A New Way

Today Sue and I walked a new trail for our Friday morning walk. We decided to try out the trail through the Cooper Mountain Nature Park about halfway between our two homes. It was quite a find, and it was a beautiful day to give it a try. Here's a screen shot of the trail map:

I put the little pink arrows to indicate where we walked. We did most of it, and it was very enjoyable. As we approached the end of the sidewalk (transitioning to a gravel trail), we saw these bird tracks in the concrete. (I love this kind of stuff.)

And just a few feet further, the trail begins. Here, you can see the view of the Tualatin Valley.

We went by a meadow and saw this doe. She was more and more nervous as we approached...probably because we were talking and laughing. (Ya' think?)

There were lots of wildflowers in bloom. Here is a trillium. They start out white and then turn purple.

This is a blooming Oregon Grape...our state flower. They were abundant along the trail.

Anybody know what this is? A woman walking along the trail was curious what we found "picture worthy", and she thought it might be a cowslip. Nah. I looked that up, and that isn't right.

Here's how it looks if you hold up the flower.

I don't know what these are either, but they were pretty.

Wild iris.

Wild strawberries.

Wild yellow violets.

Sue really, really, really wanted this to be something. Can anyone name it? To me, they're weeds. It's what grows in our field when it needs mowing.

We saw quite a bit of these meadows with young stands of oak.

A sign explained that the pond below was man made. This area was logged off at one time, and when the logging road was built, this pond was formed. These ducks couldn't be bothered even to turn around to look at us. Show me a pond, and I'll show you some ducks.

This next image was what we saw when we walked out to the "Larkspur Overlook". We thought the view was better at the top of the trail, but the sign below explains its significance.

On another part of the trail, we found this megaphone looking thing. This was really kind of cool, and I wonder why this isn't done more commonly along nature trails. Have you ever seen one of these before?

Want to know what it is? Here's what's at the skinny end:

Okay, we bit. It's like listening to a seashell, but it rotated, and it did magnify the sounds...especially bird calls. It was kind of fun.

And no walk would be complete unless one happened upon our famous Oregon slugs. Huevos sluggos, anyone?

And that was pretty much our walk. It was fun! We'll definitely be doing that again. Next week, we're going to walk out by my place, and it's looking so pretty now. More pictures next week.

As for my day of sewing, I finished the latest Vintage Tin stitchery.

Linking this post to:

And I have just three peppers left before I finish the Chili Rounder. Remember yesterday's post when I left you in hot suspense wondering about the "smoky" motif? I'll bet you stayed awake all night wondering about it. Well, here is is:

And here are the other peppers I did today:

I just have the three green peppers in the outer most ring to do now, and so I should have this finished by tomorrow.

Here's how it's looking from the back...not so different from yesterday.

And Mike just called to say he was on his way home, so I guess I'd better get going. We're expecting beautiful weather this weekend and through the next week. We are both looking forward to it.