utenzi

As you might guess from the pictures in this post, I am using the cold weather this week as an excuse to post some pictures of a slug. I guess to be accurate I should call it a snail (molluscan class Gastropoda), but that doesn't work as well with my post title. I doubt the little fellow is alive anymore since we've had a lot of sub-freezing weather since these pictures were taken on November 27th. I noticed the little guy moving across some leaves (quite slowly, as you might guess) on the ground near a stream in Duke Forest. To get a better bead on the head parts, I put the snail up on a tree branch. The new location didn't seem to bother it one bit and he (she?) was merrily moving about in no time at all. The hand shot was taken during the transfer and is being used to give scale to the critter. It was small, true, but had loads of personality. Small things often do.

I took today off from work and went hiking instead. Tomorrow I head over to my parent's place for the start of the Xmas celebrations and this was the last bit of calm before the storm, so to speak. And calm it was. No doubt due to the cold temperatures, abundance of mud and ice, and it being a weekday---the hiking trails were deserted. These two pictures were taken at Duke Forest which was my first stop. After hiking there I went over to Hillsborough and did that mountain hike I like. I enjoy hiking much more in cold weather 'cause you just don't get all hot and sweaty. If only there were more leaves on trees in winter... it's just not as pretty when the limbs are bare.

Kim came over to my place to visit for a bit and we celebrated by going hiking. Seriously. The picture above is me adjusting my pants so Kim could take a picture of me. Obviously she jumped the gun a mite with the shutter button. Bad Kim! The hike was in Duke Forest. We started off on the Concrete Bridge Trail but diverted soon after starting. The concrete bridge, which is the namesake of the trail, was under around a foot or so of running water. Some kids were having a great time running back and forth on it---but I'm not a kid so I opted to follow the narrow foot trail that runs alongside the river. The picture below is of a plant I thought was pretty---and the branch that it lives on.

I got up early this morning to go hiking. I went to Duke Forest this time and wandered about a bit in the misty early morning light. I found this fellow soon after I arrived. He seemed to be kinda intent on his eating. As you can see, he's done a lot of carving out of that leaf. Not very good company for a hike tho---he's on the slow side.  Below you see two fellow travelers on the path I took. Not the proverbial least traveled one, I guess. In any case, they didn't stick around for long. The Mom seemed to think I was a bad influence. No doubt she was right.

We got off to an early start today. Woke up at 6am, out the door at 6:15, and on the trail at Duke Forest at 6:35. That's very early in the morning for us on a weekend. The deer like that time of the day a lot more than we do. I take small country roads to cut across Alamance and Orange County to get to the Duke Forest trail. I have to drive slower but it's a much shorter route. Well, in the weak predawn light, the deer are still out in force and I had to drive even slower than usual. We had deer bound across the road in front of us six times on the way there. And not even once on the drive back, when it was after 8am. Apparently once the sun comes up and traffic increases those deer make themselves scarce. Go figure. I was a little surprised that we didn't see a single deer while hiking in the woods. On the other hand, we aren't exactly quiet when we walk... That picture at the top was taken near the concrete bridge in Duke Forest. You can see how misty the air still i...

I went hiking for a couple of hours this evening at Duke Forest. I started around 6pm and got back to my car just after 8pm. It wasn't all that hot, low 80s, but it was very humid and I wasn't wearing clothes for hiking. On the other hand, wearing long pants, socks, and collared shirt probably helped keep ticks off me---and that's a good thing. The woods are full of ticks though not quite as bad as last year. The first picture is from a descent that leads down to the river. The second picture is of the river about a half mile away from where I took the first picture. It was so humid that by the time I got to the river I was pretty damp. Hell, within the first 20 minutes of hiking I was soaked with sweat and it probably never got much worse. The excess sweat just dripped off me and onto the trail. You'd think a hike like that would have been unpleasant---but it wasn't. The mechanics of keeping the sweat out of my eyes was annoying but the hike itself was very nice. I...

In the 4 days that I've been back in the Triangle I've gone hiking 3 times. That's a lot more than usual and added to all the kayaking I did in SC, it should help keep those holiday pounds from accumulating around my waist. Today I went hiking with Julie in Duke Forest. Usually I go in on the Concrete Bridge Trail but instead we went the way that she usually does, along the Wood Bridge Trail. And yes, I have noticed a certain lack of imagination in the trail naming at Duke Forest. The picture to the left is near the trail entrance, looking back up the hill towards the road where the Fire Station is located. It was pretty chilly this morning and very foggy. I live near a moderate sized stream and the fog was so thick you could almost cut it with a knife... but as I drove away from home and towards Duke Forest all that mist disappeared. Pity, it would have made for great pictures. Still, you can see a touch of "fogginess" in the picture here. I'd say the tempera...