50 Miles From Home

I don't mind a lot of driving when the scenery looks like this.

Paperwhites

I'm trying something a little different with my paperwhites this winter. I bought a dozen bulbs a few weeks and am forcing them in a  bowl with water and rocks--as I always do. This year, though, instead of putting all the bulbs in the bowl at the same time, I am staggering them. The first ones bloomed a couple of days ago, others are budding out,and the last few bulbs just got tucked in among the rocks yesterday. My goal is to extend the bloom without having to have multiple containers.  I will see how the experiment goes in the long run, but so far, so good.

Linked to Macro Monday,

Hocking Hills State Park, Part 3: Rock Bridge

 After visiting Ash Cave, we headed about eight miles up the road to Rock Bridge Nature Preserve. This nature preserve contains the second largest natural rock bridge in the United States.

The giant slab of sandstone that makes up the bridge is over 100 feet long and 20 feet wide at its widest place.

It spans a gorge that is fifty feet wide.

Rock Bridge Nature Preserve covers 250 acres of land and runs along the Hocking River. The lovely beech woods that makes up a good deal of the preserve  is an ideal place for finding native wild flowers in the spring.

The small stream that makes up the waterfall that drops between the rock bridge and face of the gorge flows into the Hocking River.

The stream that flows down to the river has a rock bottom and is was only an inch or two deep.

Next post: Photos from our hike of part of the Grandma Gatewood Trail.

                             Hocking Hills Park Part One: Introduction

Hocking Hills Park Part two:  Ash Cave

Related Posts:

Musings At Rock House (a poem)

Ice Swirls

Musings At Rock House

Cavern walls loomed cathedral-like overhead
We stood in silent awe of  the majesty

A young couple, fingers entwined
Voices, laughter echoing across the rocky walls
The world a paradise, made just for them
Fully alive in the beauty of of their surroundings
Alive in the moment and the splendor of the other
Complete awareness of the beauty and the beloved.

A sharp little pain tears at my heart
 Echos in an empty space--
of young life and love lost to Patriarchal tyranny
Anything outside the circle of protection forbidden.

I set aside the camera for a moment
Waiting for the couple to pass from view
And the youthful laughter to fade.

My husband shakes his head
Young people--they just have to make so much noise.

I smile and reach for his hand.
No--they are doing just exactly
What young people are made to do--
Living life, exploring, absorbing each other,
Souls entwining, becoming one with shared experience
And memories made with only thoughts  for the beloved.

You are right, he said, and squeezed my hand.

And again I smile and am full of gratitude
That God can take two broken people with painful pasts,
and make them whole by giving them each other.
Sometimes I wonder how to define ourselves--
Still practically newly weds--me 36, him 62.
Not young, not old,
maybe between the two of us, we are middle aged?
No matter-we are here and now in awe together.


(Written after our visit to Rock House in Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio.)

Linked to Real Toads poetry challenge and Saturday Evening Post hosted by Elizabeth Ester.

Graveyard Sun and Shadows

The little cemetery quarter of a mile down the road from us.

Linked to Skywatch Friday.

Hocking Hills State Park, Part II: Ash Cave

Ash cave is the largest recess cave in Ohio. The horseshoe shaped recess cave is 700 feet long, 100 feet deep, and 90 feet high. The cave is named after the large piles of ashes left behind by the Native Americans, who used the large rock shelter for a meeting place and a resting place.

Later, the first European settlers used the cave as a place to hold church services as they were building their first church.

Today the cave can be reserved for weddings , and the park occasionally holds outdoor events here.

It is the most easily accessed of all the caves and waterfalls in Hocking Hills with a handicap accessible 1/4 mile paved trail in the gorge leading up to the waterfall. There is also a rim trail that is slightly more rugged--at least in the winter when some of the steps are covered with ice!

At 90 feet high, the waterfall that plunges over rim of the cave is the tallest waterfall in Hocking Hills.

Two views of the stream below the falls--in some parts it winds slowly through the hemlock forest...

...and in other places it turns into miniature waterfalls that cascade down the rocky stream bed.

