Monday, December 29, 2014

A Fun Little Rabbit

Now this is more like it! Finally I have a good animal sighting. I always get excited when I see a little bit of wildlife roaming around out there. Rabbits are some of my favorites. They work so well in the snow.

I guess I have to let some of the air out of myself and tell you how I got these pictures. I was sitting in my house and I happened to look out my back door just in time to see this little guy run through my backyard. It was also kind enough to stop right within view.

I ran around the house for at least a minute or two looking for my camera. When I finally found it the rabbit was still sitting there in the same spot right outside my back door. I opened the door and the rabbit still stayed right there as if it was waiting for me. The dog didn't even mess anything up.

After several long seconds the rabbit finally noticed me standing there taking pictures of it. I have no idea why it took so long. Maybe it was resting from a long run or something and I just wasn't quite close enough to be an immediate threat.

When he finally saw reacted to me, he ran off to the right side of the back of the house. I took several pictures of the rabbit running away, but the one you see here is the only presentable one. It's really hard to get good pictures of moving animals. I'm lucky I got even this one.

The rabbit came to a stop behind these tall weeds not very far away. I guess he thought he was perfectly safe there because there was absolutely nothing I could do to get him to move again. After getting several of the same picture I decided I was finished.

My little town is just full of rabbits like this one. I see at least one every time I go out not matter what time of year it is. I usually see several. My problem is that I got out of the habit of taking my camera just outside my house. I used to do it a lot. I figured I got enough from around here.

But I haven't just seen my little town rabbits. I've been traveling. I have more animals and other interesting sights coming up soon. I lucked upon some old and new friends to share with you. I'll be staying in my truck for my next few adventures though because it's really getting cold here, but I still have lots of stuff from recent hikes to share. I'll talk to you later.

Monday, December 22, 2014

Winnetoon Jail

I have a few more pictures from Winnetoon for you before we move on to the next adventure. These are a little bit different from the buildings from the last post, but they are just as fun for those of us who are sightseeing. I wish there was more stuff because it was all so interesting.

The first picture is of the Winnetoon Jail. You can see that it's a pretty small building. It looks like it could be another one of those fake buildings like before, but no! I've been told that this used to be a real jail. I'm pretty sure that it says that on the sign on the front.

Of course it's not still the jail there, and there might not even be a jail in this town. I'm guessing it might be like the small town where I live; we don't have any police here. Actually we use the police from the surrounding county. I wish we didn't need them at all, but you have to have them everywhere sometimes.

I like this little statue of the hunter in the tall grass. I guess he's a hunter. He just seems to fit so well with the weeds growing up around him. You don't see many things like this in most places. I've only ever seen these type of things around this part of the country.

I write this blog to give other people a chance to see these things that they wouldn't otherwise ever get a chance to see. Winnetoon is a small town in Nebraska. Not many of you will ever visit there. But if you want to know where it is, I have a link to the location in the footer at the bottom of the post. I try to do that with many of the places I visit.

I couldn't miss getting a picture of this totem pole. I love totem poles. I find them in some unexpected places. There was a good one in one of the parks I routinely visited back in Michigan. It's on the blog in one of my old posts.

Now that I'm writing this post, I realize that I should have gotten some closeup pictures of the individual faces on the pole. I think I'll be back through here next summer, so maybe I'll do that when I return.

I'll be posting about some more local things coming up. I just recently visited some good places around here. You've seen them before, but hopefully I'll have some different and more interesting views of everything. I'll talk to you later.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Winnetoon

I really dislike posting the way I'm doing today, but I think this is the only appropriate way I could do this one. I'm giving you a total of 8 pictures in today's post. That's the most I've ever done in one post by far. I usually like to do 5 pictures at most, with 3 being just right.

I recently visited the town of Winnetoon, Nebraska. It's the place where my Grandpa was born. This one street is like an outside museum. All of the buildings are old fashioned with statues and other interesting features. I took pictures of everything, and I'm sharing the best with you.

I don't have much more to say about this place because I don't know much about it. I went here with my mom so she could see some of the sights from her childhood. We were visiting the next town over for her, where she was a kid, but we couldn't miss this one either.






I'm going to do one more post with sights from Winnetoon. It will have similar things to this one, but they are separate from this street. In some ways they're even more interesting than these pictures. There is also a small area like the one in today's post in a town not far from me, but it's not nearly as big as this. I'll post pictures of that place too one of these days.

