Trails & Trees - Part 2 - Pittsburgh

Today we took a walk through the nearby South Side Park.

Lon carried Amos in a backpack. This park is way too hilly for strollers!

A deep, steep, and highly overgrown ravine (“Jurassic Valley”) runs down the east side of the park. One of our main reasons for going to the park was to see the goats that are being used to clear this vegetation. A portion of the silver electrified fence is barely visible near the bottom center of the photo.

Lon & Amos blend into the dense vegetation on the Sterling St Connector Trail. This is the top end of the goat area.

The magic of a telephoto lens! The orange fencing warns hikers of the electric fence.

The blue tarp is part of a shelter for the goats. The solar panels charge the battery that provides electricity for the fence.

Today the goats were right along the fence. They were mostly munching on pokeweed. They’ve got a lot of vegetation to eat if they are to clear the hillside in six weeks!

Here you can see the orange plastic “warning” fence and silver electrified fence -- as well as the goats.

When we got to the Sterling St Steps, we came across a deer that promptly ran away from us.

These steps are officially Sterling Street.

Looking downhill along Sterling St.

Trails & Trees - Part 1 - Pittsburgh

Friday, 28 July 2017

We started our “Trees & Trails” adventure with family time in Pittsburgh - today is Amos’ 2nd birthday. So we started with a morning trip to the Phipps Conservatory.

The current show at Phipps is an installation of large glass flowers by Jason Gamrath. I didn’t find it as interesting as a Chihuly glass installation from a few years back (2007, see last photo below), but it is still stunning workmanship and artistry.

Huge glass Sarracenia pitcher plants could be found throughout the conservatory.

Glass and real Sarracenia.

I really liked the pattern on the horizontal trunk of this Lacy Tree Philodendron (Philodendron bipinnatifidum).

Maria and Amos on the bridge in the Japanese garden.

And finally, one of my photos from the 2007 Chihuly exhibit at Phipps that I use as one of my desktop images.

Jackson River Scenic Trail

We finally returned to the new section of the Jackson River Scenic Trail today. It's a beautiful 6.6 mile ride from the Smith Bridge parking lot to the northern end of the trail.

A small fawn stood "frozen" for several minutes. The translucent ears are enormous!

A closer look at the fawn's head.

At the northern end of the trail, about a dozen turkey vultures were flying through the woods. Here's a look at three of them.

Common teasel may be an invasive alien species, but the butterflies seemed to like it.

This power line pole had a tree grow into its guide-wires.

That's a fairly substantial log (12" diameter?) hanging on the guide-wire.

Compost Gardens

Every year it's interesting to see what will spontaneously grow in the vegetable debris in our compost heap.

We frequently get tomato plants in out compost. The one year we actually got tomatoes they were horrible! Ultra acidic.

Various members of the squash family (Cucurbitaceae) are also common. Is this watermelon, zucchini, yellow squash, acorn squash? We'll have to wait and see!

Another squash-family sprout.

This year an onion also started to grow.

It's not only plants that show up in the compost:

An Eastern Box Turtle snacking on leaves in the compost heap.

Red stains around her mouth suggested that our bumper crop of blackberries have been on the turtle menu.

She also showed evidence that a bear had attacked. The orange arrows point to depressions in the shell that look a lot like bear tooth marks.

To be continued...

Mysterious Posts -- Case Solved

Last December, strange looking wood and iron posts started showing up all over the area:

Posts like these started showing up in numerous place in Alleghany County and Covington.

Later, some of them had stonework added, so it was clear they were going to be signs of some sort.

Finally, in April, the final result appeared -- most places.

This one is at the I-64 welcome center just east of the West Virginia - Virginia state line.

Still, the one that we passed every day on way in and out of Clifton Forge just stood there.

About two weeks later, this one was finally completed. It's on a pretty obscure road that looks a lot more passable on GPS than in real life.

Mystery solved. As I learned, this project goes back almost 5 years, but getting permission to put signs along road right-of-ways is a complicated matter!