A Different Kind of Nature Walk

Lately I've been taking some walks around the neighborhood where I work. It's been a little different from the walks I usually go on, which are out in the woods, where you feel like the city is far away.

This neighborhood is an industrial district with lots of old warehouses, but the university owns a lot of it, and they are filling it with upscale student apartments. Right now it's in a transitional state, with places like this storage unit, which now houses a used bookstore.

I love the colorful graffiti on the old warehouses.

I still see nature everywhere I look.

 Trees waving dramatically from behind barbed wire.

 Spring flowers blooming near the sidewalk.

 And I notice the beautiful details of the buildings, like the texture and contrast of these two kinds of wood siding.

 A tiny graffito on a concrete wall.

Amazing colors on this wall.

And the patterns of tree branches and corrugated siding.

Christmas in Bloomington 2015

 After a few days in Hillsville, we drove to Bloomington. I went on a walk in these beautiful frosty woods.

Mom and I had a great time wandering around these woods by Lake Griffy.

Even though it was 13 degrees out!

I got to see some of my Bloomington friends while I was in town (although I didn't get a lot of pictures).

 David and I spent New Year's Eve in Indianapolis with John, Jennifer, and Rowan.

We had some delicious food and wore some very tall hats. None of us could figure out why David's hat wouldn't stay on his head. Except Rowan, who immediately reached into David's hat and pulled out a second hat that had gotten stuck inside it.

The first day of 2015 began with a delicious brunch.

And time spent with my family.

Beautiful Bloomington

I love visiting my hometown.

I like to walk around downtown, where I used to live. My old apartment looked out on an alley near this one.

 I like to go to the Farmers' Market, admire the incredible produce -- those are some gigantic heads of kale! -- and meet everyone else I know in town.

 Walking the B-Line Trail is also really fun.

It's filled with all kinds of art, both official ...

 ... and unofficial.

It was so cool to see Lake Griffy with water in it again! It was drained for a while, and last summer this was a grassy marsh.

 This summer, Mom and I took a rowboat out on the lake.

Turtles and frogs were back, but the lake was so new that it still had little trees in it. They were mostly underwater, but still putting out green leaves.

We rowed close to shore and looked for birds and other wildlife.

 It rained a little, and then the sun came out.

 We saw the wonderful mosses that line the shores of the lakes.

And the reflection of the light on the water under the bridge.

Hiking the Beaver Dam Creek Trail

 This is the Beaver Dam Creek Walking Trail.

While we were in Hillsville, I tried to hike it every day.

It's six miles long, with a few steep parts, and it's absolutely lovely.

You start out in a hilly part of the trail with tall trees overhead.

Then you go past some open fields, seen here very early in the morning.

 Finally you follow Beaver Dam Creek, crossing it every now and then over a series of small bridges.

 Back in May, the flame azalea was in bloom.

And so were the black raspberry bushes.

 I watched a little flock of these butterflies flutter around the sweet rocket.

They were having such a good time that they didn't even notice me leaning over them with my phone to take these pictures.

Sinks and Fungus: Much, Much Better Than It Sounds

And that brings us up to today, which I spent hiking at Leon Sinks. It's an incredible trail that winds around all of these sinks -- sinkholes in the earth that descend to Tallahassee's deep underwater caves. This picture, which I borrowed from another member of the hiking group, is of my favorite sink, Hammock Sink.

 Some of the sinks are black with tannins, while others, like Hammock Sink, have an amazing gradation of greens and blues.

 You can't see the colors too well in my picture.

But check out this one -- another borrowed shot from a fellow hiking club member.

 So some of the sinks are not as impressive.

 Behold the Tiny Sink.

But this is the biggest one, the Big Dismal. It goes down to a depth of 130 feet and is inhabited by pale, blind cave crayfish.

 At some points the sinks extend into a little stream before they vanish back into the earth. You can tell where the spring entrance is by the swirling of the foam.

 The trail goes through a little cypress swamp.

With one monstrous four-trunked tree rising from the black water.

 Also, Leon Sinks has some of the best fungus I've ever seen. Incredible shelf fungus.

 And it was everywhere! Look at this log with its ombre ruffles.

 Tallahassee has this weird pink lichen, and this is some of the pinkest.

 Lovely patterns on these scalloped fungi.

 Strange little puffballs.

And rosettes of fungus that looked like carved malachite.