Spring?

Most of the snow is gone, and it's officially spring, but there's still not a lot of green up here. Here are some photos from down at the reservoir a couple weeks ago.




Raccoon? Skunk? Wompus Cat?


Reeds (Phragmites communis).


Waterbury River.

Here are some recent pictures from the backyard.

The small pond a few weeks ago.


Witch's butter? (Tremella mesenterica)


Pussy Willow (Salix discolor).


Thorns on a Hawthorne (Crataegus sp.)


Male catkins on a beech or maybe alder sapling.


Some sort of fungi on a dead birch limb.


Close-up of fungi.


Lipstick Powderhorn lichen (Cladonia macilenta).


Common Greenshield lichen (Flavoparmelia caperata).


Red-osier Dogwood (Cornus sericia).

On my recent work trip to Tennessee, I stopped by Ford's for a quick overnight visit. We wandered around the land a bit to see what there was to see...

Brand new strip mine on a nearby hillside. That sort of crap has got to stop, or at least be reclaimed afterwards.


Ford by the barn on the upper flat. I had a little hand in building this. It looks like it's been forever!


Amanda with some baby clothes Chrissy and I got her!

Then, it was onwards to Tennessee for a couple weeks of work. The site was in a soybean field and a couple days of heavy rain turned it into a big mud bog and ultimately shut things down (since we couldn't move equipment around).

The mess around the drill rig and back of my truck.


Me inside the truck, covered in mud. Hooray for Grunden's rain gear.


The drill rig stuck in the field after trying to drag it to the next hole.

Last but not least, I had a tiny bit of down time, and I went out in search of critters. Came across a pool in a field that was full of frogs. Never actually saw any, but they sure made a racket.