Spring Beauties, Spring Peepers and Spring Hike
St. Patricks Day and my thoughts turned to the seein' of the green.
I set out on Trail 2 a little before 5:00. Early evening is a great time to hike since few other people are on the trails and you can let your imagination have its way without it being pestered by the sounds or sights of other humans. I am sure another crone wandered the same path above Sugar Creek hundreds of years ago and that her imagination was tickled by the early flowers and hints of green showing up on the hill sides.
Most birds are quiet at this time of day, but the valley echoed from the cries of a pair of geese calling from the island down from the Narrows Bridge. There were green frogs gossiping at the Lusk Pond and the Spring Peepers had even more news just above the suspension bridge. You would have thought they were talking politics they were so raucous.
If Rich were along he could have named each of the flowers, as could most of you. Even though I try to memorize each of them in the Spring, the only ones I can reliably identify are what my mother called Spring Beauties. But on the north bank of Sugar Creek, along Trail 2, there were several clumps of these and others among the leaves and greening mosses. As I approached the old covered bridge a group of pure white flowers off the trail to the right caught my eye, plastic daisies stuck in the ground to commemorate some occasion.
Friends, now is a wonderful time for enjoying the trails. We may have many new projects to do for the park but I admire the boardwalk that you all built up by the falls each time I take this trail. Just because we have to have meetings and deal with more needs than there is money to address shouldn't deter us from getting out into the park to remind us of why we are friends of Turkey Run and Shades.