I love taking my camera for a walk, looking for patterns, wildlife, and variations in the light. Today on the way down the half mile trail to the pond, my husband and I spotted a black and brown woolly worm eating aster leaves, soft yellow waves of corn stubble on a hill beyond the pond, coppery oaks and bright yellow shrubs, six pied-billed grebes diving and popping up, a distant platoon of coots paddling and scrapping (visible through the viewing platform telescope), and a brown DeKay’s Snake trying to warm up on the path. The snake was big–for a DeKay–a whopping twelve inches long and a little thicker than a pencil. This fella must have been cold, because it didn’t slither away as we approached. By this time wispy clouds started blocking the sun, ahead of the promised rain. My husband spotted the way the fuzzy seed heads of goldenrod caught the light, so I knelt to get the best angle. When I stood up, I spotted the quilt heart, suspended from the top of a thick piece of prairie grass, on the opposite side of the trail.
