Hello! I'm Back! Are You?

I took these pictures 3 weeks ago. I was going to post them shortly after then but I got self conscious about it because I had been gone so long. I hope you enjoy these and my story if you're still here with me.

Before I start I noticed that Blogger has made a few changes. I like what I see in the first few minutes. I hope it is still a good experience as I go on with my edits to this post. Anyway, let's get on with it.

Any of you longer time readers may remember that my dog hates to ride in a vehicle. Well, she made a conscious effort shortly before this trip to ride just so she could stay with me. She actually asked to go in her doggy way.

The poor dog endured a long trip to one nature park near the river. I took lots of pictures there but for some reason they all ended up blurry and messed up. I didn't realize it until I got home and looked at everything. 

But after she took the trip to the first park so bravely I decided to continue on to this bigger nature park. It was an even farther distance away from home. She did great getting to this one. She was learning fast.

We got out of the truck and explored the edge of the river here for quite awhile. This is where I got all of the pictures. This is a beautiful place that only gets better every year I come here.

The dog, Delilah is always amazed by what she sees whenever she is brave enough to go. She has only ever been to a nature park a few times now. I'm going to change that now that she is getting better about riding. 

Honestly, that is part of what has been holding me back about blogging. I just felt bad about going to a nature park without my dog. I'm also still experimenting with how far I can walk now too. But the dog was the main thing. I think she'll be fine now.

After I was done wandering around near the river with my excited dog, I decided to wrap things up. Before I left though, I went to look at the forested area behind the restrooms. I never went over there the many times I've been here. I was amazed by what I found.

A nature trail! There it was calling to me to explore it just like I used to do with other trails. The only problem was that I was too tired by then to answer that call. I decided that it was going to have to wait for another time.

I think that other time is coming in a couple days from now. I'm all set to take my dog on a walk through a good old forested nature trail just like I used to do in years past. I'm going to be in heaven! I hope the dog feels the same about the trails as I do. I think she will.

And to anyone who is still here with me, thanks for reading my blog. I missed you. I'll talk to you later.

Pelicans!

I've told you many times in the past about the local river flooding every few years here. A flood is usually a very bad thing, especially when it's as bad as this has been. There are corn and soybean fields near the river that are usually devastated. But I haven't revealed a good result of the floods, until now.

Months after the flooding we are left with huge areas of wetlands right in the middle of the cornfields. What looks like lakes, ponds, rivers, and just general wet areas are distributed all through these places. These wetlands, as you have guessed, bring lots of wildlife.
  

I see all of this from the dangerous highway that borders these places, so I can't usually stop and get pictures. This time I had to take the risk of getting killed by a speeding vehicle to get a few pictures. I won't soon do it again just for normal safety reasons. But let's move on with this story.

I've seen many kinds of wildlife in these wetlands over the years. Deer like to go here to get water. You have to be careful when they're crossing the road. There have been small flocks of geese relaxing in this water at times. This hasn't been unusual enough for me to take the chance to stop though.

Then I also see egrets in a few places here and there. There are usually only a few at a time, but the first time I saw them I was tempted to stop. The first time I slowed down though, they decided to all fly away. I think I even shared a few pictures of them once before.

But then this time I saw what looked like flocks of hundreds of these egrets scattered around. I had to go back home and get my camera. I had to take a chance this time. This many birds was unusual. So I came back, and after having to wait for quite some time for traffic to lighten up, I stopped and took lots of pictures.

When I got home later I loaded up the pictures of the egrets onto the computer to see if any of them came out okay, because I had to set the camera to maximum zoom while I took the pictures. As you can see, the colors were a little off, but they were good! But there was one problem with my pictures of the egrets.

When I finally got to see these birds up close, they were not egrets at all. They were pelicans! I've never seen this many pelicans before in my life. And would you expect to see huge flocks of pelicans in an Iowa cornfield?

I took the pictures a few days ago. The pelicans are still hanging around a bit. Yesterday I saw the unmistakable shape of a pelican flying above my truck. I don't know what anyone else around here thinks of them, but pelicans area welcome sight to me. I'll talk to you later.

My Flood Adventure

I took these pictures with my phone a few days ago while on a quick trip into Sioux(Soo) City. Most of these pictures show flooded cornfields. But the second one shows the Big Sioux River over its banks.

The water was expected to come up over the road and block all travel. The bridges going across this river into South Dakota have been blocked off for safety reasons.

Keep reading to find out what happened to me on my trip.

As I said, I took these pictures on my way into Sioux City. The trip was pretty uneventful on my way there, except for me getting these pictures. It was on the way back when it all broke loose.

The first thing that told me things were going to be bad was when a woman, who was also taking pictures, ran across the road too close to very busy traffic on this dangerous road. She was alright, but this road is very dangerous for pedestrians. It's usually deer that you see darting across the road here, and that doesn't end well a lot of times.

Anyway, about halfway home I noticed that the clouds up ahead were kind of dark. Then I began to notice that everything up ahead in the far distance was looking very blurry. It was kind of strange. I realized it must be rain I was seeing, but I've never seen it do that before.

Before long that blurriness got closer and closer. Soon enough I drove right into a wall of heavy rain. As soon as I was in the rain visibility was down to zero. The rain was so heavy that I couldn't see anything in front of me but that rain.

I remembered that before I got into the rain I saw that those black clouds didn't go very far. So the best thing I could do was keep moving, but just a little slower. It was best to get past this storm as soon as I could.

Before long I was able to drive out of the storm. It was still raining up ahead, but it was only a regular shower now. I'm glad I kept moving. I don't know how fast the water would have risen with all that rain, but I didn't want to find out right in the middle of the worst flood area.

So I made it home safe and sound. I did get soaked going from the truck to the house though. I was just grateful to be out of that terrible storm.

I haven't taken any trips to look around since that day. I've heard the flooding got worse. It's been flooding all around me. Even the back way out was flooding this time. I was blocked from every city and even from the bigger town to the north of me.

Today I think the waters have receded some. I can probably travel in most directions. I'm going to attempt a trip to the grocery store a little later today. If there's anything interesting along the way I'll get more pictures.

It's been flooding here every few years since right before I moved here. It floods easily here, but I don't think it was this often in years past. Maybe it will continue like this from now on, but I hope not. I'll talk to you later.

The Swamp

I thought I'd share some pictures of my local swampy pond this time. You've seen it before but maybe you didn't know it at the time. I find turtles in this pond quite often. This pond is right on the edge of a hidden nature preserve, but I don't think it's actually part of it.

I think the pond is maybe more interesting than the nature preserve. There's more to see in it. The nature preserve used to contain a good sized lake, but the lake has mostly dried up. I don't know when it happened, but I'm sure it was sometime in my lifetime. And I'm not as old as you might think.

Beyond this swampy pond is farmland. It was probably difficult, but they are able to farm on these rolling hills. The hills here are probably similar to what you might find in a place like Ireland. My own house is tucked in right on the edge of some of these hills.

There's actually more to this swamp than you see in my pictures today, but I have what I have. Honestly, I was looking for animals for pictures, not the swamp. What I found was the swamp, not the animals. It seems kind of weird, but you can find wild animals easier in the city than you can out here in the country. Who would have guessed?

Unrelated to this swampy pond, I've been doing lots of work on my property this year. I've been cutting down trees, mowing weeds on a large piece of land without a riding mower, laying gravel with a wheelbarrow and a shovel and rake, and trying to clean out my garage. And I won't be able to get started rebuilding my rotted back deck this year.

I can't keep up, but I'm determined to do all this stuff with only simple tools. I don't know why I don't just hire a crew or get a better way, but I feel like doing it this way. So it's going to be a busy summer. I would show you the results when I'm finished, but I'm not sure it'll be pretty.

I think that's enough for this time. I'll talk to you later.

The Flood Of 2018

I told you a few posts ago, which is a few weeks ago I guess, that I would share an update when it begins to flood around here. Annnnd here it is!

It has now begun to flood here. It's not as bad as the flood from a few years ago so far. It could get worse though. So far the flooding is just limited to the area mostly near the river.

