While the Sun Shines

He got his hay made.....

.....while the sun shone

.....and now the rain must fall

Faded Memory, Faded Rose

It could be because I'm walking the trails again (out to Green Valley early this a.m.), but yesterday the faded memory of a park trail somewhere south of Omaha niggled me again. I say again because it has happened before, but was it a real memory or something I had dreamed?

So I got a map of the Omaha area out and there, between Omaha and Bellevue, was a green area labeled Fontanelle Forest. And when I Googled it, there were indeed trails.
That knowledge doesn't solidify my memory of it though. It was at least fifty-five years ago, Doug was two or three years old. I stopped there with him and walked a short time on a trail through the bluffs. Maybe it was one of the times I went to Omaha to visit my sister. Betty and I took Mike and Doug to the zoo and to the Joslyn Art Museum, but my faded memory of being in Fontenelle Forest does not include them.

Perhaps I only dreamed I went there because the Historical Timeline of the area gave me this man's name and information which I definitely remember. In the 1960's Jim Malkowski began leading eduational hikes in the forest which were very popular. He became director of the Fontenelle Forest Nature Center when it opened in 1966. I remember seeing the television spots he made telling what was going on that week. I know I always wanted to go after seeing those, but never did. The memory I have is of the area when the only staff employed was a caretaker.

Reading the Historical Timeline of Fontenelle Forest https://fontenelleforest.org/about/historical-timeline/ is very interesting. It illustrates from the time the area was once covered by a warm, shallow, sea to the ice age, followed by the formation of the Loess Hills, and warm dry prairies, to the forest it is today where wandering tribes of Native Americans, including the Oto, Ponca and Omaha, hunted.
Before European explorers arrived, natives had settled along the ridges, built permanent living structures and were known by artifacts found within nearly seventy earth lodges, to be village farmers.
The Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery expedition passed by the area going up the Missouri River in 1804. The picture above depicts the trading post founded in present day Fontenelle Forest in 1822. In 1823 nearby Belleview, one of the oldest settlements in Nebraska, was founded. In 1855, Logan Fontenelle, the son of fur trader Lucien Fontenelle and Bright Sun of the Omaha tribe was killed by a band of Sioux Indians. He is said to be buried somewhere on Fontenelle's property and it is for him the Forest is named.

In 1910 a group met to discuss ideas for a state forest preserve. In 1913 the governor of Nebraska signed a bill incorporating the Child's Point Forest Association the forerunner to the Fontenelle Forest Association now known as the Fontenelle Nature Association. The group's first tract of land, Child's Point, covered more than 300 acres and was deeded to the Association in 1920. By 1990 the Fontenelle had grown to own and maintain nearly 1800 acres of land.

With all its boardwalks, the 25,000 square foot Nature Center, the Raptor Recovery Center and Woodland Refuge and all the other improvements, I would never recognize the quiet path I think I remember once following.

When I got back to the car to leave Green Valley this morning, I spotted this Wild Rose. Immediately some of the lyrics of the song Faded Painted Rose ran through my mind. Not surprising as that Al Martino song was also part of my memories of that time.

She was a wild and lovely rose...

Sunday Morning Walk in the Park

It was such a beautiful start to the day - a nice breeze with a temperature in the low 70's, but the humidity was already high.

It was past time to start putting some outdoor miles on the new shoes I got in January. Lake McKinley Park here we come.

Stix was probably thinking, "It's about time we got outside again."
I like starting the trail at the southwest corner. It's not flat, but the hills are gentle.

Down to the where the bridge crosses this little stream, where I see scum on the water here, just like the pond scum yesterday. Isn't it too early in the season for this? Is mother nature trying to tell us something?

Red-winged Black birds were singing conk-la-ree, conk-la-ree.

And these poppies were silently swaying in sunshine and shadow.

I went as far as the corner where the path starts up the hill. I'll save the hilly portions for after I get more used to the trails again.

The windmill blades were really whirring, but I don't think any water was being pumped.

There were many other dog walkers, runners, bicyclists, and joggers who had the same idea as I did - get out early and beat the heat - including this guy striding along on the far side of the lake. Hmm, he looks familiar. 😎

Does the heron even care what the speed limit is? He can probably fly that fast. And he flew just as soon as I started across the dam.

The cottonwoods were rustling so strongly, I thought it was water rushing over the spillway.

I was headed for that path on the left with plans to take it through the woods and back to the car.

Morning sun on the grasses along the stream.

Into the woods a short distance before stopping to take a close-up of one of the last honeysuckle blossoms. I only got this blurry picture before realizing I was being swarmed by biting, sucking mosquitoes and beat a quick retreat. It was not the day for a walk through that area!

I'm sure that tomorrow my knees and hips will tell me I did something I wasn't used to, but I will keep taking Stix and heading for the trails each day until the hips and knees do get used to it. 😅
I have to. Besides, I enjoy it.
Happy Trails to You. 😘

Reasons a One and a Half Hour Errand.....

.....took three hours.

Far and away....

....off the beaten path....

....where mares graze and foals cavort....

....and yellow sweetclover perfumes the air....

....a very small brown sign warns: DANGER!

But no danger lurked; only the pleasure of a lovely morning....

....full of photo ops.           

(I call this one Pond Scum.)

Walters Creek east of Quincy.

He called to me - bob-white, bob-white. It has been years since I last saw one of these little quail.

"How green was my Valley that day, too, green and bright in the sun." (Richard Llewellyn)

Weathered old barn in the hamlet of Brooks. My Brooks Boy, Bud, tells me that when he attended the two story, frame school that stood on the lot in front of this barn years ago, there was a basketball court in the barn's hayloft.

As I crossed the East Nodaway River south of Brooks, there was a heron standing near this sandbar. He flew when I backed up to take a picture. A photo op that flew the coop.

During all my young years on the farm, if someone stopped and asked directions to Brooks, it was, "a mile and half west, a mile north, a mile west, turn right when you come to the tree in the middle of the intersection. Following that road will take you into Brooks." It just hasn't been the same since the red cedar tree was cut down and the green and white street signs went up.

The Fairview school house was across the road from Fairview Church. Some of the Vacation Bible School classes were held there in June, after regular school was out for the summer.

Bull thistles in the ditch near....

....the West Branch of the 102 River south of The Little House....

.... and northeast of the little house where we once lived.

Lastly, west of the Kent corner ....

      "While there's life, there's hope."   (Marcus Tullius Cicero)

Fill Your Arms With Peonies

                           Peonies
                                                      (By Mary Oliver)

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
  to break my heart
    as the sun rises,
      and the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open --
  pools of lace,
    white and pink --
      and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
  into the curls,
    craving the sweet sap,
      taking it away

to their dark, underground cities --
  and all day
    under the shifty wind,
      as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
  and tip their fragrance to the air,
    and rise,
      their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
  gladly and lightly,
    and there it is again --
      beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
  Do you love this world?
    Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
      Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, 
  into the garden, and softly,
      and exclaiming of their dearness,
        fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
  their eagerness
    to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
      nothing, forever?

My Spirit Is Tossed

The Enkindled Spring
              (D. H. Lawrence)

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,
Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between
Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,
Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among
This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed
About like a shadow buffeted in the throng
Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.


Spring came late again this year, so while I kept this poem in reserve, waiting to use it until the flame-filled bushes with their thorn-blossoms finally bloomed, what has been happening in our country this past week can give a whole different meaning to Lawrence's poem.

My spirit is tossed, and lost, first by the horrible murder of George Floyd and then by seeing coverage of the aftermath. Just as a world-wide pandemic had seemed to me a distinct 'someday' possiblity, so had the thought of another war between ideologies and cultures. I just didn't think they would both happen at the same time or during my lifetime.

I don't know what the immediate answers are, I have none. But I have opinions about what will have to be done to insure the future of our planet and lives in the long run. And the hope that the leaders we need will be able to take us there.

But as I wait, I will rely on the beauty of nature to sustain me.

First of June Photo Shoot

All of our FB friends know Bud always greets a new month with a run/walk. Then I take a photo of him, usually here at home, to post on his FB page.

He often walks to and around Lake McKinley so today's shoot took place there at the spillway. His official pic is with the lake behind him, but I chose this one (which wasn't the best of him) of the water as it comes under the roadway and out because I liked the colors. Also because it intrigues me that this is where the Platte River, which gets fairly wide before entering the Missouri River near Farley, MO, has its origin. (Okay, technically it begins on the other side of the lake where it was one of many small streams before the dam was built.)

Bud went on with his walk and I went back to this tree, here as I first photographed it April 8, because then I was stumped as to what kind of tree it was. I did not remember ever seeing winter seed pods like those before. But even with this photo and one of the tree's bark, I couldn't identify it.

I knew I had to wait for it to leaf out before I could identify it. Even then, I was at a loss.

There were a couple stems of leaves on the ground so I brought one of them home and got out my old (1952) Guide to Familiar American Trees book to finally learn the tree is a Tulip Tree! Boy, was I surprised. All my life I thought a tulip tree was just another name for the magnolia trees with their pink and white blossoms. (Note: You are never to old to learn something new.)

Here is what my tree guide says about the Tulip Tree: "TULIPTREE or Yellow-poplar is a tree of ancient lineage. Closely related to the primitive Magnolias, the Tuliptrees go back over fifty million years. Fossil leaves have been found in rocks of Europe and Greenland. The Tuliptree grows tall, its straight trunk free of branches near the ground. (If those leaves had not already been on the ground, I could never have reached them.) A beautiful tree in all seasons, it is planted as an ornamental but not as a shade tree. The peculiar squarish leaves, broad and notched, make identification easy. (It will be for me from now on!) The tree is named from the greenish-yellow tulip-like flowers, opening in May or June. Buds, closed by two purse-like scales, are unique. The fruit is a cone of many small, winged seeds. The creamy yellow wood, soft, easily worked, is used for pulp and manufactured articles."

This is a picture of an Iowa City Tulip Tree in bloom which I found online, but I will certainly go back in a week or two to take some of my own pictures of the Tulip Tree in Lake McKinley Park.