County Hikiing Challenge 11/15 or Maybe Not

Today it got up into the mid 60s, which is really weird for around here at this time of year.  Mommy and I took our morning walk and I pretended to come up lame when I didn't want to leave the lake, but Mommy wasn't fooled.  Then she cut down the last of her gardens and mowed and raked up more leaves for the big sucker truck to come get.  I made sure the squirrels stayed up in the trees and the feral cats stayed out of my yard, and then Mommy said, "Let's go hiking."  When she went in to see what the last two hikes were she realized that we might not have enough time to do either of them in, so we went to the preserve that I could walk to when I was younger and did some of that instead.  We have a "Wild Card" option on our hiking challenge so we may count this hike, although I really want to do the yellow trail Mommy wouldn't let me do on the river hike too, so Mommy isn't writing down today's hike as our wild card, just in case we get to the yellow trail.

So here's the hike.

There were a lot of dogs on the trail today, so there was a lot of pee mail to check.  You can see that the plants have gone dormant for fall.

This trail is the savanna with prairie, swamps, ponds, a creek, and little patches of trees.  Mommy and I had planned to walk to the creek, but when we got to the preserve there was a sign saying the creek walk was going to be closed until late December for improvements. Mommy and I decided to walk to the patch of trees in the background there instead.

Mommy stopped suddenly while I was doing some sniffing and got out her camera, so I figured she was going to be taking boring pictures of birds like she does at this preserve and I took advantage of her being distracted to grab a big mouthful of treats out of her bag. I was so happy eating my stolen treats that I didn't notice that Mommy was taking a picture of

A great big bunny!  He was very close to us and I didn't have a clue.  He was downwind of me so I couldn't smell him and I think that is a good excuse and I'm sticking with it.  He could smell me and he started coming towards us.  Mommy got a little worried that he might become nasty since the deer are going into rut right now and a big buck like that might not think twice about trying to stomp a dog like me, but that didn't stop her form taking pictures of him when he stopped to get a better look at us.

But then he turned and decided to cross the trail about 15 feet in front of us.  I STILL DIDN'T SEE HIM because I was sniffing pee mail and stuff.

Once he was past the trail he ran off towards that old barn and Mommy lost sight of him.

When he headed toward the barn he got upwind of me and that was when I realized there was a big bunny out there somewhere.  I searched and searched but couldn't find him.  Mommy laughed at me and called me a "big old idiot", which I don't think was very nice.

We got to the clump of trees and turned around and the wind picked up and the sky started to look threatening.

We took the boardwalk through the swamp on the way back and stopped at the dock where the muskrats live.  Remember last time we were here the water was very low and I wondered what muskrats did when the water got so low.  Well, now there is NO WATER in the swamp!  I took a picture

and Mommy did too.  Poor Musky the Rat.  I hope he made it over to the creek and the construction isn't upsetting him too much.

It started to rain a bit towards the end of the hike, but not bad enough to make me get mad at Mommy, and then it stopped as quickly as it started.

Mommy liked the way the sun beams came out thought this crack in the clouds after the rain let up.

Total miles:  2.7