Hiking In Brasher State Forest

The dogs and I were hiking in the Brasher State Forest on a beautiful, sunny morning:

I'd hoped to see wildflowers but there were very few. This spent Pink Ladyslipper was the most exciting find of the day:

But the forest was lovely and cool on that otherwise hot day:

The dogs ran and played, with me hollering now and then to keep them close by me. Without reminders, they'd just run to their hearts' content:

What I called trails were clearly wood roads or logging roads once upon a time. We tried several of them, just to see where they would take us:

It was an altogether pleasant experience. I'd brought bug spray because I expected biting flies and mosquitoes, but I never had to use it:

Jack found a section of some animal's spine, probably that of a deer:

There lots of other bones in the area, including this canine skull. Whether it was a dog or coyote I could not tell, though I used to know the difference when I was in college:

But the bones were old and all the interesting smells were gone, so the dogs soon lost interest and we continued on our way:

There were so few flowers that I had to stop and photograph this yellow one. I looked it up when I got home and decided that it was Smoothish Hawkweed, Heieracium pilosella, in the Composite family, a relative of daisies and dandelions:

And there were wild strawberries in bloom:

Our hikes are short these days and we were soon back at the car: