Fort Jackson State Forest - Part 1

It was a beautiful morning, too beautiful to clean the barn, so I put the dogs in the car and drove to the Fort Jackson State forest, only two or three miles from my door. I parked and let the pooches out of the car. They were ecstatic. You'd have thought they never got to run before!:

I had to yell at them for running too far ahead until they calmed down. After that, they were well behaved:

And it was a lovely, sunny, Autumn day:

Happy dogs and clear, sunny, Autumn weather. The only problem was the frequent sound of gunfire coming from the forest off to our right:

The scenery was exquisite - Red Pine, White Pine, and Reindeer Lichen, all growing on a bed of green moss over sandy soil:

The dogs gave everything a thorough sniffing:

But the sound of gunfire continued, and Jack, already a nervous dog, became even more nervous. He began circling my feet as I walked. I step awkwardly anyway because of my leg braces, so I had to be very careful not to trip over him. It also became more difficult to include him in the photos I took because he was always by my feet:

Every time Jack got bold enough to venture forward to be with the other dogs, a gun would fire again and he'd scurry back to be right next to my feet:

Except of course for the sounds of gunfire, it was a pleasant day in the forest:

I'd hoped to walk as far as the St. Regis River but couldn't remember how to get there. So when I saw another lane turning off into the forest, I took it just to see where it led:

It had recently been cleared and leveled, a good sign that it had been used for logging and would take us somewhere:

I sat the dogs down together on a mossy mound for a picture, but I only got one photo taken before they bolted off to continue running. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: