Cooler Weather

It has cooled off some, at least at night and in the morning. We are still seeing temperatures in the 90s but the nights are in the 50s and the cooler mornings smell like fall. The light is different, too, with dawn being later and the sun slower to shed its splendor on the Hill. We had a grey morning, too, which was quite a treat, offering as it did a different perspective on some things. The ground, for instance--being primarily limestone, we see fossils regularly, but when the light is softer and slightly aslant I can walk the vague, crushed limestone "two-track" and see fossil after fossil, primarily bits of bivalves but entertaining nonetheless.

 

[I put my finger in for scale but allow me to apologize for its condition--the volunteer fire department has been fighting a large grass fire east of here and I haven't had a lot of luck getting all the fire dirt off my fingers, which normally look cleaner than this.]

I spotted this chunk of fossil on my way back from the water feature at Inspiration Point, where I saw pretty much everything but the porcupine him- or herself.

Quills floated on the surface of the water, drifting slowly amidst the reflections:

In the small pools down which the water cascades due to the solar recirculating pump, there were these: 

Upper right and lower left you can see porcupine droppings

I then hiked past the House and around to the tank on Wildfire Run, which we now call "the cattail tank" as often as we call it the Wildfire tank, as the Narrow-leaf cattails we received so long ago from the Belted kingfisher are trying fairly successfully to take over every last bit of it. I was hoping to see the Black-neck garter snake and in my disappointment I almost missed this sign of his/her continued growth and well-being:



May s/he live long and prosper