Hiking at Stumpy Lake

We went hiking the other day at Stumpy Lake park-- it's GORGEOUS out there, but Aubree got a little grumpy on the hike. We ended up having to let her tantrum it out for a few minutes, then she walked over to us when she was calmed down and ready to keep going. She's pretty good about calming herself down as long as we give her the chance to get her emotions out. Aaaaanyways, here are some pictures!

There were a TON of lichens on the trees-- it was SO cool!



We went right up to the edge of the water in the swamp. We were watching this critter splash around for a little while, thinking that it was a turtle, when its tail flew up in the air while it was swimming-- it was a water moccasin! Eek! We high-tailed it out of there, back to the trail!



A picture of Scott on the trail



A cool shot of a tree-- there were a bunch of vines on trees too. Everything was just SO green!



I made a hiking nomenclature card set on a ring, so that Aubree and I could identify things as they came. It has animals (divided into mammals, insects, and other), plants, and miscellaneous "parts of the trail" like bridge, rock, stream, etc. Aubree LOVED it-- she pointed to the card and babbled whenever I identified something.



And a great shot of Scott and Aubree together :) I am so incredibly blessed with these two.



It was an awesome trail, but we'll definitely make sure that it didn't rain earlier in the day next time that we go-- it was muddy and swampy like nobody's business! But yeah, beautiful wildlife :)

If anyone's interested, here are some pictures of the hiking nomenclature cards-- I made them in Microsoft Word, laminated them, cut them out, hole-punched them, and put them on a ring, so they're really easy to clip onto the backpack and bring with us. I can email the file to anyone who's interested, so shoot me a comment or a message on Facebook if you want a copy. They are all species and animals that are native to our area (southeastern Virginia), but most of them (deer, picnic table, trail, crow, etc.) are pretty universal.

















I forgot to take pictures, but there are dividers between "Animals", "Plants", and "Miscellaneous". Helps us navigate them quickly. And also, we tried to use some of our own pictures for the cards :)