Cross Country Trail

2.74 miles hiked today

32.71 miles completed total



Today we hiked the Cross Country Trail.  They had a sign for it but it didn't turn out to be listed anywhere.  I had to call the metroparks office to get a mileage on it.  I guess Firestone has 4 trails instead of 3.  The weather turned on us in the middle of the hike which made it a little uncomfortable but other than that we did fine. 

The ducks kept swimming over to where we were standing.  I think they thought we came to feed them because when we left the pond they followed after us.

Once back further on the trail there were places where there were more ducks.  Annie was able to get closer to them and get some great pictures.

And this

Annie is 11 and I think she did a great job. 

We also fed the chickadees like we did at nature realm.  The kids loved it.  Next time we need to bring more seed.  We had to find seed off the ground the the birds and the kids still enjoyed it.

Ever since our class on identifying trees in winter I have been trying to keep up on what I learned.  We found this seed pod but had no idea what it was

When I got home I did some research on the internet and determined it was from a female Kentucky Coffee Bean tree.  I had never seen a pod like this and liked the feel of it. I will have to make sure to go back in the summer and take a look at some of the leaves.

 The last thing I found was coyote scat.  You can tell it is from a coyote because it is full of fur.  Once the waste has  washed away it looks almost like a cat furball.  Kind of nasty but still a neat find.
The rest of the trail was just the trail in reverse.  I wish they didn't do this with trails.  I understand they need to sometimes but I am always disppointed when they do.