This ‘old dog’ has learned a new trick!

Because of the recent time change thingy, I made sure to set my alarm last night so I’d be sure to wake up in time for work today.  I’ve been sleeping a little later than normal (by the clock) since the sun isn’t appearing so early.

It’s a good thing I did set the alarm with all of the fog we had this morning.  It was really socked in as I took Emma on her first outs.
One thing about the fog, though, was that it made all of the spider webs apparent.  I just marvel at the work in each one of these creations.  Just about every strand had moisture beads clinging to them.

Diana and I headed out to document the blooms, and other wildlife, on two trails today.  The pitcher plant blooms are just starting to come out.

We finally got a butterfly to sit still for a minute on a thistle bloom.  Sometimes butterflies are harder to get a picture of than birds.  It’s that wing thing, I’m guessing. 

I’m not going to post all of the flowers we saw today, but I was excited about the first Candyroot blooms of the year.  The color of their blossoms depends on how wet the soil is.  These orange blooms occur in wet soils.  In drier areas the blossoms are pink.  Since pink isn’t one of my favorite colors, I was happy to find the orange ones.

On the Dees Trail, we found the mother of all toadstools.  This mushroom was more than 8’’ in diameter!  More like a toad-table rather than a toadstool.
I also found another fence lizard along the way.  You can tell this is a male by the brilliant blue color on it’s throat.  He was busy chasing his honey around the pine tree.  It was pretty amazing how he blended in so well with the pine bark.

I couldn’t pass up a photo of this geometric seed head of the Toothache grass. (A=pi r2)  The roots of this grass were used to aid in the relief of the pain of a toothache by Native Americans.   It only appears after a fire sweeps through the savannah.  Since the Dees Trail had a prescribed burn last April, the toothache grass heads are abundant this spring.
Now, as for the new trick that this old dog learned.  I have been talking to my youngest son, Andy, and his family about them flying down to Mississippi from Minnesota for a visit next month.  It looks like they’ll be able to come for the weekend after Easter in April.  I’ll be picking out a place for them to stay while they’re here since I really can’t accommodate five people in the rig with Emma and me.  Andy sent me a text message this afternoon telling me that I should mention that they are a military family when I make the reservations.  It is the first time I have ever responded to a text message.  I have a dumb phone, and seldom receive texts.  My answer was:  “OK”.  So, am I a lady of the new millennium or what??  I’m feeling pretty up to date and groovy this evening! 
Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy