Thank You Earth!

First, before I say anything, this is what I woke up to this morning (sorry for the poor picture quality - this was at 6:30 this morning and not a lot of light to help it out!) Apparently our neighbor's cows escaped and decided they wanted to come live with us...Maybe someone told them I wouldn't eat them?
Ok, now for the real post. As promised I am taking a 'Earth Day' turn - not like I don't anyway. I thought and thought about what I was going to talk about and what helpful hint I was going to give but the more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to make this like my typical M.E.M.'s - I wanted to do something special. That's when it occurred to me to just celebrate Earth Day by celebrating the Earth. What better way to do that then to enjoy what the Earth has given to us? I dedicate today's post to all of my 'city' friends who don't get this kind of scenery very often and to everyone who just needs a little bit of time outdoors!

We own a little more than 12 1/2 acres and the whole back half is untouched woods - well, mostly untouched - more on that later! So I decided to do some exploring this afternoon all by myself. No husband, no dogs to worry about keeping with me, just me and nature (don't worry Mom - I took my cell phone with me just in case!).

To get to the back of the property you have to go up the huge hill behind our house that is pasture for the horses. This is the view from the top looking back toward our house:


We installed gates to keep the horses out of the back so I had to go through the gates to start my journey - there is a nice wide path at the beginning that I am sure was once maybe a tractor or 4-wheeler path down to the back but is now very grown up and has fallen trees over it -

The walk down to the back isn't very exciting - in fact it still looks like autumn back there with all of the fallen leaves that haven't been broken down yet. It gets pretty steep and like I said there are a lot of fallen trees so it was hard to take pictures on the way down - plus it's pretty boring picture-wise -

I did find this very tiny pretty white flower poking out of all of the leaves. I looked and looked to try to find out what kind of flower it was but couldn't find it - even in my wildflower guide. I will keep searching though and if anyone has any clue please let me know!

After walking downhill for what feels like forever, the forest opens up to a beautiful meadow in the back. I want to build a log cabin back there with no electricity and use it to escape life. Logan would want to live back there forever!

At first I thought this was a small bird sitting on the branch. I got curious when it didn't fly away. It is a very strange growth on the branch - I wonder what caused that? A fungus maybe?

There is a ginormous tree back there and I couldn't resist a self-portrait! Not the best picture in the world - I had to balance the camera on a rock on the ground and hope I was lined up and made it over there before the timer went off! I made it!

When we first bought our property, we explored the back to see what was back there before we bought it. We saw a stream bank that we thought was dried up. I found out today it wasn't dried up and had a pretty good flow to it even though it's small. You don't know how excited I was to find this! Playing in creeks is one of my most favorite things to do - I love lifting up rocks to see what is under them!

Speaking of lifting up rocks - look what I found! Under almost every rock I lifted, I found salamanders! They were everywhere! This tells me it stays pretty damp down there and it's not just a run-off stream that happens when it rains. This was a tiny baby salamander I found.

Then I got real brave and wrangled one myself! Sorry for the sonic glow of my hand - pasty here hasn't gotten much sun yet...And yes Mom, I washed my hands when I came back!

I followed the stream from the bottom back up the hill (mountain!) just to see how far I could go. I thought this might be the end of the road but I squeezed under- yes under - around was not possible - and continued on...

There wasn't a whole lot more exciting parts. I found some very pretty 'flora' -

And fuzzy flora (maybe fern? - I'm not doing very good with my species identification tonight - I will work on it I promise)

Finally I came to the end of the 'road' - this is the hill I hiked up and out back up to the top field. I am definitely going to feel this hike tomorrow but it was fun and very peaceful - not to mention a very good workout!

Happy Earth Day!