Outside

We spent Saturday outside - it was so nice - about 42° F - just light jackets - the Man-Cub did ask to borrow my 'emergency gloves' (those little one size fits all gloves - I keep some spares tucked in the car/purse/shopping bag/etc. - just in case) so it was chilly but not freezing cold...

We saw this elk first thing - probably we hadn't yet made enough noise to frighten away all the wildlife...
I'm skittish about getting too close, but there were lots of trees to hide behind...
so we edged in for a closer view - and of course frightened her away...
The Prairie Dogs are another story - they get used to you pretty quickly...
...if you just sit still for a few minutes...
...they'll quit barking at you and go on about their business...
...there was no snow on this sunny hilltop...
I'm convinced that there is something hypnotic about a thawing lake - that makes you 'have to' see if the ice will bear your weight...
This is almost exactly where we walked across the lake ...
There are still drifts of snow in the shade...
...and the geese have no trouble walking on the ice...
This is another little pond (or slough) that is almost free of ice...
The Man-Cub saw some old tracks - of the wheeled variety - just some old indentions in the grass going up through the woods and wanted to follow them. We had never noticed this path before - but we walked up to this cement thing - right now it's full of snow melt - but we wandered around it trying to figure out what it is/was - a foundation to a building long gone - a cistern for a spring - a watering trough - there's always something mystical about coming upon an old homeplace in the woods...
...just some trees and open space...
...the big lake is still frozen of course - we even saw some ice-fisher-people still out on it...

It was a fun day!