Wild August

Getting my walking in at least twice a week in the hot and humid Midwest summer can be challenging, but the worst of the heat broke and some cloud cover helps too.

Restored prairie in Genoa City

The wildflowers are hanging in there despite the wilting heat, and a drier than normal summer has meant less mosquitoes.

I've really enjoyed using the 24-70mm Canon lens I've been trying out, but have decided that it is a little bit heavy even though they make one that is even heavier.  It is very versatile as you can see from the pictures in this post, but for someone who has to carry it for miles along with other equipment every pound counts.

So I've decided to get the 40mm lens that I enjoyed from my previous kit and I'm going to test out the 24mm pancake lens Canon makes as well.  They both weigh about a 1/3 pound each but of course it will mean that I have to switch lenses more often.  But they are so small one could easily fit in a pocket for quick access.

For a switch from the prairies I headed out to Volo Bog to see what it was like in August.  The answer was hot and humid of course, but I've never seen so much wild Bee Balm.

I had a chance to pull out the 300mm lens and get a pretty good hand held shot of a dragonfly.  Unfortunately it flew off before off before I could get a better angle.

I also spied a Monarch butterfly gathering nectar.

This is what it found so attractive.  I can see the appeal.

I didn't see any birds in the bog, but there was certainly no shortage of turtles.

One thing that was surprising was the abundance of Purple loosestrife. Purple loosestrife is a very hardy invasive perennial which can rapidly degrade wetlands, diminishing their value for wildlife habitat.  When purple loosestrife gets a foothold, the habitat where fish and wildlife feed, seek shelter, reproduce and rear young, quickly becomes choked under a sea of purple flowers.

The best time to control purple loosestrife is in late June, July and early August when it is in flower. Plants are easily recognized and it has not yet gone to seed. Once flower petals start to drop from the bottom of the spike, the plant begins to produce seed.

If you see any and you want to help out, pulling and digging the plants is the way to control the spread.  Chemical use at wetland sites is not advised!

Mountain Music in Cumberland Gap National Park

I want to pick the brains of my fellow bloggers about the hand pain I've been experiencing.  A prescription for Meloxicam seemed to give some relief at first, but once again any drive over half an hour has me trying not to touch the steering wheel, and after 3 hours on Thursday I had to spend Friday stopping and icing both my hands and wrists on the side of the road every half hour just to complete another 3 hour drive.  Today I broke down and took a Tramadol along with the Meloxicam and was able to tolerate today's 3 hour drive, but can still feel quite a bit of discomfort - trying on a "support glove" at Walgreens caused me to gasp out loud and rooting around in my purse or lifting my backpack produces shooting pains.  Once the pain starts it encompasses my whole hand down to a few inches below the wrist and often is accompanied by tingling and numbness as well until I get a chance to rest it.  This is why I stopped riding a bike, gripping the handlebar caused my hands to throb and my fingers to go numb after just a few miles.  I blamed it on the bike at the time, but obviously this is not so.  Holding the camera, a cellphone or typing for too long produces similar though not as acute results.  My doctor says arthritis is the culprit but I haven't gotten an xray done yet.  I was just wondering if anyone else out there has experienced something similar and has any input, please comment at the end of the post if you have advice!  It's getting really hard to do the things I love and that is just not acceptable, right?

Site 29E

The campground at Cumberland Gap is only about half full which made it easy for me to grab a spot away from the other campers and it's not likely that I'll get neighbors late in the afternoon on a Saturday so I should be able to enjoy smoke-free lounging for the next two nights.  My site is literally steps from the Gibson Gap hiking trail so after setting up I laced my boots and went exploring.

Thanks to the hand pain I didn't hold anything unless I had to and I've gotten pretty creative, even devising a way to hang my camera that doesn't strain my neck or have it bouncing around.  My hiking pole also got stowed in a loop on my pack but of course I still had to bring it to use it as a monopod!

Nature's critters are so good at camoflauge, check out that dragonfly!

I spotted the coral fungus when I was waiting for a Girl Scout troop to finish getting their picture taken by their troop leader.  Speaking of GS, Katrina has another interview with them for a volunteer coordinator position - hopefully this one is it!  They wanted her to apply again as they felt she was "the one that got away" last year so we've got our fingers crossed.  She is covering for me at work while I'm away for a month so even though I hope she gets the job I selfishly hope she doesn't start for at least 2 weeks.

