Smell the flowers, stomp through the mud, eat wild blackberries

We slept in Sunday morning. It's good to do that every now and then--sort of resetting your inner clock. I'm gonna stand by that. Sounds good. We decided about 11:00 to take Jake to the trailz for a run. He was most agreeable.

 Crossing Elwood from 68th Street, we heard a rooster crow, and wandering around the parking lot was a flock of roosters--all hanging out together. I tried to get them together for a group pic, but they would have no part of it.


But this guy was more of a picture hound, I took several shots while he posed, and this one was the best, taken mid-crow.


We headed up the hill. Of course there were a few muddy spots, but overall, the trails were better than we expected. There were more flowers than I have ever seen. We decided to just take it easy. For me, I am tapering. So I ran 4 miles today to at least have SOMETHING to taper down from. 100 miles awaits me Saturday, and I have not ran 100 miles in the past 3 months combined!


Jake gets his first swim in the Blue Trail pond.


He also hydrates here. Actually, the water was clear--not muddy like it has been for the past month.


More flowers. I guess this is what happens when you slow things down. You notice things you might otherwise run by.


This short stretch of trail would not go unnoticed on a run. Enough people have gotten off to the edge that a once 6 foot wide trail is now 12 feet.


I waded out into a bunch of weeds to take this picture. Now, 7 hours later, I have chigger bites on my bum.


On the Ridge Trail near the turtle rock, some folks consider it ok to toss their water bottles. :-/

Scroll on by if you're tired of flower pictures. Dana likes them.


I looked for some kind of bug to toss into the web. No luck.


My overall pace was well over 20 minutes per mile--but I kept stopping for pictures


From here, we headed west toward Pepsi Pond. Jake needed another swim, and we were looking at doing a 4 mile loop.


More flowers. Yada yada.


It's a good year for frogs. We saw 100s. Maybe 1000s. They are a middle link in a long food chain. I like it that they'll eat mosquitoes. But they'll feed the snakes.


Have you caught on that it's a flower pic and then a non-flower pic?


One tick for the day. My tickometer is up to 16, and in a year where ticks are super bad, the only reason I'm not over 100 is because I have not been running much.


On the west side, there was a lot of potato chip fungus.

And more little frogs.


This is Fistulins hepatica, also called beefsteak fungus, or ox tongue. It is suppose to be edible, but it is also described as tasting sour and acidic. Yum yum.
    

An old friend, who was also out for a leisurely stroll.


Now here's something edible. I luv me sum blackberries. I picked a few and popped them in my mouth.


the first couple were super sour. They looked ripe, but not the tasty treat I expected.


Pucker up! But the blackberries we saw on the Snake Trail were actually sweet. If I had something to put them in, I would have brought home a batch.


It's been a while since you've seen a flower picture.


I'm puzzled as to why mountain bikers would come out when the trailz are this muddy.


More flowers.


This is at the Snake Run aid station locale.


Aren't these awesome?

We are at mile 3.1, and poor Jake is ready to go home. He's basically a 5K dog anymore. Maybe we will build him up so he can regain his title of the 5 mile dog.

And we headed down Lipbuster and called it a day.

4.1 miles, and a good outing.