Among weekend's amazing discoveries that can be shown semi-publicly are riding a horse:

That's Kristin doing the stirrups -- she got the ornery horse, b/c she's the most experienced jockey. The hour-long trek afforded pristine views of brand new spring blossoms and horse's behinds.

On to more discoveries. Here's Gen. Clark pointing at something or other.


It's a little known fact that Gen. Clark was fifteen feet tall, had one arm permanently locked in the "pointing" position, and carried a small girl attached to his foot.




What amazing discovery could they be pointing at???




Turns out it's just Indiana. Gen. Clark was apparently pointing to the nearest Wal-Mart, home of everyday low prices.




Keep Louisville weird!





Rare "Killer Maple" tree (the Native American name is the "Ack-Ack") in Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge -- that's in Indiana, about an hour past the Wal-Mart.






The Wood Duck trail in Muscatatuck NWR. We discovered through picking petals on white flowers that many people "love us" while some "love us not" -- very wise flowers.

By popular demand in my own mind comes another installment of Tuesday Oversharing. Yet another "women with trees" -- well, trees are handy and plentiful, women less so, but there do seem to be endless opportunities for combinations thereof. Does that makes sense?

Let's call these pics "circa 1985."

Saturday our new family had a walk in the Bernheim forest. We even had our own naturalist along to help Jelly appreciate the frozen, non-green landscape.

Here's Jelly in front of a fairy house that she found. The lesson of the day was about seeing the barren-seeming woods with imagination -- Jelly's got the imagination, but not the attention span to really stare at a twig for more than two seconds. She did find and interesting black shiny thing in this fairy house that stumped the naturalist.






Jelly stands on the frozen river. We really did see some amazing things -- minnows darting beneath the ice, leaves frozen in mid-drift down the river -- things we might not have noticed without the naturalist keeping our pace slow and eyes open.




Kristin and Jelly, plus Agron IV, a minor tree-deity in charge of brown-gray lichens.




Kristin and our guide fondle a large fungus.

There was a picture in my old photography book, circa mid-80's, that had a haunting image of a woman alone in a forest of aspens (or some kind of skinny, shadowy tree). I always liked that image -- it certainly has stuck with me. (I have forgotten the photographer or I would link to it.) I guess the feeling was one of making your human-way in a confusing, random natural world. Something like contemplating a riot of stars on a clear night. Anyway, whenever I happen to be in a bare, shadowy forest with a friend and a camera I try to re-create the feeling of the image. Here's my college friend in 1990 in the Kashgar Oasis of Xinjiang Province, China:

And here's Kristin and our friend in Wyoming eighteen years later at Veedawoo -- that's some mighty fine tree-holding.




If anyone knows the original photo, let me know!