Water Loving Dogs At Whippoorwill Corners - Part 2

The dogs and I were hiking the trail along Plumb Brook in the Whippoorwill Corners State Forest (see also Part 1, posted yesterday):

And since it was a hot day, the dogs were even more anxious to go into the water than usual:

I'd let them cool off, then we'd continue on our way through the forest, with Plumb Brook always on our right:

Seamus led us through a number of patches of giant False Hellebore, a member of the Lily family which I've read can grow up to eight feet tall (four feet tall is the biggest I've seen):

Always staying beside the brook, the trail took us through a ferny woods:

Seamus sometimes wandered too far ahead and I had to call him back. Being old and tired, he hates to retrace his steps, but if he goes too far ahead of us, I insist on it:

I kept seeing these plants with the oddly shaped leaves and remembered learning what they were back in college. I thought they were called Lion something, so I looked it up when I got home. Indeed, they are Lion's-Foot, a member of the Composite (Daisy) family:

We continued on through the cool woods, watching for more easy places to access the brook:

Fergus found a place to get into the cool water!

And soon all the dogs were enjoying the brook (Jack was there too, somewhere):


Hey, there's Jack! I sat down on the river bank to rest, and Jack came up behind me to see what I was doing:


I was thinking that it must be about time for us to turn around and head back to the car, but the beauty of the scenery kept calling us forward. I'll post Part 3 tomorrow: