Hiking Along The Hannacroix - Part 4

Our Sunday hike along the Hannacroix Creek had been pleasant, but there had been very few signs of spring greening. We'd come to the end of the trail and were on our way back when I began seeing that Skunk Cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus, had poked its purple hoods up through the forest floor. One of our earliest spring plants, Skunk Cabbage produces its own heat as it emerges, sometimes melting the snow around it. It's a fascinating plant and a most welcome sign of spring's arrival:

The dogs and I were returning to the Hannacroix Creek where the hike had begun:

We passed an old rotten log full of the shells of last year's puffballs:

And on past the remnants of more old stone foundations. This one appeared to have been someone's house. It had been situated on a pleasant hill just above a creek and right next to the road. My imagination could conjure up visions of hard working farm families, probably Dutch, in the era of Washington Irving and his stories of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle:

Just as we arrived at the waterfalls, the dogs began barking and ran ahead. I felt guilty for not having them on a leash, figuring they were again harassing the two girls whose lunch they'd helped themselves to. But I found the girls sunning themselves on the jutting rocks, oblivious to me and to my dogs who had discovered another hiker with two Boston Terriers. A man with two young boys, an adult dog and a puppy were enjoying Hannacroix Creek:

The dogs all got along well and the boys thought Seamus was the biggest, goofiest dog they'd ever seen:

Seamus accompanied the boys on a creek exploring adventure before we said goodbye. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see the second boy hiding under the tangled tree branches:

I chose another trail to return us to the parking area, this one with a nifty bridge over a ravine:

The dogs are by now old hands at crossing bridges, so they weren't intimidated. We returned to our parked car and headed for home: