Pinesap Flower

Found on today's hike above the falls at South Mountain. I thought it was a dark Indian Pipe, but it was just different. I looked it up when I got home, sure enough, although in the Indian Pipe family, it's a Pinesap. How have I passed so many autumns here and never noticed it? How is it that no matter how many trails I take or how many times I hike them, I see new things every week? It's infinite, creation is just infinite. I'm so utterly grateful. What a marvelous world the Creator has made.

Among all this hiking and being and coming more and more into my own, I have been doing other things. Like teaching my children, despite in all honesty just feeling tired after seventeen years of teaching. I love my children, I love the philosophy I have chosen to submerse our family in but I have been tired. I guess this week, actually this day, after four weeks of school, is the first day I actually enjoyed. I'm certainly not required to enjoy the things that I have chosen and believe to be right and good. But it sure does help. So, again, I'm grateful that as I've moved through the motions the feelings are returning.

I've also been doing fun things with friends, and this year started a Natural History Club with my dear friend, Sara. You can read about that if you like. It's a lot of fun and we are slowly learning. It's very wonderful to live in community with kindred spirits.

I'll leave you with a two year old cutie.

Little River Trail Falls

The boys and I hiked around 6 miles today. I saw so many neat things! It's a lot of hard work, going up and down hills but I am feeling stronger and I get to be in my favorite place, outside, doing what I love, seeing and experiencing creation. 

We intended to hike Saddleback but it was closed because it was too wet. So we chose to continue on to Turkey Ridge and connect to Little River Trail because that would be new to us and give us the extra miles we wanted to push ourselves on with. We started doing 2.5/3 mile trails so we are pretty proud. 

I've been wanting to see this for a very long time. Indian Pipe. This is a really cool plant that is white and feeds on decaying vegetation by a symbiotic relationship with fungus in the soil. Um, wow!

I believe this beauty is a Hoof Conk, but I'm new to identifying fungus so I could be wrong. A fungus/mushroom identification book is at the top of my Christmas list!

This bizarre mushroom is a Stalked Puffball-in-aspic. I'm certain of this identification. It was a really exciting find for me along the banks of Little River where we stopped to each lunch. 

In this photo you can see the grey cloud of spores that proofed out when Ben gently touched the ball of fungus. The stalk was gelatinous and gooey. They were growing out of a mossy bank all along the little path to the river. 

We stopped on the bridge to eat our peanut butter and honey sandwiches. It took us about an hour and a half to reach this point. We seem to average 2 miles per hour when we hike trails with elevation. We have backpacks that are pretty light. When I hike with a 35 lb toddler on my back it takes me longer to get up those big hills!

These very poor pictures show a vine growing in the tree down to the river with its roots in the water. 

I wish this was my lunch time view everyday!

Rattlesnake plantain and muscadines. We've enjoyed scavenging for trail snacks this September.  

We decided to continue on to the end of the trail but when we got almost to the end, we ran into this curious sign. 

I'm pretty strict about not leaving trails. But there was quite a worn path where many had gone before and I had two very adventurous boys with me. Sooo....

Over the fence we went, along a slightly inclined path and saw this:

(Or rather heard, then saw)

This pictures do no justice to the beauty of this waterfall. Looking down here we couldn't see much but it was loud and we could see another worn path so down we went!

It was so lovely! I felt like a little girl again. I stood as close as I could to the spray and just listened to the sound of the water and felt the rush of the cool air. I've never done that. It felt like our own. 

Looking down, we were at the halfway point and I'm guessing it was 25-30 feet high. 

We stayed a bit and ruefully regretted eating our lunch on the bridge where the river looked and sounded so placid.  Then we had to climb back up to the path like mountain goats but we loved every minute. 

Our view on the return hike, we could see so far. It was, as always, a good hike with my guys. I always feel so good after a long hike. I'm definitely getting stronger and have better endurance and that makes me very happy.