I don't think any of these buildings in today's post are occupied, but I could be very wrong. I do know that some of them aren't whole buildings though, so that supports my theory. I went around back and saw a few front walls that were just propped up with nothing else behind them, and there were some other very narrow buildings as well.

When I went here it was a cloudy fall-like day. I found out after I got home that winter moved back into this place right after I left with a pretty big winter storm. I'm glad I missed that one. I got a tiny bit of snow here at home, but it got kind of cold. I don't miss the snow. I'll talk to you later.

Friday, December 12, 2014

A Little Look At The Park

I often complain about not having very many trees around here. It really is the truth, but there are places with plenty of trees in most of the nature parks around here. There just aren't quite as many, and the area with the trees isn't usually as big. That's okay.

As long as I get to stand in the middle of a bunch of trees sometimes I'm perfectly fine. I don't know what it is about a good forest that I like so much, but I really feel at peace there. And it's not even necessarily the place where I might find animals. I see them in lots of different places.

I got my answer on the trail that used to go up to the river in my closest nature park. I didn't even have to ask anyone about it. Under that stop sign in the picture above is a keep out sign as well. There is a walkway that goes over the railroad tracks that used to lead to the other part of the nature trail. I guess they decided to permanently close it off.

That's a shame because it used to lead to a couple more little foot bridges, and it lead right up to a trail that went along the river for a little ways. I really liked it, but I'm guessing they just couldn't maintain the bridges anymore, and maybe they became a little dangerous. They were really kind of old and rickety.

Above you can see one of the small hills on the trail in this hiking park. I really like having these hills, but they sure do get hard on my back when I travel up and down them so much. Even these little hills in this park have been hard for me lately. They're not much better for my lazy dog.

Back in Michigan I can remember the time I was chased by racoons. I ran about half a mile up and down hills like this to get away from them. I was a little out of breath when it was done, but I still felt pretty good. I think I need to get out more often. It used to be mostly every day back then, but now I mostly ride around in the truck. I miss the old days. I'll talk to you later.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Taking My Dog With Me

I'm back with this post a little later than I wanted to be because I didn't really have anything to write about. It gets kind of tough when most of my new pictures are much too similar to some of my other recent pictures. That's what happens when I don't see many animals.

I used to write mostly about all the little forest creatures I'd come across, but I just don't see them here, and when I do I never get the picture. Just yesterday I saw a fun little squirrel playing outside my front door, but my phone crashed and I had to reset it to get the pictures. By the time I got back the squirrel was gone.

Then when I was on the trails you see in these pictures, I came across a black-capped chickadee hopping around the trail in front of me. I wanted badly to get a few pictures, but unfortunately I had my dog with me. Isabella also saw the cute little bird. She lunged forward in an attempt to grab it, and it flew away just in time.

I have to keep a close eye on Isabella as far as birds are concerned. She's an expert bird catcher. I buy her lots of toys with squeakers in them. She loves to squeeze them and fling them around while chewing on them to get them to make the squeaking sound. She does that with birds too, and she also likes the sounds they make.

A long time ago when I couldn't have a dog, I walked the nature trails alone, telling myself that when I moved to a place where I could have a dog I would take it on the trails with me every time. I knew the dog would love it as much as I do, and now I know that I was right.

Isabella loves going to the nature parks with me, but sometimes I wonder if I should go without her sometimes. Even though she stops whenever I need her to, I wonder if getting pictures of animals might be a little easier without her. I'm not ready to cruelly leave her behind yet, but I still think about it sometimes.

I'm still not sure if I'd have any better success though. I was getting some good pictures of birds with her a couple of years ago. And some of the feistier squirrels will run close enough so they can do their best to tease her. I think I'll keep her along for the time being.

Oh, I guess I should explain today's pictures a little bit. They are all from the little park I was complaining about a couple of posts ago. As you can see, this place is much better than I made it out to be then. There are plenty of trees in some places, and I love that foot bridge. I haven't figured out that little theater area yet. I wonder what it's used for.

The only problem I have really is all of the hills I have to walk up and down here. Hills just kill my back, especially recently. I used to be able to handle these smaller hills just fine, but lately I can't even do those. I think I need to practice a bit more on my treadmill so I can get back into shape. Maybe then I'll like the hills again. I'll talk to you later.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

The Sioux City Bridge

It was a little warmer than it has been recently, which isn't saying much, so I decided to go to Sioux City and visit the Missouri River there downtown. There's lots of stuff to see down there, and I haven't really took the time to explore a bit there yet since I've lived here.

I wish it had been different, but I did more sightseeing than picture taking. I originally just intended to get a few pictures of the river, but I ended up focusing on a few other things. One of the main things I looked at was this bridge.

This bridge takes you from Sioux City, Iowa to South Sioux City, Nebraska. These are two entirely different cities in two different states, but they are so close together that they exist as one whole community. There is also North Sioux City, South Dakota, which is the third part of this whole community. All connected by bridges.

As you can see by the above photo, it was getting a little late and I was running out of time to get more pictures. It wasn't as dark out as it seems, but I thought taking a picture into the Sun would give a nice shadowy effect. It did exactly as I had hoped. Do you like it?

I don't know if this bridge has a name. All of the bigger bridges do. This one is kind of a middle sized bridge. I like going over this bridge to South Sioux City because there's lots of Mexican restaurants there. I love Mexican food. Nothing here so far compares to Armando's in Detroit though.

There are many more things near this bridge that I need to visit on a sunnier day so I can get some good pictures. They have one little area that is full of animal statues. I gotta show you that sometime. They even have a squirrel statue. Squirrels used to be one of my best subjects. I miss them. I'll talk to you later.

Friday, November 28, 2014

Endless Grass

I only recently discovered some of the nature trails at this little nature park down the road from where I live. This park, Dunham Prairie Preserve, was one of the first parks I visited when I moved into my current home. I thought it would end up as my daily park because of the interesting trails, but there became one problem.

Some of the most interesting trails here ceased to be maintained. There is one trail in particular that went down to the Big Sioux River that I really liked a lot. Now it's gone, so there is no more access to the river from here. That took away from much of the attractiveness of this place.

I still like the park, but most of the trails are like the one you see below. They're mowed into the grassy prairie land near the highway. That closeup highway is really a turn off for me. And there's not much else to see except for endless grassland. But it's not all bad.

I just recently discovered that there are more trails of this park on the other side of the highway from the parking lot. Even if it is just grass, it's still a new place to explore. And I live for new places to explore. The other thing is that this is where I discoverd all of that milkweed growing that I wrote about in a previous post.

Seeing that much milkweed gives me something to look forward to other than endless grass. The grass would be fine, but it's not really very exciting to me, and I don't really know what to write about it. But I can come up with all kinds of things while I observe the growth of that milkweed throughout the year.

And who knows? Maybe they'll open up access again to the river one of these days. I don't really know why they closed it. I don't know many people and I'm not very talkative with strangers unless we get into an argument or something. I'm glad not many people in this area of the country are very argumentative.

The sign above says Fire Walk. That's the name of the trail here on the other side of the road. The trail is a loop from where you can still very much hear the sounds of the highway, and most of the time see the cars go by. I'll only come back on occasion, but I will be back to look at the milkweed.

I do like this place because it's the closest nature and hiking park to home. I guess maybe if I came here more often then I'd discover more desirable features. Does anybody know of some good things I might find in this grass that I'm probably not thinking of?

The river trail was really nice because it was isolated from the highway. Now that it's gone I'm looking for other advantages to this park that I've missed. I've seen so many things in nature over the past several years, but in many ways I still understand next to nothing. I learn something new with each new adventure, and I want to learn something here too. I'll talk to you later.

Monday, November 24, 2014

The Village

The pictures I have for you today were taken last summer. Right now it looks very different around here. There are no leaves left on the trees and everything is covered in snow. Also the temperature is much too cold for me to do much of anything other than wait till it warms up just a little bit to go out.

My first trip when I do go out will be right back to this very place, but maybe not to this village in the woods. The nature park where this village exists is a big one with many different features to explore, and there are many that I haven't seen yet. But today I want to talk about the village.

This village is one of the features of  Adams Homestead And Nature Preserve. I can't say I know much about it yet because I've only visited it once so far. I do know that this house above was built in the 1880s. That's pretty old for this part of the country. It's called the Shay-Adams House.

There are several buildings in this little village with signs like the ones above out in front of each one. They give a nice little description of each building and maybe go into the history of each one. In a future post I'll maybe give you a better look at what some of them say. I'll be back here many more times.

