I made a sort of photo hike trip to one of my favorite places in the midlands which is located about 8 miles northeast of Kershaw in Lancaster County. It's about 66 miles and an easy trip to make for a unique environment that has some of the characteristics of the mountains. In Spring, the wildflowers, especially around the beaver pond are quite spectacular. There are plenty of Windflower, some Wood Anemone, Halberd-leaved Violets, Spring Beauties, False Garlic, Yellow Buckeye, Hawkweed, Indian Strawberry, Phlox, Wood Sorrel and Bloodroot. And on the rock, pictured above, are the rare Pool Sprite and the red Stonecrop. I found some Puck's Orpine on the way up which is also unique to this granite outcrop. You can see more of the Rock's flora at my Flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toadshade/sets/72157615351166935/detail/
Years ago I used to hike to see how far I could go. I was training for marathons back then and the mountain walks were tough but good to strengthen the legs. I ran my best marathons back then. Later when I got with my friend Bill, who was more into the study of nature, he helped slow me down to see what I was missing and I can hardly walk 50 yards without finding something unique to nature and the world. This blog tends to meander between the two interests which are really one. I tend to ascribe to the old Tolkien saying: All who wander are not lost.
I've come to see running as a meditation and nature, my own and the natural world, as the wellspring that feeds it. My spiritual path insists on staying in the here and now. Nothing, to me, grounds you in the here and now like nature. In a couple of weeks, most of these flowers won't be here. Others will come to take their place. I will have changed too.
In the words of Heraclitus, the Pantheist philosopher, no man ever steps in the same river twice.
toadshade
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