Hunting the elusive

Last Saturday, Rie, Burgess, their dogs Bucky and Bacon, and I drove to Kansas to scout out areas where morels might be coming up. That land has cedars, creeks, plenty of dead trees, mayapples...all the things I've heard you need to be successful with a morel hunt. If only there had been some rain (that one other thing you need to find the elusive morel)...

Bucky had a fabulous time wading in the creek.

It was the perfect depth for a little french bulldog.

Bacon however, questioned that whole get in the water thing.

He preferred to just drink it.

Of course this one showed up to do both, drink the water and then wade in it or maybe it's wade and then drink...anyway, Aussie was the main reason for Bacon being so thirsty. Aussie is twice as tall as Bacon so when those two dogs were going up and down hills, one of those dogs was working twice as hard. And that would not be Aussie.

All in all, a very good day for dogs...just not so much for people because we didn't find any morels...also, a total of nine ticks drove back with us to Missouri (eeeugh! eeeugh! eeugh!).

Earlier in the day, Rie spotted a gray frog on a gray tree.

I hurried over to take a picture but the frog jumped right on my camera and stayed put with his sticky little feet. I had to negotiate him off the lens so I could take some pictures because really, a gray frog?

When I researched what kind of frog it was, I found out it is called an Eastern gray tree frog. Go figure.

Anyway, I returned on Sunday because I wanted to look a little harder for morels and besides, once again the day was gorgeous.

Aussie and I walked into the woods and found mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum), hundreds and hundreds of them...

Smooth yellow violets (Viola pubescens)...

Dutchman's breeches (Dicentra cucullaria), several hillsides of them...

White dogtooth violets, aka Trout lilies (Erythronium albidum)...

Spring beauties (Claytonia virginica)...

And then I saw this. It was about 8 inches above the ground and since there is always something I've never seen before when I go walking on that land, I wondered what kind of plant this was.

Mystifying. I looked at it from another angle.

And then I saw it from the back. No. It couldn't be. Nooooo. Really? A bat? A red bat?

Yes, I had found a little red bat taking a nap just inches above the ground and blissfully asleep while hanging from some frail little plant with just one foot, sort of, it's kind of hard to tell all twisted up like that. Dick says this photo looks like a chicken wing you forgot about in the refrigerator. Well, I think this little bat is pretty darn cute. Look at all that soft red fur.

I took one more picture and then the little guy started to wake up.

And once those eyes opened, he took off down the trail kind of low to the ground and that was that. I researched what kind of bat he was when I got home and it turns out he's an Eastern red bat. Go figure. This identification thing is pretty easy. Maybe this upcoming weekend I will be successful in finding the "Eastern elusive morel." Well, that's what I'm hoping. :-)