The cabin above was built in the 1860s and is called The Brusseau House. The door was open, so I went inside and took a few pictures. I'll feature them in a future post, I'm not sure when yet. I'm not sure if the door was meant to be open or if I was supposed to go in, but I did. I'm an outlaw. Fear me.

This red building is a school house. I never went closer to it than this. I don't know why. Onew of these4 next visits I'll have to go up close and examine it better. By the time I got this far I was eager to explore other parts of the nature park, and I was hunting a geocache, which I found.

The only thing we had like this back in Michigan near me was a big place called Greenfield Village which cost quite a bit of money to get in. It was worth it, but this little place gives you a similar but very much smaller experience, without all the flash, for free.

I hope I can keep these more frequent posts up, but the very much colder weather is going to make it difficult. It's been cold and windy around here. The cold is fine, but that wind just about kills me. I'll be making a point of going out on warmer days, and there are a few inside places I'll be visiting as well. I'll talk to you later.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

The Way To View Mud Lake

I'm finally going to show you the little viewing areas at Mud Lake at Adams Nature Area.  The structure above sits at the edge of the lake, as you can obviously see. That wall in front seems to block your view of the lake, but that is very deceptive.

What you do is sit on the bench in front of the wall and look through those slots. Once you get up close it's obvious why the wall and those slots are there. The wall isn't to hide the lake, it's to hide you from the birds. That way you can watch them and they won't swim away. Good idea, isn't it?

Here above is a closeup of that sign on the wall. It shows some of the water birds you might see swimming on the lake. A couple of them are just regular birds.Most of these are different kinds of ducks. I've seen many of these kinds of birds before, but there are a few that I've never seen. I hope I get to see all of them at some point.

The picture above is the view of the lake that you can see through those slots. When you're sitting on the bench those slots are the perfect height. You really can see a lot more than you think you might. I was really doubtful until I sat down.

I took several pictures of the lake through those slots, but I'll only share this one this time. I've shown you rivers and lakes a lot recently, so it would just get kind of repetitive if I did it here again. I'll feature this lake better sometime in the future. Maybe then there will be some ducks.

Here's a view of the other building that's down the trail farther on. I wish I had some better pictures than this. I really thought I covered it all at the time, but this was all I got. You can see this one has no slots. There are still benches and you can see a lot better here.

You don't have to use these buildings to see the lake. You can walk right out to the edge if you want, but these are so much more comfortable and convenient. And I still haven't walked all the way along the path that edges this lake. I had to take the dog back to the truck.

I'll be coming back here soon, but it's going to be a lot colder outside. It was a beautiful fall day when I took these pictures, but winter cold has hit here since then with a vengeance. I'm determined to still go out. I never let a little cold stop me when I was in Michigan. I'll talk to you later.

Monday, November 17, 2014

I Love Milkweed

So I promised you a better look at some duck buildings and a lake last time. I'll get to that in a future post, but right now I want to give you something I've seen more recently. It's these milkweed plants! I really love milkweed, one of my favorite plants.

I usually care about watching animals more than plants, but there are a few plants I really like a lot, and this is one of them. I guess I never think about liking plants, but I guess I do in a few cases. I also like cattails, jewelweed, and snapdragons. There are others, but I'll get to them when I see them.

What you are seeing above are some open milkweed pods with their seeds spilling out. All of that white fluff is there to help the seeds fly around before finding a nice home for a new milkweed plant. That fluff can be used for all sorts of stuff that I won't mention today just because it's so easy to find out all over the internet.

Here's another view of a milkweed with more of the fluff exposed. Some of you may find this view a little boring, which is fine, but others understand that it's all fun to see. Did I already mention that I love milkweed? Any view is interesting to me.

What was really good for me was that the whole field I was walking through was full of milkweed plants. I didn't expect to see anything there but grass. I didn't really even expect to see the nature trail I was on. I was in a nature park that I only just now found out is on both sides of the highway.

The parking area for this place is on the other side of the highway. I saw the sign on this side on past trips here, but I never noticed the trails or a way to get here. I finally found the trail while I was out geocaching. I also found the geocache right on the side of the trail a little ways in. That was fun.

Above you can see the milkweed pods before they break open. I always think of them as pod people from outer space in strange movies like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. I swear I saw them carrying giant versions of these in that movie.

