Walk in the Woods with Baby Dog Part 1

Friday night I went out onto the slopes at Roundtop to look for meteors from the Perseid meteor shower. The weather was beautiful and clear. I watched the sky as the stars came out. Just before the moon rose, I saw a few meteors, nothing spectacular, but the night was so pretty that I really didn't mind.

Saturday morning the day dawned perfectly clear, with low humidity. I quickly did some housecleaning and then decided it was far too beautiful a day to spend it inside. So I grabbed the camera and Baby Dog. My plan was to go down to the bottom of the mountain and walk through the valley between Roundtop and the next mountain over, which is called Neff's Hill. The photo shows Neff's Hill in the background. To save some time, I headed down the mountain along an abandoned ski slope, instead of trailing through the woods.

Down at the bottom is an old snow-making pond, shown here in the next picture. I don't know that they use this pond much anymore now that Roundtop has made the new pond. At any rate, the road that leads to it is in pretty bad shape for a vehicle, but it's still good as a path. I often seen a lot of waterfowl here later in the year. Wood ducks often nest in the dead trees at the far end, though I didn't see any on this hike. I did startle an immature red-tailed hawk that flew across the pond and through the valley.

Baby Dog was having a wonderful time, running all over the place. I was hoping she might get into the pond since it's shallow at the edges and not instantly deep the way the pond is that's nearest our cabin. But true to form, she wouldn't get into the water. I saw lots of deer tracks in the dried mud and raccoon tracks, though nothing more exotic than that.

In the third picture you can see, a little, how low the pond is, which surprised me. It's been so wet here most of the summer that I expected it would be bank full. Instead, the pond is about 3 feet lower than after average. Usually, I can't walk along the right edge at all the way I could on Saturday.

I took Baby Dog with me on the walk as she hasn't had much opportunity to go for a long hike down here in her short life. In the winter she was still too small. The spring was pretty wet, and much of the summer has been too hot for me, so she hasn't been on many full-fledged hikes. Dog is a veteran hiker and backpacker, so I left him at home on this walk, so I could bring the camera. If I take both dogs with me, I really can't operate the camera and deal with two very enthusiastic dogs who are typically enthusiastic about different things in two separate directions at the same time. So, I usually walk them separately. That way I also get to give them some individual attention. Dog got a nice ride in the car this weekend, which seems to be his favorite thing in the world, as best I can tell. Plus, he got to see some cows, which is his second most favorite thing. The photo is of Baby Dog not going into the water by the edge of the pond.

Tomorrow: More photos from our walk