HiveComb

We finally had the snow melt this week. There are still patches of it, but it's been a couple months since we've seen grass. Here in Vermont, it's a fast change from winter to spring, although we'll still have some cold days, and likely another snow or two, at least the long-term snow has melted.

Betty and I went for a long woods walk today. We found this old rock structure. No idea what it is or was, but certainly man-made and not just natural. Perhaps some kind of old property marker, trail marker, or even grave?

I plan to add this area to my metal detector searching in the upcoming months.

On the way out into the woods, we found flowers blooming. I think these are Crocus, but someone tell me if I'm wrong. This area was covered in 2 inches of snow not even a week ago and now look at these things popping up.

As we traveled through the woods, we found many downed trees from that terrible wind-storm we had in December. Many were pushed over with the entire root ball upheaving from the ground, and many others just snapped in half 3-5 feet off the ground. I've got at least 4 large trees fallen over the main ATV trail that will need chainsaw work to remove.

Here you can see a massive root ball sticking up over 8 feet tall out in front of Betty.

Here's one just broken right off in the middle.

More smaller ones just blown over. This area has a lot of creek runoff that kind of just leaks all around down the hill making a lot of soft/wet area. I'm thinking that some of those don't grow very deep roots, but instead just spread out across the top since there is so much moisture.

This Massive Pine tree blown over, and can see another tree broken off behind it.

Looking closer at that fallen tree, Betty was quite interest in some fairly large tufts of hair. It was pretty long and white. I'm guessing maybe from whitetail deer belly or tail, or possibly coyote, but it seems longer than coyote hair would be.

We also did some work on the culvert and area for the trail, which had gotten plugged and water making a new path around it.. Had to dig out, re-fill, and do some additional work to make it passable by ATV again. Will likely need more of a bridge there, or a few hours of tractor work to fill it in solidly.
There could certainly worse ways to spend a day.
This Easter Sublime Sunday was certainly recharging after a busy few weeks at work. So nice to unplug and get out for the day.