I have a few much older posts about these and the pod people. I did them several years ago. If you're interested in reading these idiotically fun writings just search the blog for milkweed or pod people. You'll be sure to find some strange stuff. They were fun to write.

I'll be back soon with the other pictures I said I'd share. They actually are kind of interesting. I guess it's not like being there though. I sometimes wish I could take you all along on one of my everyday adventures. There's nothing like being there. But these pictures are better than nothing at all. I'll talk to you later.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

I Like The Trees

I've been saying a little bit that there aren't really a lot of trees around here in the nature parks. That's not always true. There are more trees in Michigan, but there are always areas in these parks here with lots of trees. I'm talking about this because I really love a lot of trees.

Because of the time of year now, I also have to worry about deer hunting season. Many of the nature parks near me are open to hunting. I can tell you that I don't really trust all hunters all the way to be safe, and I don't want to get shot, so I avoid these places right now.

So I can say that it's been really good to find this Adams Nature Area. Like I keep saying, it's mostly flat land, which is nice and easy on me. One of these days I'll get back into good enough shape to walk the hills well, and so will my dog. But that isn't today.

And even though there are large areas without trees here, there are large areas with them as well. This little trail above leads down to Mud Lake. Funny name huh? I have to add that you might be able to see a small downhill path. I know I've been badmouthing hills, but this little one is not only just fine, it's welcome. I like a few hills.

You can see that little sign post on the right side of the trail there. That's a picture of binoculars. That's there because the lake is supposed to be a good place to watch for water birds. I hope that's true because I plan on visiting here often. On my first trip I didn't see any yet.

You may notice that there's a little more writing in my posts again. That's because I have things to write about now. Walking nature trails has always been the main thing I like doing for this blog. The only thing I'm missing now is a little more frequent encounters with a few critters here and there.

That's something I've been missing here in Iowa is all of the animals I used to see. I have to be honest, I didn't expect to see so few when I moved here. I figured there would be more out here in the country, but I guess they just have more places to hide here.

I still see egrets by the side of the highway in the flooded cornfields, but I can't stop there and get any pictures. They fly away when I try. I also see deer darting out in the road, but it's kind of the same situation. And then there's the turkeys, but they're more city type birds around here. I'll have those pictures one of these times.

Oh, I guess I got a bit sidetracked there. In this last picture you can see a small building in the background. It's there so you can sit inside and watch the ducks. I'll give you a closer look in an upcoming post. Trust me, there's a reason for the closeup. I guess I'll talk to you in that post soon.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Adams Homestead And Nature Preserve

I found a nature park that reminds me of my favorite little nature parks back in Michigan that I used to visit almost every day. I actually found it several months ago but I haven't really had time to explore it or post about it until now.

In this post I can only really give an introduction to the place because I like to limit each post to only a few pictures at a time. That way you don't have to spend too much time here in any one post. It's just the way I like doing things.

Because of this I'll probably be writing posts quite a bit more often, at least for a little while. I really want to be able to take you through this park all the way. There are quite a few things here to share, and I'm not quite sure where to begin yet.

One thing I like about this place is that it's flat. Most of the other parks around here are so full of hills. Walking up and down all of those hills just about kills me. I still like them, but it's really hard sometimes. This flat land is so much easier to hike through right now.

The thing I loved about my Michigan parks was all of the trees. Unfortunately there aren't as many here. That's just thew way things are around here, so I'll just have to live with that. But there are areas here that are just fime for tree lovers like me, so I like that just fine.

Let me give you at least an idea of what there is here. The first trail splits in two directions. If you go to the left you really get trees, but that's not all. Back within all of the trees is an old village. It's like being able to explore an outdoor museum.

If you go to the trail on the right then you go past a lake with special viewing areas where you can observe several different types of ducks and other similar birds. You'll have to see them to really understand what I'm talking about.

The trail goes on quite a bit farther but I had to turn around to give my dog a bit of a break. She has become incredibly out of shape because I don't walk the hills much. Now that I have some flatter land to hike I hope to fix her. You wouldn't believe how glad she was to see my truck when the hike was over.

Maybe now I can do some of my older style posts where I explore the trails instead of showing pictures I took from my truck. I'm always excited when I find a place like this. The good thing is that it's not the only one. I hope I get to see some of those ducks one of these next times I visit this place. I'll talk to you later.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Towers Of Sunset

I took these pictures with my phone. I may take most of them with the phone from now on. It's so much easier to carry than the big camera. I'll still bring the camera along if I'm going on a bigger trip with some good potential to use the zoom, but the phone does pretty well for everything else.

