Ravine Trail

This afternoon at 12:30 I took loppers to the new Ravine Trail. After two hours or more the trail is roughly open. It needs a lot more work.. lots of little stuff, Smilax briers and Symphoricarpos buckbrush to remove but no large diameter logs requiring a saw.

When I decided to quit I walked south across the flooded west Woods. The past 4-5 days of very cold weather have frozen the flooded forest and it was great being able to walk or skate everywhere. Skates literally would have been good in two or three places. Seems like the freezing is holding more water in the Woods. There were large areas under water/ ice.
On the south side of the deeper water surrounded by flooded sedges (in line with the new orange survey rod north of Andrea Drive) I found a 1.5 meter tall shrub with strange dried flowering pod.. each pod opened like a flower with each of the five parts split open to release the seeds. I've got to remember or find out what this is. Beneath the ice along the main SW trail in the Woods I could see bright green algae. I imagine the clear ice let through enough light to keep photosynthesis going.

Wandering across the central Woods I encountered the white-tail deer herd..four of them today.. just west of the Tall Stump. About the same area I found two of the tall, dark brown, almost woody puff balls.. the first of these I've seen in Olivers Woods.

I stopped by the Two Friends cottonwood (#99) and looked at the canopy broken by the wind, snow and ice Christmas Eve. The tops of the ruined branches had buds swelling.. ready to open to the spring that will not come for this tree again. I heard something suddenly moving in the dense crash of fallen branches .. could have been a rabbit but sounded larger.. did not see it.

I saw again the single squirrel I saw yesterday at the base of the northern slope running up a large pecan bole broken and laying up the slope. Amazing there are not many more squirrels there.

Odd that there seems to be just one pair of youngish tall straight sycamores in the Woods.. north of the eastern Trans OWP Trail. How did they get there and why only there with none other in the surrounding acres? It seems a good, almost ideal site for them and I believe they will grow rapidly to become very large trees.