Wonderful Glorious Rain and Lion?

A mere 5/100ths of an inch of rain.. but at 5:30 this afternoon our late summer 3-week drought broke.
After 25 days of monotonous 95, 97, 94, 98, 96, 92, 93 etc.. highs everyday and no rain.. it is wonderful to have clouds and feel the down sweep of suddenly cool air.. even for this few hundredths of an inch. Hope more will come tonight. (Ultimately 0.3 inches fell before midnight.)
Yesterday, 11 Sept at 3:30 I walked with Emma in through the NE Gate of a thoroughly parched Woods.. not as deathly droughted as 2012.. the trees with deep roots were still drawing on abundant, record July rainfall.. but the Woods were very dry. The Main SW trail was broken along the way into small polygons of soil, cracked open by the long lack of rain. The tall trailside grasses were mostly gone from along the Tree Loop leaving the low green bunch grasses. There were thin tall stalks of white flowering Polygonum knot weed mixed with the light lavender blossoms of Elephantopus elephant foot.
We dropped down the Pipeline Trail and stopped at (dry) Island Crossing to look for tracks around the still soft drying mud where the small pool had been.. and saw a large track with no nails. It looked to me like a mountain lion. Exciting if true. I'll have to ask Nick to take a look. There are stories of lions in the Woods 10-15 years ago.. and there are deer for them.. and they are in the region (sightings and collisions with autos within 50 miles).. and the Canadian River provides a corridor. Still, must remain dubious until track is examined by someone more knowledgeable than me.
We passed by a Kentucky coffee tree Gymnocladus with Virginia creeper Parthenocissus and poison ivy Toxicodendron .. one of the few trail-side poison ivy vines I've left alone for education. The poison ivy had 3 small white slime mold plasmodia beginning to sporulate. We found big dry Auricularia jelly fungus crisp and whitened with drought at the base of an elm.
The East Pond was still there but down now to a small pool maybe fifteen feet long by 10 feet wide. We did not go to the West Pond but Ricky did not find the West Pond a few days ago, walking along the Ponds Trail for the first time. It is likely pretty small too.
Emma and I exited by the Elm Bridge (Wash there was dry).
I enjoyed talking with Emma about how the 'rambunctious garden' of Oliver's Woods with all its invasives was a valuable place for us to study. The abundant Ligustrum privet provides a good nectar source for hard-pressed honey bees. There is a prolific bloom in June. We did not get down to the areas where Lonicera japanese honeysuckle is abundant; but ecological studies are showing it to be  beneficial to many species. There is also Liriope monkey grass and a variety of other species of invasives finding footholds in the Woods.. creating novel ecosystems.. providing ecosystem services. I am removing the Albizia mimosa trees, Hedera english ivy and Lonicera maackii Amur honeysuckle when I find it. The trumpet vine Campsis and virgin's bower Clematis are still blooming along the Chautauqua fence line and attracting bright yellow cloudless sulphurs Phoebis.

September return to the Woods.

Nice 'cold front' rolled through and dropped temps to 80's and low 90's F.
I decided to catch up on deferred trail maintenance and started about 9 am at the SW Gate. I carried paint to refresh all the trail blazes. By 2 o'clock I'd finished walking 90% of all the trails. I cleared branches and fallen tops all along the way and did the blue blazes. Good to have the fresh paint for late evening navigation after sunset. More visible in low light or near darkness.
By the NW Pond I spotted one box turtle near the jct with the Ravine Trail. There was an immature great blue heron looking for lunch standing on the west side of the pond. Did not fly for several minutes with me watching. There were two groups of white tailed deer: three west of the beaver dam running north into the Woods; and one group of two west of the Wash near Island crossing. The pool above Island Crossing had dried to mud. There was still a pool of very muddy water in the Wash by the big mimosa tree; one buck ran from there as I approached. Mosquitoes not bad, a little annoying along the West Trail.
The sedges were all flattened along the Big Tree Grove trail by the leaning willow. It looked like this was where the deer were sleeping. Big green ash tree # 506 still has sweet fermenting flux down the trunk, today with a dozen green calliphorids, several Camponotus carpenter ants and one Polistes wasp.
I did not do the Northern Rim or the Ravine Trail. Another day..
Approaching the SW Gate as I was leaving, the air was perfumed with good sweet smell of Clematis, in full bloom along the edge of the Woods.
Only spotted two seed ticks when I got home and showered.