Yeah, the garlic is everywhere. I actually live next to Clifty Falls State Park. There's a nature center run by DNR and volunteers as well as plenty of trail area. The main attraction in the park is the steeeeep drop the streams leading to the Ohio have to make down to the Ohio River. This is the main part of the park, but on the eastern end you can, although there are no marked trails, get a feel for what a high, woodland forrest area looks like in Indiana. One of my prominent thoughts yesterday was how nature and animals are connected and grow each other. "Animals like deer worship berries, nuts, and edible greens they can stoop down and reach, while humans, at least in these parts, worship the god of trees / sun (we are tree people, no?) and the hunt / moon as well". Light powers it all and works on so many levels of energy from humans down to tree moss. One thing I was going to ask about was this crazy looking mushroom spawn. In a deer clearing on the hills I noticed a single tree that had these tiny, white toadstool mushrooms ALL OVER the trunk. Most of the other vegetation around that tree had, long ago, been cleared out or something. I was reminded of what Paul Stamets says about mushrooms and their programmed similarity to string theory, because these mushrooms singularity rule seemed to help this tree alone... instead of promoting a healthy ecosystem these mushrooms only let sunlight reach this particular tree and other infected trees in the area where the spore spread. Does anyone know what this fungi is? Also, I noticed that wild strawberries seem even more evasive than the onion plants, but they are still a ways from bearing fruit. Are these berries edible? One final thing I noticed is the abundant ammount of raspberry / blackberry plants! These got me very excited. =) Even if someone can talk about nature doesn't mean they are really interested in getting out and hiking. Basically, the few friends I have are Hanover College Philosophy majors who like to talk about buddha nature and reality but see actually getting out into the woods as a "duty" or "doing their time" rather than a pure enjoyment. I'm sure I will, in good time, come across more people like myself spending time in nature.... For now, I have a few (peterson and others) guides coming in the mail that I think will be very helpful... I can write down dates I first see certain plants coming into bloom and when I start seeing them die off. anyways, thanks for the welcome naturegirl =) /ramble

After the breeding frenzy in late winter and early spring, the turkeys here disappear for a few months. The hens go off into the woods to lay eggs and don't reappear until June if they've successfully hatched a brood. If they lose the brood the hens may return earlier. I don't know where the toms go. I did see one lone tom most of this summer. Two years ago was a really bad year for poults - I think the predators got most of them. This year there was a cooperative event and six hens stayed together with about thirty poults in tow. This was a great traffic stopper on our small rural streets. There was a later, smaller brood too. June 19, 2014 Hens with small poults. July 31, 2014 Hens with growing poults. After they returned I saw turkeys all summer, mostly hens and the growing poults, but few toms. Now that it's getting colder the toms are back too. I suspect there's enough food in the woods during warm weather and turkeys can forage by themselves. The hens with poults to feed probably appreciate my buffet and fresh water (neighbors feed them too) and they may feel safer here than in the woods. In Massachusetts the wild turkey hunting season is Spring: Apr. 28 - May 24 and Fall: Oct. 20 - Nov. 1. Claire Edited to add a tree since this is the Trees Forum. Juniperus virginiana - Eastern Red Cedar shown with turkeys above. This post was edited by claire on Sun, Nov 30, 14 at 11:01

The extinction of the North American megafauna was almost certainly not due to any one event or cause - major factors likely included increased human predation; novel diseases introduced by humans and other animals crossing land bridges; and climate change (which would have altered flora, as well). No one would necessarily have been enough to wipe out the megafauna, but the combined effects were too much to survive. The bison was the largest herbivore to survive the event, and the grizzly the largest predator. There were much larger animals on this continent at one time. We also had an impressive range of big cats. Jaguars did once range as far north as Washington state and Nebraska, but no later than the Pleistocene (for those not familiar with geologic time periods, the Pliocene was from approx. 5 MYA to 1.6 MYA and the Pleistocene from 1.6 MYA to .01 MYA. From .01 MYA to the present is known as the Holocene). Jaguars were typically found where North American lions were absent (which had reached Peru by the Pleistocene). Both were also larger than their surviving modern day counterparts. We also had tigers in Alaska during the last 100,000 years! Sabertooth cats were present in many parts of North America during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. These included Dinofelis, Nimravides (over 3' tall at the shoulder), Machairodus (almost 4' tall at the shoulder), Homotherium and Smilodon (the famous La Brea fossils are S. fatalis). Smilodon populator, larger than the La Brea specimens, was the size of a large lion (4' tall at the shoulder). The cheetahs that populated North America (Miracinonyx) were larger than African cheetahs, and less specialized for speed; there were also European cheetahs that were larger as well and were believed to have had the heavier coats of a northern animal (like a snow leopard or Siberian tiger). They would have done fine in Wyoming in the winter. Alas, African cheetahs would not. Still, imagine what our continent would be like if these big cats were around today! Alan Turner's "The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives" is a great (if technical) read about the living and extinct great cats.

Thanks! Still behind; I have another web album of photos I've not yet posted. We camped in the yard last night as usual in our screen tent, and apparently the jaguar is back..the dogs suddenly went crazy and we heard the strangest, loudest noises. I went online and found some of what we heard on this link-scroll down to audio clip http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/jaguar.html Besides the wails, grunts, rumbles, it also kept making explosive snorts..like an alarmed deer, except MUCH louder, more explosive, lower down, and dragged on and on until my bones vibrated. It seemed the sound wrapped around the tent, and I didn't know where to point the huge spotlight we keep next to us. DuBois plant to take a tape recorder with us this time, in case it returns. I also plan to download jaguar sounds and play them next to my web cams on the hill to see if we can lure it in for a photo. We've not seen its tracks since this march..guess it has a huge territory. Our neighbor was approached by a half grown black jaguar while hunting on our property in the fall of 2006 so it should nearly mature now. Just this spring, another neighbor a few miles away spotted a black jaguar on his farm, so it's still alive. Photo of suspected jaguar track, click on "full screen" http://picasaweb.google.com/rachelbro3/BigFootTracksScat#5317982295991557506