Last time the roads were closed in most directions due to the flooding. So far this time there are no closed roads. As a matter of fact, I took these pictures from the road that travels across the river over to South Dakota. You can see the sides of the bridge in some of the pictures.

Most of this water I'm showing you is not in the river itself. The picture above is a cornfield that has been turned into a small lake.

In the picture above, you can see some of the buildings of a small farm. It sits perilously close to the river. If you look closely, you can see that they've built up the land all around to protect from flooding. Everything surrounding the farm is under water. But the farm is still okay, for now.

Trees all around are now under water.

This one above shows the river up over its banks and going into the trees. I took this one from the bridge.

This last one is another cornfield. They won't be planting here this year. There will probably be lots of birds in the water here pretty soon. I'll have to lurk around here often if the flooding doesn't get too bad. I might get some very good wildlife photos.

So that's that. I've been extra busy around here now that spring has arrived. Lots of good stuff and lots of bad stuff. I might go into some of it next time. The flood was more interesting for this one. I'll keep you updated on that too. And until then, I'll talk to you later.

My Creek

In my last post I promised to show you a little bit more of my property this time. This time I'm going to share a few pictures of the creek that lies right on the southern edge of my land. This small creek divides my land from the farm down the road.

I'm not sure you can see from the pictures just how deep the creek lies at the bottom of this gully. I guess it would be called a gully. It's really deep whatever it's called. The sides are very steep so I don't go down there to the water very often.

My neighbor and I shared a garden at the back end of my property a few years ago. He did most of the work. I supplied the land. We decided to put a small pump in the water down there that would supply water to the garden. I sent him down there to place the pump in the water. He had a devil of a time trying to climb back out. I'm not sure he's been back down there ever since.

I've been down there a few times. I took better routes to get back out of there, but it's never been easy so I generally stay out. The other side is even steeper so the creek is basically just mine. There aren't any houses nearby the other side anyway.

There is only a small amount of water running through my creek. That's actually not too bad. Most creeks around this area have dried up years ago. I see old creek beds like this just about everywhere I go around here.

Rivers and creeks here work a bit different than they do back in Michigan where I used to live. There the waterways sat in gentle dips in the surrounding land. Here the running water cuts out the land straight down from where it began. Most creeks and rivers here sit at the far bottom of steep gulleys like this one.

I took these pictures right before another big snowstorm here. Winter doesn't want to give up. The snow is mostly melted again after that, but we'll see what happens in the upcoming days. I do think spring might be finally here all the way this time.

I've been out walking my property to see which trees I need to cut down. I love trees but some of them are in the wrong places. I try to leave most of these near the creek up because they keep some of the wind from getting too bad here. It also helps that I'm surrounded by mountainous hills on two other sides.

I'm going to try to get back out to the nature parks for my next post. I'm feeling a little better, so it's time to get out and start moving more. Between time for clearing trees I'll hopefully be exploring a few nature trails looking for good pictures to share. Maybe I'll find something fun to show you. I'll talk to you later.

Another Look At My Glorious Past

The weather around here has not improved at all. We've gone back into the deep freeze again. I think today might be the day we finally warm back up a bit. I probably could have gone out in the deep cold, but to be honest I just plain didn't feel like it. I've really felt the cold a little bit extra this year and I don't want to bother with it. It's been making me extra grumpy and not fun to be around anyway.

So I decided to dig around in some of my old pictures again. This time I only did two, but I also included the originals so you can see the difference in my editing. The originals probably didn't need to be edited, but I'm just having a little fun. Both versions are here forever.

The picture at the top is my edited version and this second one is the original. You can see that this one is a little bit duller than the newer one. Both good enough pictures, but I think the top one is a little better. What do you think?

The same goes for these next two pictures. The top is the edited version and the bottom is the original. Like the first picture, I fixed up the shadows a bit and I clarified the picture. You can see that the one above has a little extra sparkle. With this one, I also straightened it out a little.

Editing these pictures indulges my love of nature and my love of computer technology at the same time. And looking at these makes me want to get back out and explore a bit. Now that it'll be warming up a little I think I'm going to try out one of my nature parks.

