Finding Happiness On A Winter Hike

I have a new attitude about the local nature where I live. It has taken me years to adjust from the plentiful trees in Michigan to the open areas of this part of Iowa. But I think I may have finally decided I like the way nature is around here.

Adjusting to the fact that there aren't nearly as many trees here has been a huge problem for me. All I have been able to think about was all those fields of nothing but grass. How would I explore in the grass? I felt so lost.

But then not too long before I discovered that my back was finally getting better, I realized that some of my favorite adventures from Michigan were from the few open areas of my old nature parks. Those new thoughts began to open something good in my mind. I began to realize that the same thing could happen here.

And then this winter as I began exploring my closest nature park I looked around and remembered that there are also some trees there too. There aren't nearly as many, but there may be enough. And there are other reasons I can like this much more than I thought.

One of the things I missed from Michigan was all of the squirrels. If you read some of my past posts from then you'll see that I'm somewhat of a squirrel expert. But here with no trees, there are also no squirrels. At least that's what I thought.

It took winter and the bare trees for me to discover that there are actually a lot of squirrels. I just didn't ever see them before because these country squirrels don't trust me yet because I haven't been to this park enough. I saw plenty of them on my most recent hike, but they stayed a little too far away for my camera. They will come closer with time.

So I'm happy to walk these snow covered hills as often as I can. I need to make new friends with the animals here. They will begin to come out the more I come to this place. Squirrels are curious little creatures. They won't be able to resist coming out to investigate this new two-legged creature walking through their home. Maybe the other animals will investigate as well.

Now that I can hike a little bit again I'll be visiting this little nature park many times this winter. Maybe my pictures might be a little repetitive, but my adventures will be all new. The adventure is the fun part.

I never knew this park was so busy with wildlife until now. In one of my next few posts I'll tell you what other kinds of animals I found here in this park. Maybe by then I'll even get some pictures of some, but the story is what's important. And for now, I'll talk to you later.