Monte Sano, up close and personal
Most of the pictures I post from hiking around here are sweeping vistas (such as there are from small mountains), cascading streambeds, and unusual or spectacular rock formations. Those are the big things that make hiking fun.
Today, the small.
On the off chance anyone wants full-size versions of any of these (I think some of them are actually good, but I’m biased), feel free to email me.
"You want a piece of me?"
St. John’s Wort is growing wild everywhere around here.
They’re awfully pretty. It seems like you can use it to treat some
mental disorder, but trying to find things like that with Google
just makes me feel depressed.
The blackberries are starting to ripen nicely.
Lizards are strange. Some days I see them everywhere; some days I
don’t see a single one.
The web tree
These days, I’m seeing more turtles than snakes, oddly.
Millipedes are all over the forest floor.
I love me some wildflowers.
An ant checks out my backpack when I stop for water.
I wish this picture hadn’t blurred. Whatever that is, it’s alive.
I won’t even hazard a guess as to sort of insect it is,
but it’s mighty cool-looking.
Like an itty bitty sunflower, but alas, it’s a daisy.
Wild petunias grow all over Monte Sano. Ruellia humilis, if you speak Latin.
Places to go, people to see. Move along now.
It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. 
Sometimes I feel watched when I’m stopped for water.
I don’t know if this was a big fern with little fronds, or a
bunch of little baby ferns.
Many varieties of colorful shrooms around here.
Another visitor on my backpack.
Almost translucent, he was.
A deer tick waits on a weed for an unsuspecting host named Fred
to wander by. You wouldn’t believe how many of these things I find
crawling up my legs. I’m a tick-thumping champion now.
But, no matter how I check, I still find them when I get home.
This one’s on my sock, and made it up inside my tied-leg pants.
One from the butt of my pants I found when I was checking
them before putting them in the wash.
And one that made it into my calf. He doesn’t look attached, but he was.
Originally I thought you were supposed to put Vaseline on them to get
them to let go, but Google told me otherwise. You just grab them up
by the head with some tweezers and yank them right out.
Damn ticks.
Not impressed with his daddy’s ticks.
Man! Your entry makes me want to go hiking RIGHT NOW! I’m going trail riding with my sister on bikes in a minute here, so I guess that’ll do.
Love all the critters. We get a lot of those same critters here in Kentucky.
Man! Your entry makes me want to lock my door and seal the windows with duct tape!
The bugs! I haaaaaaaate the BUGS!
The flowers and critters (non-bug critters) are purty, though.
Thanks for sharing!
Make sure you get them and not allow an errant unseen one to give you some lifelong malady. I know a few people who have gotten Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and it is nearly impossible to get rid of
There are other tick borne illnesses. I pull them off of my dog all the time.
Beautiful entry though
ewww … bugs! i’m more of an indooors type person. *smile*
great pics of the flowers and turtle … ticks freak me out.
Holy moly with the ticks! Getting bit by one around here (CT) would almost guarantee you would get Lyme Disease. Buggers are nasty up here. I hate ‘em.
Fred you even made bugs look pretty…awesome pictures.
Thanks for sharing. The pics are great. We have had an infestation of ground beetles here in Carson City. The newspaper took pics and made them look like something from War of the Worlds. I love it here because there are no fleas or ticks or chiggers. Mosquitoes and flies are enough for me!
OOOOOOOOO, PRETTTTY!! I think the yeller one is St John’s Wort. Looks like this pic http://briartech.com/hws/wf2004/june26c/img5.htm
Thanks, Debby. That’s exactly what it is. Interestingly, when I was hiking with someone back in Oct/Nov, he kept talking about how much St. John’s Wort was growing all over, but it wasn’t blooming then. Now that I know what it is, I see what he means about how much of it there is.
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As to tick comments, we’re pretty fortunate here with Lyme Disease and Rocky Mt Spotted Fever in that we don’t see much of it. I’m pretty meticulous about checking when I get home, and so far I’ve only had two actually get embedded. Usually I find them working their way up me. Also, as quickly as I’ve gotten the ones out that I’ve had, my risk is even lower. Apparently, the diseases aren’t passed that quickly, and take some time.
Still, they’re icky. I went for a hike today to get some flower pictures for a reader and managed to pick up two more, one of which I didn’t see until I was driving down the side of the mountain.
Fortunately there was no traffic in the other lane when I swerved into it.
You’ve got a great eye Fred, thanks so much for sharing your pictures. Awesome.
I believe the blurry pic is a caterpillar. So, technically, not yet an insect.
http://www.whatsthiscaterpillar.co.uk/america/index.htm
Great pictures! Ticks…Ewww.
Ick Ick Ick Ick…….. ticks make me SQUIRM!!
loved the pictures.
that web tree was awesome
And the yellow one that looks like a daisy? I believe it’s a Black-eyed Susan. We had them growing in my yard when I was a kid!
My hudsband is a “tick-magnet” too. I don’t know why they like him so much… He douses his clothes with that super-DEET stuff from the hunter’s supply store, ties off his pants legs, everything. Yick.
Love the photos! Thanks for sharing…
Cool–I just got back from camping myself and have my pictures transfering from the camera right now.
Ticks–ugh. Southeastern Ohio is plagued with ticks. (Which is why we went to West Virginia to go camping.) Bug spray doesn’t seem to work on them. The only thing I’ve found that actually does work is a concoction I made of essential oils. I don’t have the recipe handy but it was cedarwood, rosemary, and citronella oils (maybe a fourth one that I can’t recall?) in a base of vitamin E oil. Smear it around your ankles, socks, shoes, etc. I know it sounds all new-age hokum and all that, but it is the only thing that keeps the ticks off me. And that’s important, not only because I have a phobia about ticks, but because there’s both Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever here…
I’m not impressed with daddy’s ticks either! I was enjoying your entry until the ticks made their entrance. As they say in Japanese “I YA DA!”
I ya (ee yah) = yucky
Da (dah) = is
Is yucky!
Are you worried about lyhme disease? YIKES!