I featured these Towers In Time in  a post about 6 months ago, but I had to share these pictures because they came out so well. Even though I still like these, the picture quality has lost something after shrinking them down for blog use. The high resolution versions look stunning.

I went to this place looking for Halloween decorations but they took them down a week before Halloween. I would have expected that to happen maybe a day or two after. I guess I'll remember that one next year. I'm guessing most of the decorations would have been the same as I shared here before anyway. Oh well.

I love the way this second picture looks. It looks like an ancient archaeological site. It's like something that you'd find on the other side of the world from here; never in Nebraska. I think there is supposed to be water flowing through those rocks, but I haven't been here yet when it's turned on.

I guess maybe the fall season kind of enhances the cool barren quality of the picture. Now I wonder if the place would look so good in the summer time. Maybe it would look completely different. I hope it still looks as fascinating. I'm going to have to find out.

Fall hasn't seemed quite so bad to me this year as it has in years past. Some of you know I don't enjoy fall like I guess I should. I'm getting through it this year by not noticing it's there. I'm just doing the things I usually do, and that means going out on my average everyday adventures. In fact, I have something fun planned for tomorrow. I hope to have pictures from that here soon. Talk to you later.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The Big Sioux River

It took me awhile this time, but I'm finally back. I could tell you a bunch of stories about all the great adventures I've been on while I was away from here, but I really haven't had time to do much at all. No big adventures, no pictures, and no blogging fun.

My furnace had to be fixed before winter came around, so I had to prepare for that fun. While I was doing that my water heater quit working. Luckily, after some repairs, they're both working as well as they can be for now.

During all of this while I was driving down the highway a deer ran into the side of my truck. I'm happy to say the deer seemed to be okay enough to keep on running. My truck ended up with a big old dent in the door and a broken door handle. I had to take it into the shop anyway to get several things fixed, some major, so I had them fix the door as well. It all took over a week before I got it back.

On a good note, I finally am able to get some time to go back out to do some adventuring. My first little trip was down the road from me a few miles to visit The Big Sioux River. I walked my dog right up to the edge of the river and she walked right in and began to splash around. She seems to love the water.

Can you tell these pictures are a different shape than my usual stuff? That's because I took them with my new phone. My old one might have done an adequate job, but I decided to get a Lumia Icon. I chose it because it has the second best camera of any phone and I like Windows Phone. The pictures are great so far.

I'll still use my good camera when I'm out on more important adventures, but now I can have a good camera wherever I go. The camera on this phone is actually better than the camera I used for the first couple of years of writing this blog. And the phone has an excellent geocaching app on it.

I'm getting ready to visit a place with a lot of Halloween decorations. I was there last year already, but if they have something different I'll post some pictures here. That should mean I'll be back quite a bit sooner than last time. I really want to get them up by Halloween. We'll see what I can do. I'll talk to you later.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

A Great Blue Heron

I keep wanting to write my posts more often, but it never seems to work out that way. I always look up and find out way too much time has passed. In between all of the busy and boring stuff I do I get to go out and see things like this Great Blue Heron.

I don't seem to have the time I'd like for anything I'd like to do, so every time I see things like this bird I really appreciate it. I have to say though that I do see these things kind of often. I see flocks of egrets in the cornfields near my house almost every day. But they're too far away to get any decent pictures. Oh well.

I kept trying to get the best picture of this heron but it kept walking away and turning its back to me. Even so, I think these are pretty good. I don't think I've ever gotten any better pictures of this kind of bird. It seems like I should have since I've seen so many now.

I wish I could be out there taking pictures like these every day. Now that the warmer weather is wining down it's going to become even more difficult. I'll have to do what I usually do and find cold weather stuff to do pretty soon. Fall always gives me that dread of the coming cold weather, but then I like it when it gets here.

I guess I've been doing more fun things than I think I do. I just got a new smart phone, the Lumia Icon. It's another Windows Phone with one of the best cameras out there for a phone. The camera is why I got it. Now I can take excellent pictures even when I don't have my good camera with me.

I'm also doing a bit of Geocaching again. There's plenty of opportunities for that all over the place around here. The great thing about it is that it gives me plenty of chances to get more nature pictures and go on my little adventures. I think that's enough for now. I'll talk to you later.