Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A visit in the woods

I am starting out with a beautiful picture I took of the pond at Burr Oak Woods Conservation Nature Center.  I post a link of my blog to my Facebook page so having a pretty picture posted with it piques interest.
This is our empty Robin's nest.  All 3 of our babies have fledged and I hoped I might see a hide or feather of one of them but I haven't.  I want to keep the nest, wouldn't it look cool in the kitchen up on the wall near the ceiling with a little bird perched on it. 
My neighbor's peonies are just gorgeous.  I have seen several bushes of them around town of various colors.  They smell like heaven. 
My tomato starts, all 47 of them are repotted in their own little personal peat pot.  A couple of ladies at work are interested in a couple of plants and so I will share the bounty with them. 
Our new umbrella which did not receive any use today because the sun was selfish again today and would not show itself.
The Professor and I went to the Burr Oak Woods Conservation  Center in Blue Springs.  I had never been there before.  Outside the center they had a butterfly garden with the plants and flowers notated, which was really cool.  There was the lovely pond also as pictured above. 
This is the flower which I really loved the Horsemint Bee Balm.  It was so delicate looking and the subtle beautiful color was just enchanting. 
This is a Columbine flower.  I loved the color and it seemed to grow wild out in the wooded areas. 
In the center they had many displays about natural things, wild life, history and native displays.  One display was a maple tree that sprouted in 1835 and cut in 1983.  It showed all the tree rings and had notated years such as the beginning of the civil war, when the first car was manufactured and it really gave you a sense of the life of that tree and what it may have witnessed.  I could outstretched both arms and I would not have embraced even half of that tree diameter.  They also had set up outside large windows and bird feeders that attract local wildlife.  There were the squirrels which are such clowns, the above, INSIDE the feeder.
 The above squirrel a high wire artist.
This wild turkey was scratching around on the ground and would occasionally stretch it's head up to take seed out of the bird feeders.
These are beautiful indigo buntings, the picture is blurry but their color is amazing and beautiful. 
American goldfinches also visited while we were there.
There is a paved half mile path that winds through the wooded areas.  It was so peaceful and serene.  One could picture what Missouri looked like 300 years ago! 
Trees and plants were identified which was so cool.  This is a shagbark hickory.  I was excited by the bark. 
You can see the Professor in the center of the picture.  The plants, trees and shrubs are quite thick in places.  He is about 30 feet away down a curvy path. 
Overlooking a dry creek bed was a wooden overlook and the layers of rock were even beautiful. 
I felt like I had walked into another time and place. 
I nicknamed this tree the "elbow" tree.  It didn't appear to have any branches removed, it appears to have grown this way. 
I think these were primroses.  They were growing right at the edge of the path.

Professor and I really enjoyed our stay that Burr Oaks.  I could feel God in every step I took and every living thing that I saw.  This was my Garden of Eden today.  God Bless Us Everyone.

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