Thursdays Trails

Emmy called this morning and invited us to go to the Nature Center.  At first I said no because tomorrow is Fun Friday and I don't want to take away from that but it wasn't raining and we needed to get out...so we packed up, bug sprayed up, seat belted up and off we went.

First on the list of must do's...check out the map to see where we are.

Carter is now affectionately known as 'stick boy'.

Wammy, you want me to do what?

I love little boys that get dirty.

I almost got the perfect shot of all of them...a miracle!

Please don't think that Carter is standing on a rock that is about three feet off the ground...Emmy is standing behind the yahoos holding him up.  Not bad.

I have a story to tell about these things but first I need to get some feedback from the Nature Center.  Pretty cool.  Check back later it the week.

UPDATE...heard back from the Nature Center...these little 'white faries' are actually woolly aphids or woolly buggers.  I know this because a man coming down the trail towards us took time out of his conversation and hike to use a teachable moment with all the yahoos.  He asked us if we wanted to see something pretty cool.  Of course we were all over it..he looked like he knew what he was doing...be had binoculars.  He was so excited to show us because he said this is the only time of year that you could see this.  He took us to an elm tree and showed us this while stuff on the leaves and branches.  He called them woolly buggers.  The kids thought that was funny.  The aphids use the elm tree as a host.  they eat the sap and them make a sugary deposit on the ground.  It looked like fire ashes.  If you take the limb and give it just the slightest shake the begin to flutter or wave their arms like a ghost would.  The looks like little white fairies hanging on for dear life. So now every time we go to the Nature Center we will be looking for woolly buggers and pawpaws.