Maybe in my next post I'll be back to my nature loving self with lots of brand new pictures. They'll look snowy, but snow is good too. I'm excited just thinking about being back out there now. And with the warmer weather, I'll be in a little better mood. Now the neighbors don't have to hide from me. I'll talk to you later.

Fishy

I'm back after a week off. I got a little sidetracked there for a few days. It's been raining non-stop here and it almost flooded again. So I've had no nature pictures to post. So after a week I finally got out and got some new pictures to share with you. Let's see what I got.

Okay, look at the center of this top picture. Does that look like a fish there on the end of that log to you? It did to me. So I took a few pictures to get a closer look and to see what I had there. But what was this thing really?

I think it still looks kind of like a fish, but it's really just part of another log sticking up out of the water. This is the kind of strange and goofy thing that I like posting about. It seems like a normal stupid mistake look-a-like of a fish, and that's what makes it fun. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes an everyday adventure.

And this last picture shows you the view I had of this fake fish when I took the picture. Look towards the middle left of the picture. You can see a small red circle if you really squint your eyes. That's where I saw this fishy. Now you know why I didn't know what it was when I saw it.

This gives you an idea of what can happen with nature watching. Sometimes you think you have a fish, but then you only have a piece of wood. That kind of thing happens a lot to me. I'll talk to you later.

Ducks On The Pond

There seem to be many creatures in the pond I like to watch. I've seen turtles and many types of birds. Oddly enough, I've never seen any alligators. I guess I would be the first one to see an alligator in an Iowa pond. But I have ducks instead. They're just as fun. They really are.

I followed these two to their destination on the other side of the pond. They wanted to be over there because I was over here. Ducks always seem to swim away from me. Not like my old friends, the geese.

These ducks in the last two pictures were very difficult to see because of the bad lighting. I edited the pictures as much as I felt was reasonable so I could share them properly without them looking too obnoxious.

You can see both ducks if you look at the pictures very closely. They really are there. I mean it.

Why do I share these pictures that are so hard to see? Why not just share the good ones? Because that wouldn't be real life. These shady pictures are real life. This is how I really saw the ducks. This is a real experience. What I really like to share is my experience, not some old fancy pictures.

So this was a view of another everyday adventure by the guy stuck in an old smelly rat costume. I rented this suit nine years ago as a joke. I wonder if they're still waiting for me to return it. I probably never will, even if I somehow get this zipper unstuck, because I probably owe them a great deal of money for it by this time. I'll talk to you later.

Deer Creek Lake

I have an interesting place to show you because I know you like interesting places. The sign out front says this place is called Deer Creek Lake. Actually, that is the name of the nature preserve this little place is in. I'm not sure if this meager looking body of water qualifies as a lake. Maybe a creek.

So now after I just kind of insulted the place, what is it that is so interesting about it? Don't worry, I'm getting to it. What makes it so interesting is that I'm not sure anybody else goes here at all.

There is never a hint or a clue of anyone else visiting this place when I visit. The only things I've seen are signs of maintenance on the roads going into this very hidden nature area.

One of the interesting things about this place is the boat ramp going down into the area where the water is. The ramp is actually kind of far from the water. There is also a dock that sits high up on a hill. This all suggests that long ago this was indeed probably a lake with much more water than this.

I think at one time this might have been a popular fishing spot. Today it is mostly abandoned. In a way, that seems like kind of a shame. But I like it because I can come here and be all alone surrounded by nature.

This sign out near the main road is quite a distance away from the lake, or what's left of the lake. The road twists and turns and divides a few times so it can go to a few different places in the nature preserve. I visited those places too.

I've shown you this lake before in the past. But after looking at the old pictures from that, I think this post gives you a little better look. One of these times I'm going to have to get you some video and really show you around the lake. I've really been doing a lot of video experimentation recently. You're going to like the results of that. I'll talk to you later.

Ratty's Nature

My pictures today show the pond that had some ducks swimming around in it. I recently had a post featuring them. This pond isn't the star of my post this time. This time the best feature of today's post is the video at the bottom. You're really going to like it.

But first, let me tell you a little about the pond since I have these pictures here just waiting for their story to be told. I've told you I keep seeing water birds in this pond. Every time in fact. But that was then.

