Four Caches

Today after church (and after lunch) David and I took Penny down to Sandogardy Pond. I’ve been seeing a mystery plant on the edge of the Interstate lately, and I thought there might be some along the trails by the pond, so I wanted to check that out. When we got there, I saw a whole bunch of it, just as I hoped I might.

Mystery Plant

This plant looks a little cabbage-like. It grows about three feet high in shady, wet places (i.e, in swamps in the woods). It has leaves that are about a foot wide. I have never seen it in bloom, and that makes it difficult to find in any of my field guides, as they all organize plants by bloom color.

When we got back, Beth and I then took Penny to the Winnipesaukee Trail. There are several geocaches along the trail, and I figured we could bag four of them. And we did! One of them required a bit of bushwhacking, and when Beth found it, it had a hole in the lid. The contents were soaked to the point where I didn’t think we could sign the log. Oh well.

Penny chased sticks the whole time, and I did my best to keep her moving at top speed. I could tell she was starting to get tired, because she would run after the stick, scoop it up, and then lay down and wait for us to catch up instead of dashing back to us with the stick. This was a good day for her – she doesn’t generally get nearly as much exercise as she needs.

I spotted several wildflowers along the path, including some strawberries and violets. We also saw three or four ducks paddling around a rock in the river. I took some pictures, but didn’t have my full-sized tripod with me, so I had to try to steady the camera by hand. That’s hard to do when zoomed in to the max (40x).

Mystery Ducks

I’m going to get my bird guides out in a little bit and see if I can’t figure out what these are. If anyone knows though…