Lemon Sweet Honeysuckle Morning in the Woods

Saturday morning 8 am I went to the NW Ponds entrance to the Woods. The abundant rains and humid atmosphere of the past week mixed with the blossoms of japanese honeysuckle to produce a lemon sweet fragrance at the entrance. All along Chautauqua the west fence boundary was coming into peak honeysuckle bloom.
A large poison ivy vine had fallen across the West trail.. large enough to block the trail. I cut the upper dead branches and pulled the crown away into the watery sedge. Upper branches killed, in last two years of heat and drought?
With my water boots on, I started to place the heavy stepping stones along the ankle deep flooded trail from the north. One or two Scincella little brown skinks were harboring in the stacked stones. 25 stones set.. others for another day. Need maybe another 75-100?
The Woods' NW entrance is a dense jungle of fresh healthy young growth.. and this is true through much of the Woods. I walked two thirds of the trails, clipping and cutting some of the many branches of trees (mostly box elder) growing across the path.. but the waist-high brome grass, abundant in many places, needs some herbivores. I left it uncut. Vague thoughts about the green weedy trails producing fine roots and below ground biomass, holding the soil against washing and locking in fresh photosynthates.
Ligustrum privet is in peak bloom in the upper Woods of the Tree Loop.. a heavier, sweet fragrance. Cornus rough-leaved dogwood is blooming white too, with its own muskier fragrance. One more Amur honeysuckle along the 2 Pecan trail, midway NW side. I'll cut and kill. Along the NW trail, the five or six catalpa are shedding their large white flowers. Some early light 'cotton' on the ground from the cottonwoods, not much yet.
The east pond depth is 3.10 feet and the Wash has ponds of water, largely filled all the way below the Elm Bridge, although no water flowing through Island Crossing.
No deer observed, although I did not walk the southern section. No turtles, although the vegetation is so thick I could easily have walked past several. Squirrels out playing along the Northern Rim trail. One hawk Cooper's (?) soaring above the squirrels.
Yellow flowering Lactuca(?) wild lettuce blooming 3-4 places. along trails.
Medium diameter coffee tree, tilted 30 degrees from vertical, SE east of E Pond. Looks like center has rot. Will it stay and survive? Trunk split at base.
Odd thing I've seen last year too: along the SW trail in a shaded section of all brown, sodden understory and ankle deep water, one elm has had hundreds of its green leaves plucked off and scattered on ground. No other tree like that in the vicinity. What gives? Like some canopy bird plucking leaves and dropping. May have been persimmon tree last year, in the same area.
One beautiful red admiral butterfly on the blooming privet as I was leaving the Woods.