Part 1, Hiking Mount Arab

Having taken a driving tour of the tiny hamlet of Conifer, New York, I returned the couple of miles to Mount Arab Road and headed toward the trail head:

It continued raining off and on (mostly on), but I knew the light rain would keep us cool and help prevent the onslaught of ravenously vicious deer flies. Besides, I figured Seamus would be safe from another bout of heat stroke in such cool, damp, cloudy weather. The branches overhead helped shield us from getting too overly wet - for a while, at least:

The trail was rather smooth and took us steadily uphill. The ground was so dry that the rain was soaking in quickly:

But of course we all eventually became wet, starting with long-haired little Clover who soon began looking a bit like a drowned, spotted rat. Never mind, we were all having a marvelous time:

We continued up and up and up. The trail was short, only one mile to the top, and the grade wasn't precariously steep. It was, however, unrelenting:

I heard Wood Thrushes singing in the rain and thought how they seem to love rainy days. They like to sing at dawn and dusk, so maybe the reduced sunlight of a rainy day inspires them to vocalize: Whenever there was a bit more sun, I heard White-Throated Sparrows singing:

Most of the trail was dry enough under the circumstances, but there were a few wet spots:

Little Clover, AKA the mountain goat, climbed up onto a glacial erratic to check out her surroundings:

And we continued upwards through the rain, surrounded by bird songs:

All of the dogs were being very good. They had fun and did all their doggy investigating, but without running far enough ahead that I had to reprimand them:

I kept grabbing trees for support or just because I love trees - and several times put my hand directly on these rather slimy slugs. They all seemed to be climbing trees because of the rain. Or perhaps this is just a tree climbing species. But we were almost to the summit. I'll post about that tomorrow:

Into The Woods, White Hill Wild Forest, Part 2

I'd discovered a 9000 acre wild forest just a bit south of my farm and set out with my four dogs to explore it on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Here's a map of the area I found on the Internet. For some reason this picture will not enlarge when you click it, but if your eyes are good enough you can see how the road took us to Clear Pond. We parked there and hiked around Clear Pond, turning south at the next trail intersection to Little Rock Pond and Long Pond:

We seemed to have the entire forest to ourselves and the tree canopy was some protection from the rain. I passed by lots of interesting sights and one of them was this unique mushroom. It looked to me like an old rag draped over a fence post:

I stepped over what I thought was Watercress growing abundantly in a mountain stream. I've searched my Peterson's Field Guide since and no longer think it's Watercress. But what is it? Does anyone know?

Daphne and Clover, the two Papillon youngsters (also referred to as the silly sisters), were constantly on the run. But when they stopped for a moment to watch me, I snapped their photo:

And then they began running again:

I'd long been lamenting the lack of Wood Thrushes in the Adirondacks. I've read that they were disappearing, perhaps as a consequence of acid rain. But this summer I've heard lots of them and I decided that it was a fine time to take a video and record the sounds and sights of the rainy forest with a Wood Thrush singing. There's also, you will notice, an Ovenbird singing loudly at about the 45 second mark. And Seamus panting as he waits patiently for me to begin hiking again. You may also notice Clover browsing on grass like a tiny Holstein. Both of my Papillons do that, so it must be a breed characteristic:

And then we came to a section of the trail which was flooded. There were trees down all around also. I figured it was beaver activity but saw no chew marks on stumps. Well, for the moment my job was to find a way around the flooding. As you can see here, Daphne and Clover were perfectly happy to run right through the water if that's what I wanted to do:

When we'd returned to dry trail, I passed by what must surely be a beaver swamp. But still I saw no chew marks on the stumps:

I checked my map and decided this must be Little Rock Pond. Daphne ran right down to investigate, perhaps hoping to meet a beaver:

Then Seamus, Fergus and Clover ran down to check it all out also:

The dogs' curiosity satisfied, we resumed our trek along the trail. Mosquitoes and Deer Flies were abundant and hungry. Next time I'll know to wear a hat to cover my shaved head: