Day 5.246: Poison ivy

Flickr user Vilseskogen

This is not my leg, but it kind of looked like that.

I first noticed an itchy red patch on my leg at the beginning of last week.  I assumed it was mosquito bites and tried to ignore it.  It was several days later I inspected it closely enough to realise that it was weirder than that.

Eventually, while trying to work out which insect had bitten me, I discovered a picture on the internet that looked just like my rash.  That made it seem better, but it still itched like crazy for over a week.

So - poison ivy, not insects had been my undoing.  I guess it may have been at Ooms on Labor Day. In any case, it's basically fine again now much to my relief and not a moment too soon!

Day 5.245: Turkeys might fly

A few months ago, I was running in the early morning when I disturbed a group of turkeys walking along the street. They took one look at me and took off into the air, not just flying, but flying well and strongly and through the trees.

At the weekend, something similar happened except it was a lot further away...and I was pointing my phone camera at them at the time.

So here is evidence that, when we're talking about the wild ones at least, turkeys can fly!

Day 5.244: Bartholomew's Cobble

On Sunday afternoon, we took a very nice drive through the Berkshires to the south-west corner of Massachusetts (about 70 mins from Albany) to visit the preserve with the wonderful name Bartholomew's Cobble. The preserve is one of many owned and operated by the somewhat less wonderfully-named organisation, The Trustees of Reservations. However, strange name or not, we find ourselves with another list of local places to visit (not all their reservations are nearby - they are all over Massachusetts, but many are within a short drive).

The preserve is fairly small, with 5 miles of trails, but we spent a very full two hours there and only walked about half of them and in no-way begrudged the $5 per adult entry fee.

I've already told you about the touch-me-nots, but other interesting or pretty plants and fungi were in good supply:

The two miles of trails we walked were very varied - with woodland, rocky outcrops, meadows by the Housatonic River and occasional views of the surrounding hills.

As we were turning back, we spotted this huge tree - then the opening at the base:

All three of the kids went inside (one at a time) to look up the huge hollow trunk.  I could only manage to stick my arms in with a camera to get a view up into the darkness.

But the best was still to come, we felt more than heard a huge bird fly low over our heads.  At first we took it for a large hawk, but when it obligingly landed and turned our way, the truth was revealed.  It was a Barred Owl.

A first for us (in the wild) and rather wonderful!

Day 5.243: Touch-me-not!

We had a good (busy) day today. This afternoon was an outing to a new place which I will write about properly, but for now - here's just one plant.

It's the perfect time of year to enjoy impatiens capensis also known as (amongst other things) orange jewelweed and spotted touch-me-not.

It's quite pretty (and attractive to the bees!)

and at this time of year has these small bean-like seed pods. They give the plant its second common name. Touch them not!

Here's another slow-motion video of someone (Exile #3) failing to take that good advice:

Day 5.242: Slow-motion

It was a long-run day today.  I would say 'as normal' but it turns out that the last time I did a normal long run on a Saturday was August 4th (or should I say Day 5.207?)

This weeks runs have all been slow.  It's a mixture of increased miles (46 in each of the last two weeks) and, this week, a little discomfort in one of my legs that has had me a little concerned.  Probably inevitable pre-race jitters turning a very little something into a bigger one, but taking it slowly for a week is a good compromise.

In other slow-moving news, after the kids recreated this when we found ourselves at the same stairs at Berkshire Botanical Gardens on Labor Day (Day 5.237), I realised that I could use the same feature on the camera to capture the moment when a butterfly opens its wings to fly away.  In the past I have spent fruitless attempts to so just that with a still camera.  Fortunately there were some very obliging monarch butterflies in one section of the gardens.

Here's my best clip:



Quite satisfying.