Saturday morning walk in the woods

Gail is laid up with a double ear infection, and spends a fair amount of each day laying on her side with antibiotic ear drops soaking in. This leaves me with a fair amount of time that I have to entertain Ava. This morning we began a short jaunt using the awesome jogger that Phyllis gave us (3 wheels, air inflated, built Ford tuff) for an excursion. Once we got up the road a piece, Ava decided to match the humidity in the air with some in her diaper. A wet one always upsets her. (Note to self, bring along a diaper when strolling) We had to walk back to the house and get a change. Since she'd preferred being carried against my chest on the way home, I decided to use the mobi wrap when we resumed our walk. It worked out quite well. She was wrapped to my chest, my hands were free to take pictures of mushrooms and brush spiderwebs out of my face. Here's a picture of a happy Daddy with a sleeping baby.


Along the way we saw many exciting things. The one I'd characterize as the most interesting was turtle coitus. See below :-)


Now admittedly this isn't a very good picture. It wasn't that there wasn't plenty of time to take it... However the trouble was that Ava kept flopping forward, as she was beginning to pass out, so I had trouble getting the tripod set up. So this is the best I have to offer. (Email me privately for hot turtle vidz!!!)

It was really a beatiful walk. The baby and I walked along the stream bed and gulleys looking for mushrooms, and the dogs ran around sniffing and eating and rolling in undescribably smelly things. At one point walking along the creek bottom I stopped to take this picture, and thought "Up yours Atlanta".

I love the south, and living in the country.

Here's another pretty picture of a spot on the creek.

I'm almost certain pirates bury their treasure here.

But I didn't stop to dig for it - because the hills were already covered with gold! Golden chanterelles love to live on one side of the brook, with all the recent rain they've sprouted up and down the hillside. Here's a picture of a beautiful fruiting chanterelle. It looks like its drinking in the sunlight and transforming it into golden waves.


I came back to the house with a sleeping floppy baby, two wet and smelly dogs, and a basket full of delicious chantarelles.

The wet and smelly...

BB is not pictured here, when we got back he figured he was wet, but not dirty enough, so he went under the porch to get some more dirt clinging to him. Very thorough of him.