It's getting late for spring wildflowers this far south, but I did find a few.  I also found a sign at the campground that said to show up at site B5 to enjoy some Dulcimer music.  So I did!  I will have to post it when I get to Tennessee - I sat in McDonald's for an hour trying to upload a 1 minute video to YouTube and it was only 68% done so I finally left.

 Don't forget to comment about hand pain if you have any insight for me!

Mecan Segment Part 2 - Tick Tales and Rural Roads

When I crossed County Road GG I was almost at the halfway point for the Mecan segment of the IAT on Saturday, and I got a glimpse of something I don't usually see along the trail.

Of course I got glimpses of things along the trail that were plentiful as well.

When I saw a footpath going down to the Mecan River I took the risk of ticks to climb down the hill and have a quick look but all there was to see was mosquitoes.

Well, there were some dragonflies too.

Can you see me?  Look in the center of the photo.

Just ahead was a spur trail that led to an "overlook" for the river so I investigated that too.

There wasn't really a view of the river on top of the hill, but there was a bench that I sat down on to have a snack and let my sweaty shirt air dry.  I saw a geocache under the bench but didn't want to stick my hands down there to get it because it looked like a great place for ticks to hang out.

Moments later I noticed a tick crawling around on my hat that was on top of my pack.  Did I pick it up in the woods?  From the bench?

Lunch without a view, just a steep drop to the treeline beside the river.

As always seems to be the case lately I was glad to get clear of the woods and the tick habitat, and happy to see more open land where the grass wasn't tall and thick and the soil was sandy.  This is the kind of place ticks will be less prevalent as they prefer a moist shady environment.

Many people think ticks are only present in the woods. However, ticks can be found:

Where woods/fields meet lawn
Wooded areas
Tall brush/grass
Under leaves
Very small numbers on cut/raked lawns or sports fields
Under ground cover (plants) in yard
Around stone walls and woodpiles where mice & other small mammals live

Out of curiosity I googled tick populations and discovered that my obsession with the devils isn't as paranoid as I thought.  I took one look at this Lyme Disease risk map and about had a stroke!  Research shows that about 35% of ticks will be infected with the bacteria, regardless of where the ticks are located so the higher the "risk" the more dense the tick population is.  Apparently ticks think Wisconsin is a happening place to live.





The next section of the trail is where the ticks were the worst.  The field was scattered with previously felled trees and a few piles of cut wood, but it just goes to show that trees are not the only component when it comes to watching out for the little monsters.

I looked down minutes after entering the area and a half dozen were greedily making their way up my pants legs.

Let's take a moment to look at the lovely flowers again, shall we?  I mean, how much more tick drama can we take?

Once I made it as far as 9th Avenue I decided I'd had enough of the tick wars and would skip the last mile and make my way back to the car on the roads.  There were things to see and it was a shorter distance at 4.5 miles and easy walking for my tired feet.  Besides, even skipping the last mile I put in over 10 miles that day, a new record!

Only 6 vehicles passed me in 2 hours

I walked past farms on the outskirts of Richford, most buildings looking pretty rundown, but some were older but still charming.

One property had a neat iron fence, unusual for a farm area.

 A neighbor gentleman stopped to talk to me after he pulled into his driveway.  He had just come from a funeral and was dressed in his American Legion clothing.  He asked if I had been on the Ice Age Trail and we chatted about the tick population and whether or not rain was coming soon.

A few horses were spotted, and even some chickens.  I bet they were fighting the tick wars too.

I walked on the shoulder for awhile without incident but then started picking up ticks in the mown grass on the side of the road so had to get back out on the pavement.  Luckily there were other things to distract me until I made it back to the car.

