Ground Zero Takes Wing

Looking north into a songbird’s meadow

It’s a cool spring morning, low cloud crowned by high cirrus moving through pale blue as I step into the southern end of the meadow.  May’s coming but isn’t quite here yet.  April still has one more day to give, and this is it:  sky high and fine, breezes dry and easy, open-throated songbirds on the wing as the sun continues to climb.

Somewhere near the northern end of this meadow is Joshua’s Cache (GC1M422), my sole geocaching objective for the day here in Ellanor C. Lawrence Park.   Finding the hide is only part of what’s so satisfying about geocaching, though.  You never know what interesting discoveries you’ll make along the way.  Winding my way down to the north end of this green space brought another world into clear focus for me, a world I hadn’t paid close attention to for a long time.   Two of its emissaries were just around the bend.

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The Return of Bear’s Lodge

Walney Pond at Ellanor C. Lawrence Park

Walney Pond at Ellanor C. Lawrence Park

Last  Sunday afternoon in Ellanor C. Lawrence Park I found a geocache I’d first gone looking for in March, Bear’s Lodge (GC18HZ8).

This is the first time I’ve watched the park move from winter into spring.  Walney Pond is transformed from frozen gray into an explosion of life, including  lily pads, yellow irises, mallards, Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds and all of us humans who flock to be in the presence of all this beauty.  Walney Pond is a worthy destination and the perfect point of departure for the trails that lead up and away into the woods beyond.

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