Ritchey Woods in the Spring

It's been raining buckets around here.  Between the endless rain and Eli's three-day fever last week, it feels like we've been stuck inside forever.  Much to everyone's happiness, the sun finally came out last Tuesday and it was the most glorious spring day of the season.

In the afternoon we headed over to Ritchey Woods Nature Preserve.  I have professed my love for Ritchey Woods before, when we had Elena's nature birthday party there last summer.  On this occasion, Elena was signed up for a program with a naturalist.  While she hiked to the swamp to look for amphibians, Eli and I walked the Preschool Trail.

Eli is a big fan of sticks these days, the bigger the better.  He found a "gick" just the right size for poking into muddy puddles.

He took to the trail like he'd been doing this his whole life.  He wasn't crazy about walking through the mud, but he loved looking at the flowers, the birds, and most of all, the bugs.

There must be hundreds of different wildflowers in bloom right now.  This is a mayapple.  The flower actually blooms underneath the leaves.  If you're not paying attention, you'll miss it.  And that would be a shame – it really is a pretty flower.

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There were masses of these flowers all along the trail.  I had to hunt around the web to figure out what they were: wild hyacinth.

If there was ever a wildflower that made you want to stand up taller and smile a little bigger, this is it.

Today it's raining buckets again.  But you know what they say about spring showers . . .