Never had I been so happy to see my little red Vibe!  At the car I stood in the parking lot and removed my clothes as carefully as possible in case there were ticks hiding.  Let the neighbors gawk at me in my panties and sports bra, no way was I bringing ticks into my car.  Wouldn't you know it, one had gotten under my shirt and attached itself, making me angry at myself for not tucking my shirt back in after every potty break.  When I pulled off my socks I got a nasty surprise when I discovered welts and a rash on both legs where the socks that were still damp from the morning rain had been on my skin.  My only guess is that the last time I wore them was in Door County and perhaps some poison ivy got on them and didn't get out completely in the wash.  The socks went in the garbage, and luckily the rash didn't get worse but the next day when the hives had subsided the area looked bruised and the discoloration lasted a few more days.

Think the horror story ends there?  While driving to the store to find a tweezers I felt something on my forehead and found a tick had wandered there, I assume from my hair.  I screamed, I swerved, I flung it on the floor and then had to pull over to find it and get it out.  About fifteen minutes later I scratched my neck and found another one, repeating the screaming and swerving and hunting all over again.  What do you think the other drivers thought when I was standing on the side of the road screaming "You f*#*kers!" while bent over brushing my hair viciously?

I'm seriously considering going with a super-short pixie cut like Jamie Lee Curtis.  It'd be a lot easier to keep a hat on, and easier to keep the critters off my head too!  Wayne swears he'd change the locks on the doors but I'm pretty confident he'll love me no matter what I do to my hair....especially after he pulled ANOTHER tick off my scalp on Monday night.  Now how am I supposed to keep an eye out for a Lyme related rash underneath all this hair?  Maybe I should become a beach bum instead of hiking the Ice Age Trail?

Not For Horses

So the Ice Age Trail is many things, but it is for hikers only.  No snowmobiles, no bikes, no horses please.   You can bring your dog, providing they are leashed.  There are signs at every crossing.  Big ones.

On Saturday I came around a corner and was so startled by running into someone with a horse that I momentarily forgot they weren't even supposed to be on the trail.  By the time I remembered I was already past them.  And they had a dog off leash as well.

I got really irritated because in the 2.2 miles of trail from Little Prairie Road (right at the horse campground, by the way) to the Stone Elephant there are THREE horse trail crossings.  There is nothing on the Ice Age trail that isn't on their trails.  Except privacy...and hikers who don't want to step in horse poop.

Shield lichen

And tell me how she was going to leash her dog from the back of a horse?  I mean, come on.

unknown crustose lichen

Anyway, I did see some neat lichens and fungi, including the one below that looked like a massive mutant baked potato.  Check it out compared to my foot!

Also on the section from Tamarack Road to the Stone Elephant was this opening between the pine forest and the oaks.

prairie remnant in the middle of the woods

Looks like lots of flowers bloom here in the summer, and the ground was so littered with spongy wood chips it was like walking a fresh bed of mulch.

I got there as the sun was getting low in the sky so I had to hurry.  I kept expecting a deer to walk out of the trees.

I didn't see any deer, but I did see a handful of dragonflies on top of the ridge.

another prairie remnant - woods will take over eventually

The sun was too bright for pictures of the Stone Elephant when I got there, but I made sure to take the time to have a snack on that bench before turning around.  On Saturday it was so warm that I was hiking in a t-shirt.  There were a lot of folks out in the State Forest enjoying what was probably our last truly warm day of the year.

Since it wasn't wet and slippery like the other time I visited I checked out the slope going downhill behind the Stone Elephant.  There was a path cut into the steep slope, some logs dug into the side to help folks down.

I climbed down there, then climbed back up.  My legs were pretty shaky after I climbed back up.  Any rockier and I would have had to rapel!

That was the end of my day's adventure and I made my way back toward Little Prairie Road at a brisk pace so I could get back to my car before dark.  I got there right around sunset, and the light through the trees was really pretty.

Today I was on the IAT again, I've got nowhere else to go and I've suddenly got the urge to knock out a complete section before the end of the year like I said I would.  Even though it was only in the 40's it was pretty comfortable hiking weather since the sun was out and the wind was low.  I parked at the Bald Bluff parking lot and headed in the other direction all the way out to Oleson Cabin and back.

What else did I do today?  I stopped in at the office for a couple of hours, shopped for dish towels on Amazon, made homemade chicken noodle soup and after my 5 mile hike I ended my day cleaning toilets.  Happily living the life of the semi-retired! (except for the part about the toilets)  More trail shots tomorrow, including  that cabin and a pond too.