A walk and a 'possum!

Yesterday Noah and I spent too long in the yellow canoe and missed our chance to forage with Steve Brill! He was at Holbrook Farm (our new favorite place to buy produce) talking about edible plants in the typical northeastern landscape. To make up for it, I took Noah to Barnes & Noble and he bought a book on edible plants, which he was then DYING to use.

So today, we went over to Saugatuck Falls Natural Area for a walk with the cutest collie ever, Tag, and Noah brought his book. I borrowed Lori's camera to have a little photo fun.

Beginning of the trail

A man and his dog

Gratuitous pup shot. Ain't he gorgeous?

Sweet Goldenrod

N busily identifying edible plants w/his trusty field guide

Noah identified the goldenrod and some red clover, nothing too edible, though you can make some anise tasting tea from the goldenrod apparently. He's not ready to live off the land yet. I have some more plant identifying to do, too, which will probably require an edit of this post at some point, but here are some more photos for you to enjoy, while I'm looking up their names.

Mountain Winterberry

We chanced upon this lovely cormorant spying for fish in the watershed area.

Cormorant

While walking along, I noticed Tag stopped just ahead of me, his head cocked at a noise he could hear in the tall grass. I assumed it was a bee buzzing around his head that had intrigued him... then Noah asked if I could hear a cat growling. I listened a moment and then discovered this little guy snoring away in the grass just off the trail! Tag had found an opossum!

Snoring 'possum!

We met one other mom and her little girl walking their gigantic Golden Retriever on the trail. He and Tag took turns slobbering on each other for a few minutes and we headed for home. A nice short walk in the woods.

Headed home