5/4/15

            I was able to get into the woods again today, but in a completely different setting than normal. Yesterday, I got my bike out and went for a ride by the Des Moines River and up past the Saylorville dam but there were people everywhere. I figured today would be a little different being a Monday morning, and it sure was. The only people I saw were a couple dog walkers, a biker and a mushroom hunter. For the first half of my ride it was just me and the forest, as I took my time riding along the trail parallel with the river. It was a perfect spring morning with the sun poking through the treetops, shining on the bright green undergrowth, the forest could not look any better. I was hoping to come across some deer while on the trail, (I can cover a lot more ground on a bike than if I was hiking) but saw none. There were squirrels chasing each other off of their territory, all kinds of birds winding their way through the trees, robins, bluebirds, cardinals. On my way back I saw a pair of geese with their young in between them swimming against the current in single file. At one point a pair of robins jumped into the trail and started doing some sort of mating ritual. The most surprising sight of the day came when I was just leaving my house and driving down the block. An opossum ran across the road right in front of my car, I guess no one can keep from getting out on a morning like this.