From what I have read,  if you want to see a lot of water, the best time to visit the cave is in April and May. Some summers the stream dries up completely. And I am told that if the winter is especially cold, the waterfall has been know to freeze completely from top to bottom.

Next Hocking Hills post (coming up when I get the photos sorted out for it!) will take you up the road to Rock Bridge and waterfall.

Linked to Watery Wednesday.

Winter Robin's Nest....

...bringing memories of spring and warmer days..

Tomorrow evening watch for a post with photos of Ash Cave and waterfall in Hocking Hills State Park.

Ice Swirls

I didn't take many macro photos on our recent trip to Hocking Hills state park in Ohio, but did get some of these fine threads of ice that were coiled here and there on the ground for no apparent reason.  These ice formations were independant of any visible water and were quite small, usually only an inch or so across. I have never come across anything quite like them before.

Update: One of my readers suggested that these ice formations may be frost flowers. They may be, but I am not familiar enough with frost flowers to tell for sure. I'm adding the photo below showing one of the formations as whole.

Linked to Macro Monday.

Hocking Hills State Park--Part one

We recently spent several days in Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio. Hocking Hills is a maze of hiking trails that run through gorges, past dozens of waterfalls, and through magnificent caves. We spent three days hiking, took about 1000 photos and barely scratched the surface of all natural beauty that is to be found there. Several posts will follow with some of the highlights of the of our time in the park.

We rented a cabin for our stay--it was complete with locally made log furniture, a full kitchen, and a hot tub. For photos of the interior click over to Dandelion Haven's facebook page.

Then a little preview of photos to come...

The lower falls in Old Man's Cave's Gorge.

A glimpse of the stream below Cedar Falls.

Colorful rock formations at Rock House.

Curwood Castle

This is the writing studio of James Oliver Curwood., a Michigan author and an early film writer. It is now a museum and is located on the banks of the Shiawassee River, in Owosso, MI. It is things like this that keep me sane on the job. Stumbling unexpectedly upon a lovely little castle on the banks of a  peaceful river in the middle of a hectic day, reminds me of one of the many reasons I am a homecare nurse.You don't stumble upon Michigan's little known treasures when you are shut up in a hospital all day or all night!

(I am going to be taking a blogging break for a bit. I plan to be back at the end of the month. I will look forward to catching up with all of you then.)

Encircled Lock

 A rusty circle of metal looped over a broken down gate with an old lock still clinging fast, guards the entrance to a farmer's field.  

Eastward Bound

Eastward bound

through tinted sky

and gentle haze

I followed

the rising moon

to home.

Linked to Skywatch Friday.

Christmas, Remembered

I took down the Christmas tree yesterday and instead of tossing the rose hips and fox tail grass that decorated it, I made them into this wreath along with a few of the salted pine cones and some dried tansy.

The result is a wreath that, at least to me, looks more wintry than Christmas and so I can hang it on the living room wall until it is time to switch it out for something that says spring instead of winter.

Linked to Macro Monday.

Greeting the New Year

I got up this morning hoping to greet the first sunrise of the new year. But nature had other plans and I was met with a cold drizzling rain. I went for a walk anyway. On a whim I decided to walk down a road that I haven't been on before, and discovered that is is more picturesque than my regular route with a small abandoned cemetery by the side of the road, several old barns, two small streams, and  a farm that still has cows in the pasture.

And the nice part is that the road loops back around onto the road the we live on.

Two different views of one of the old barns.

I don't have many goals for the new year beyond surviving the learning curve of my new job. If I can get through the winter with finishing my charting on time and not accidentally driving off a bridge on my way home in the dark and sleeting rain,  occasionally cooking real food and vacuuming the house, I will call it good.   But if there is one this I'd like to work on a bit this year, it is to be slightly more adventurous. Even if it as simple as taking a different road on my walk.

I am quite shy and not an adventurous person by nature and am realizing that because of that  life can pass me by. I would hate to come to the end of my life and all I have to show for it is that I went to work each day and did a bit of house work.

What about you? Any goals for 2012?

Linked to Homestead Revival's barn hop.