For whatever reason, we have an overabundance of very large acorns in our yard this year.
Not just your average acorn.
They are very large acorns. On this one particular piece of lawn (about 10′ x 20′), it was like walking on marbles. Very large marbles.
That acorn is about 2.5 times the size of this frog!
If you click on the next picture, you’ll probably see the acorns all over the ground. Coverage is heavier in the grassy area though.
See the acorns on the ground?
The good news is that deer love to eat acorns. The bad news? This is the Maryland yard I’m talking about. There are lots of critters here, but no deer.
So I decided to gather up the acorns to take to the WV place. Only from the grassy area where it’s a pain to walk. The ones in the flower bed just got raked back into the trees.
My wheelbarrow full of acorns.
I did say there were a lot of them, right? That one tiny area yielded about five cubic feet of acorns.
That's a lot of acorns!
And they’re still dropping.
Hubby dumped them into a big garbage back for ease of transport. That was the idea, anyway. Now we have about a 50-pound bag of acorns that we’re afraid just might explode when we lift it.
I can see the acorns rolling down our very steep driveway now…
That’s just the sort of goofy thing that would happen to me.
Maybe we’ll have Eric lift the bag into the truck the next time he’s here. He doesn’t read my Blog, so he won’t know the bag is fit-to-bursting.
I’ll make sure I have the video camera rolling, okay?
Yesterday while I was doing some lawn chores in the back yard, K was in our little patch of “woods” (a small stand of trees) doing something. I wasn’t sure what. When I called her and she came to see what I wanted, I noticed a bunch of dirt clinging to her chin. That told me she’d been digging. As long as she wasn’t digging in the middle of the lawn, that was fine.
Before long, Belle realized K was digging and she went back to help. They were both back there for quite some time. Hubby went back to check on them and told me that he could hardly see Belle. I think he said something like, “If you hear a crash, that’s the shed falling into the hole.”
I just had to go see what they were up to.
Hubby was right. It was definitely a Belle-sized hole.
If you look closely, you’ll see the dirt on both of their noses.
The hole was several feet long, about eight inches wide and about a foot deep.
These two were determined. I had no idea what they were after. My guess was a groundhog. There’s one of those that hangs out in our yard periodically, usually under the shed.
The main hole.
K did most of the work. She really was back there for a long time. At least an hour, maybe more.
After taking the pictures I posted above, I went back to what I’d been doing. Shortly thereafter, K came flying out of the woods, shaking her head wildly.
She’d caught something. I didn’t see what it was before she dropped it. She couldn’t find it, so she tore back into the woods.
Belle, in the meantime, had circled around behind K and retrieved the prey.
I didn’t want either of the dogs to eat whatever the thing was, so I had to pick it up.
This is what I saw…
A small, dead mole.
Let’s take a look at that hole again…
The main hole.
A hole several feet long, about eight inches wide and about a foot deep. For a small mole.
The girls checking out the prize.
They were both very excited. I let them sniff the thing a bit before I shut them in the house and tossed the mole far back into the woods.
That's my glove on the table.
A little while later, I was sort of amused to see K and Belle under the table sniffing at my glove. I guess it still smelled like mole. One glove was on the ground already.
Our Maryland house is located in a very populated suburb pretty much smack in the middle of the state between Baltimore, Washington (DC) and Annapolis. It’s not the sticks. We’re surrounded by houses and roads. Knowing this, you wouldn’t expect to see a lot of wildlife, right? Wrong. There are all kinds of cool critters here. Not big critters like bears, moose and mountain lions. You have to look a bit closer to see the kind of critters I am talking about.
There are even smaller critters, too. Not all of them are what I’d call cute, but they’re definitely interesting. Like this colorful girl…
An orb weaver.
Hubby spotted her first. I checked on her periodically over the span of about two weeks. Of course, I can’t just show you that cool spider picture without telling you that it is a Black and Yellow Argiope spider.
It wasn’t until the other day when I checked that I realized she was gone. I thought maybe she might’ve just relocated, so I looked around the spot where the web had been. That’s when I saw this.
Egg Sac
It’s her egg sac. I only know because I looked it up on the Internet. It’s about an inch and a half long. Apparently, there are about a thousand baby spiders alive inside of that thing. They’ll stay in there until Spring. Unless some bird or other critter finds it.
On the not-so-interesting front are the gazillion stink bugs that have surrounded us this year.
Stink Bug
They’re all over this area. They’re in Pennsylvania, too. Until I saw this news video, I thought we had it pretty bad. Only a couple have made it inside so far. There are a whole bunch of them outside though.
We also have some cute critters. Some really cute ones if you ask me.
Like this guy I just happened to see on our patio table when I took a break from some yard work yesterday.
Well, hello little guy!
Can you tell what it is? I knew immediately, of course. At which point I gasped, because these things are rarely seen. Not because they are rare, but because they are so well-camouflaged.
Remember, if you click on an image, a larger size of the image will open for you to see.
Look at the size of the thing next to my camera lens.
Still not sure what it is? Okay, let me crawl under the table for a better shot.
Gray Tree Frog
It’s a teeny tiny tree frog.
In this picture someone else shot (of a different frog) you can see the sticky toe pads that allow the frog to climb.
Gray Tree Frog
It could have been the same frog I saw on my office window recently. But I think that was a different kind of tree frog (there are nine different kinds in Maryland).
Most people would be surprised to know a lot of the “bug” noises you hear at night are actually frogs. If you want to hear what this one sounds like, visit this Web page and then click on LISTEN.
Gray Tree Frog
He sat there for the longest time. Even when the dogs were shaking the heck out of the table as they tried frantically to get at my gardening gloves.
Are you curious as to why the dogs would have been so anxious to get at my gloves? You’ll have to check back tomorrow to find out. Unless you have a weak stomach. If that’s the case, you might want to stay away for the day.
“Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is one of the best places in the northeastern United States to watch the annual hawk migration, one of nature’s greatest wildlife spectacles. Between August 15 and December 15, an average 20,000 hawks, eagles and falcons pass the Sanctuary’s North Lookout and are identified and counted.”
It would have been cool to see a bunch of migrating raptors. But I happen to live in a part of the country where many hawks over-winter. So we get to see them quite frequently. And if they aren’t hanging around all Winter, they are sure enough passing through in large numbers as they head south and then return north in the Spring.
Ugly road. Cool diner. I think this was somewhere between Reading and Hamburg.
But this post isn’t about birds. It’s about my road trip. Actually, it’s about sharing pictures I took during the trip. The cow shots I shared yesterday are just the tip of the iceberg.
A co-worker’s recent excursion reminded me of the place. She visited recently and had some pretty nice pictures to share. So I decided a road trip was in order.
I thoroughly enjoyed the drive, but I must admit it would have been sooooo much more awesome on the motorcycle.
My favorite stretch of road was PA-10 from Oxford to just north of Honey Brook. I’ll definitely have to head back that way one day. I hit a bit of turnpike-type highway from there to Reading. Then I was on Hwy 61 for a while. That was all interesting, but not nearly as scenic as PA-10 through farm country.
Soon enough I was turning onto Hawk Mountain Road. That’s when I spotted this cool, dilapidated barn.
This old farm looked like a castle ruin.
After a quick drive up my favorite type of mountain road — narrow, winding, and flanked by trees in varying degrees of color change — and a short but strenuous hike, I reached the top of Hawk Mountain.
The view from the top of Hawk Mountain.
It was a nice view. But getting to the top? Oh my God. It’s a good thing I am very sure-footed, that’s all I can say. Here are a couple of pictures of the trail. And this is the easier one.
The trail to the North Overlook.
The trail goes right through the middle of the next image. For real. That’s why there’s an orange blaze on the tree.
The trail. Really.
And when I got to the top, what did I find?
People. Ugh.
A whole bunch of bird watchers. The guys wearing tan are the ranger-types and spotters who are there to educate folks and count the birds. One day last week, 1,400+ broad-winged hawks flew past. Not all at once, but still.
In addition to the bird watchers, there were also lots and lots of stink bugs. I am sick to death of those darn things.
I did not hang around long, but I did get some nice pictures. I’ll post a few of my favorites here…
My favorite scenery capture.Nice view. You gotta love those red maple leaves.
As turtles go, box turtles are not usually very exciting. I mean, they’re pretty common.
“Usually” is the key word here.
Today, I found a box turtle in our MD backyard that was super cool.
Even Hubby was intrigued.
Bad-ass Box Turtle
This was the boldest box turtle I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure. When we picked him up, he only retracted into his shell for a few seconds. Then he’d pop back out and wave his arms and legs around. He even let us touch his head.
Coolest Box Turtle Ever
Have you figured out what makes him so cool? What is it about this particular turtle that had both Hubby and me intrigued? I mean, I’m easy to impress when it comes to critters. Hubby is a harder sell.
Is it really a box turtle?
He’s a bit different looking than most box turtles, but there’s a reason for that, too.
Have you figured it out yet?
Young Box Turtle
It was an itty, bitty BABY box turtle! The smallest I have ever seen. Back in 2005, CeCe found a little one at the WV place. But it was considerably larger than the one I found today.
Apparently it is pretty uncommon to find them in the wild when they are this small. His shell is only about an inch and a half long, if that. (He’s sitting on a wide-ruled legal pad.)
I found him when I was outside cleaning up dog poo this morning. I was studying the grass pretty closely. Otherwise I never would have spotted him.
He was able to right himself in about half a second.
Really. Isn’t this the cutest little turtle you have ever seen?
Say cheese!
I knew I’d be letting him go. But not before I showed him to Hubby AND took lots of pictures.
I doubt he's more than a couple of weeks old.
From what I read briefly on the Internet, these guys are about 1 1/4 inches when they emerge from their shells. As I said earlier, this guy could’ve been no more than an inch and a half, which means he was pretty young.
Turtle with attitude.
It really was fun seeing this little guy. He was just so darn cute!
I know one person that will call me crazy for setting him free. But these guys can live for up to 40 years. And they eat bugs.
Most importantly, however, he deserves to be free.
So, after I shot about a dozen pics of him, I took him back outside and set him free.
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