Nature

Oh no, where is he taking me?

| edwinridout

1-100_0699 Up the hill across what we still call the oats field, from the center of one of the two paths forming the X  once visible from space. The satellite photo below was saved in 2008, but must have been taken earlier. The white rectangle is the roof of the house.

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Which leads to another flashback: Dad coaxing Beethoven up the same hill at the same spot, 10/24/2008. (The hankie was required because the cat was deaf. )

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Delmont to Saltsburg and back, 17½ miles

| edwinridout

Starting at crack of dawn, Tim and I ran the Westmoreland Heritage Trail from Delmont to Saltsburg and back this Saturday morning in early September. What a lovely trail! We saw only one other likely round-trip runner, maybe half a dozen bicyclists, a couple of dog walkers, and a small group of Scouts hiking. The trail crosses a road only four or five times, mostly country lanes. The crushed stone surface was in excellent condition the whole way, although there were one or two spots where erosion from water runoff could use some attention. Being tired on the way back, we certainly noticed the trail is mostly uphill from Saltsburg to Delmont, and were then grateful for the shade provided by the almost complete canopy.
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Curtis Lake

| edwinridout

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From the Curtis Park dam early Sunday morning, Hartwood, Virginia.
The Fredericksburg paper had a picture of a swan at this spot in March of 2013. Today I could also see two more on the far side of the lake. The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries said in 2012, “The mute swan is classified as a non-native exotic (nuisance) species in Virginia.”