I’m trying to hike in the Hoosier National Forest at least once per month this year. My dog Sophie loves the forest and so do I. Here she is on the northern portion of the Nebo Ridge Trail. The creek bed was mostly dry, but there were a few pools of water. She found one and splashed about for about five minutes, cooling off. Temperatures were in the low 70s, but we’d been walking for an hour by this point and she’s wearing a fur coat.
As we hiked for three miles through a green world, I was struck by how many insects were in the forest, and how few the signs of mammals. Sophie ran up to the foot of a tree once or twice, behaving as if she spotted a squirrel, but I never saw them. Or any other animal. I didn’t even see pawprints. In contrast, I spent a lot of time brushing insects off of us. Not necessarily bothersome insects — just a lot of them.
We also passed a section of the trail where a number of healthy trees had come down recently — maybe four or five, all in close proximity to one another. An intense gust of wind? A small tornado? We were on a ridge along the east side of a ravine, and the storm would probably have come from the west. Whatever brought the trees down probably struck about a week or so ago, because their leaves were darkened green and well curled.