This weekend when I went to find some more birds there weren't any at all. I thought my luck would be bad that day, but I got plenty of other pictures and things to share with you from that adventure. And even without the birds, this pond is still pretty nice to look at.

But let's move on to the star attraction.

This video is my best episode of Rat TV by far. This isn't just a boring video of an animal or two just standing there for 30 seconds. You'll actually like this one a lot because I put a lot of work into it, and because it's good this time. This one is unlike any of my previous videos.

My video today features just some of the things I see in the countryside around where I live. I couldn't feature everything in such a short time, but I got a lot in. I'll always have future videos to show you my newest nature findings. I'll talk to you later.

Pond At Deer Creek

I found a beautiful place to visit the other day. It is a pond at the north end of a place called Deer Creek Wildlife Management Area. I guess this is a kind of nature park, but you would probably never know it was there unless you had the computer to help you.

Most nature parks are kind of set aside so you definitely know when you enter them, but not this place. It looks like the surrounding farmland, but there are no crops growing in the fields. It's all just mostly grassland and hills.

But then you find places like this pond. There is a small entrance to the pond with a path leading up to it. As soon as you get to the pond a wave of positive emotion hits you. At least it did for me. I felt totally at peace. I knew as I was standing there at the edge of that pond that I'd be back many more times.

Today I have another episode of Rat TV for you. It's a short video because I always keep my videos short so you don't get bored. You don't have to watch it, but you'll feel better if you do.

You will see and hear that it was a windy day when I was there. There were a few other sounds that are difficult to hear. But if you listen closely you will hear a clue about a future post that is coming soon.

I took many pictures of this pond with no name, but most of them came out too bright and washed out for some reason. It's the first time I've ever had this problem with my phone camera. You can see that even this picture above is a little brighter than the others.

Still, I wanted to show you more of this pond, but the video will have to be what represents it the best this time. As I said before, I will be back. And I'll get a few pictures from other directions when I do come back.

This sign is the only indication that you're entering a special place. If I remember right there's a bigger sign at the other end of the place. I'll show you that end sometime soon I think. Deer Creek must be named after an actual creek. I'll need to find that and get a few pictures too.

I almost didn't include the picture of the sign, but I remembered at the last minute that it belonged here. And I was supposed to have this post up yesterday, but with all of my recent activity, I'm still trying to find the time to write these posts. It does all work out in the end though, and here is the post. I'll talk to you later.

Bacon Creek Park

I promised that I was going to get back out to the nature parks this month, and so here I am. I found a brand new park, at least for me, called Bacon Creek Park. I found this park with an app on my phone called Alltrails. Wonderful app. It's showing me lots of new places to explore.

Bacon Creek Park is located in the eastern part of Sioux City, not far from where my aunt lives. In fact, I showed her a couple of my new pictures and she told me that she goes here all the time. I should have known. She seems to know just about everything about the Sioux City area.

Anyway, when I got here I instantly knew it was a very good place. The first thing I saw was this big lake. It's only my first visit, so I haven't seen a creek yet. The lake kind of dominates the park at first look.

This was my first visit to this place so I didn't do any serious exploring yet. On the first visit to a place I always just do a little bit of scouting to see if I like it. The verdict for this place is that I love it already. The lake is a big plus. It has plenty of trees, which is a requirement for me. And there are lots of trails.

I'll show you some of the trails in the near future. I did try some out. I couldn't go too far because I had my dog with me. Knowing I wouldn't adventure too far, I thought she'd enjoy the look at the new park. She got to poke around a bit and I got to do my scouting. It worked out well.

The only wildlife I saw this first time was a few geese on the other side of the lake. I tried to take a few pictures of them, but all that came out were a few blurry dots. The zoom on my phone is actually better than I thought, but it wasn't good enough for the geese.

I eventually sat on a bench and just watched the lake for awhile. The dog liked this part the most. She didn't even care about the few people that passed by. Watching a body of water is always relaxing. Try it if you haven't already.

I'll be back next time with either more from this place or another park. I have plans for more adventures very soon. These nature parks are always fun and relaxing for me. Let's see what cool stuff I can find in the future. I'll talk to you later.