too. And happy T day too.

Congaree National Park-An Ode to Trees

    Hi everyone. Happy Sunday and weekend to you. 

    And to all you Mothers (of human  children or other children most probably  of the 4 legged variety),

  Happy Mother's Day. 🎕 ❤ 

     Today I am linking up to Nicole's Sunday in the Art Room (Sitar) and Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

    I'm taking you to Congaree National Park which is outside of Columbia, South Carolina. We visited the park when my husband I  took off a few weekends ago and flew to Charleston (South Carolina).  On Saturday (of that weekend) we took the 2 hour drive inland to visit this park since we hadn't been there before and didn't know when we might be back in this area again. 

   Congaree  National Park  is basically  a large track of bottom land forest with a couple of rivers running through it. It's beautiful forested land too, quite different from what grows in New Hampshire. 

    My art today is me trying to get some interesting tree and forest views. We walked the Boardwalk trail, which because 1/3 of it was removed for reconstruction, meant we walked about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to the end and then turned around and walked back. It was a lovely walk though, and I saw lots of wildlife. (Although for the sake of brevity, I'll have another post later in the week with the wildlife and some other park views.)

    This was not only a beautiful walk, but really relaxing since it was flat. And although my photos make it look like no one was there, when we first arrived it was quite crowded. In fact, we had a hard time finding a spot to park.

     And here's some of my "Arty" photos of trees, at least the ones I really like. I'll start with this loblolly pine. Wow those are tall trees. And what a fun name too. 

A cool shadow

and then more height

 Below is the bark of the loblolly pine.

Fungi enjoying the remains of a dead tree, and then below, a very large plant gall.

And I didn't know we had wild American holly either. 

    Being bottom land the forest floor was quite muddy in places. We ran into a couple from New Hampshire (that we didn't know) but we were chatting, and they told us that when  their son had visited the park  the bottom land was flooded. I'm not certain when that was.  From what I read the forest mud here was quite thick, which is why there is a boardwalk.

    Of course, being wet, this place could be filled with mosquitoes.

    But as you can see on the Park's Mosquito Meter, it was not a problem the day we went. In fact, there weren't many insects at all. This park does not allow bug spray because it was one of the few places in the southeastern US where there are synchronized firefly events-meaning all the fireflies are flashing at a similar time. We missed that event by a few weeks, but since it is very popular, there is a lottery for tickets to attend. They can't have the park trampled by people and all the habitat for the fireflies ruined.

   As I mentioned, I'll have another Park post later this week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.