Bulk Foods & A Nature Hike

Yesterday, Steve and I traveled to Shipshewana to visit a great bulk food store here in Northern Indiana called E & S Sales. If you live in the area, this is a fun place to visit for really great deals including flour from a local mill. En route we marveled at the frost that coated the landscape. It really was so difficult to keep driving without exclaiming every few minutes to look at that woods or that field or that direction, etc. Such a beautiful sight.

Since it takes us about 1 hour to get to Shipshewana from Fort Wayne, we planned a hike at Crooked Lake Nature Preserve - a place we don't get to as often due to the distance from our place. We so enjoyed our outing and took lots and lots of pictures - there was just so much to see! So much in fact, that we will post the second set of photos from the same hike focusing on Winter Tree ID in the next day or two.

Ok, now for a photo tour of our outing -

Blue Cohosh Fruits...

A really large mollusk shell...

Steve grinning in the cold coming off the lake...

A close up of the frost we saw while traveling up north...

I believe this type of frost is called hoar frost. Steve spotted this vacated monarch chrysalis at the water's edge frosted as well.

Jennifer hiking...

and finding scat. Sorry about this - we do pay attention to scat since it tells us so much. This appears to be a well traveled route of a fox as evidenced by the following old and new scat deposits right by one another. (Hair, tapered edge and lack of burying indicate canine.)

The water's edge is relatively intact on this side of the lake since it is nature preserve. (Just across the way you see houses and mowed lawns right to the lake.) Equisetum or horsetail...

One of our best sightings of the day was this pileated woodpecker...

we watched him/her for at least 10 minutes before we mosied on. These woodpeckers are the biggest of the eastern deciduous woodlands - 16.5" long! Since these birds prefer mature hardwood forests, they are uncommon due to decimation and fragmentation of their habitat. Let's not mince words here. Such an amazing bird...

Me - Jennifer, very very happy about the sinuosity of this natural stream. This is how water wants to flow.

An eroding log that made me think of Arches National Park - deciduous woodland style.

Muskrat lodge closeup and distance view...

Jennifer observing highbush cranberry fruits and a closeup of the fruits (LOVE this shrub)...

The whimsical little water's edge trail that shared all this magic with us...


Tomorrow - Part 2 - Winter Tree ID.