Wandering about at the Preserve

Nearing summer's end, it seemed like a good day to stop doing stuff and just be there. So I packed a lunch and went off to the Preserve to hike and see whatever was to see, and not draw at all.  Just watch and let stuff happen.

The bench I was aiming for, at the end of a long trail and in need of sitting down, hot day, was gone!  vanished.  Who knows whose idea that was.  So I went on a bit, through the butterfly area, not too many today, just a couple of sightings and blessedly found a nice concrete thing dating back to when the Preserve was a quarry, just right height to sit on and spread out my lunch, and overlook the lake.  In shade, too.

So, listening idly to ducks and watching fish jumping for a while, I heard screams of joy from somewhere and wondered where the playground was.  Then, on my way back, retracing my hike, I found  -- summer program at the Preserve, run by a naturalist --  a doughty band of froghunters!  screaming with joy at finding them and missing them, and splodging about in the shallows, and getting all wet and muddy and happy.  

Wonderful time for them. This stream runs through the beech wood, and is a great place for all kinds of amphibians, rich in salamanders, too, under the fallen logs.  

Those pipes in the picture are the conduits from the lake, or maybe to it, there's running water constantly feeding what is now a lake, was the main quarry.  This side is the safe shallows.  The other side of the path this was taken from has a drop off to several hundred feet of water.