Monday - Thursday: Did not get out to exercise.
On Thursday I spent a few hours figuring out what was going on with Hugo’s Open Graph (and Twitter) cards, to the point where I’m no longer forced to duplicate every image to the root of the site just to get the images to show up on Facebook shares.
I also spent a little while tracking down missing images for blog posts through 2015, and I made a placeholder image for this blog, using my absolute favorite Gimp effect.
I’m a sucker for a good mosaic…
Anyway, my blog migration is complete through 2015. I have about 60 more posts to review from 2014-2012, and then I can be done.
Friday: My heel was still hurting, so I decided to keep it simple, with a short hike at Old Gick Farm. I decided to do it barefoot, because I knew it would force me to slow down, and I was hoping it would help me figure out what was going on.
My feet were mostly fine with the slower pace, and still tough enough that the rocks in the parking lot didn’t bother them much. I still didn’t see any butterflies, but the land is slowly coming back to life.
Saturday: At some point I realized I was dealing with plantar fasciitis again. The location of the pain, and the symptoms, are diagnostic enough for now.
I was originally thinking about a hike at Moreau, but opted to switch to something at the Saratoga Sand Plains, because the terrain is much softer in most spots. I ended up at Camp Saratoga, after stopping for some KT Tape to try and give my foot a little extra support.
Even with the tape, I barely made it half a mile before my heel pain was unbearable again. I stopped, took of my shoes, and hiked the rest of the way back to the car barefoot. That was, for the most part, OK, so I decided to try hiking in FiveFingers, which I still had in my car from yesterday. (I had carried them with me at Old Gick, just in case I needed them.)
I was able to hike, slowly, so I went for it. I reduced my expectations, and decided to focus on nostalgia instead of distance. As I walked past the spot where my troop used to camp, throughout the seasons and the years, I looked the other way, toward the Delegan Brook, and the long neglected bridge that had once meant so much to me. I couldn’t see it, and I wondered if it had finally succumbed to the elements.
The trail that lead to it from this side of the Delegan is mostly lost at this point; it was always swampy along the edges, and now it’s just swamp. I decided to hike my way around to the other side, down to the small clearing where the concrete lean-to stood. The lean-to is gone; I haven’t looked to closely to see if anything remains, but it doesn’t look like it. The flooring from the Nature Center (on the other side of the road) is still present, and it’s very easy to spot; if the lean-to’s footing was still there, it would be even easier to see from a distance.
Just past the clearing a small trail leads down to the Delegan, complete with steps created by anchoring logs at intervals. The logs are all mossy now, but the steps are still there. At the base of the small hill there was a short trail to the bridge, with a small boardwalk elevated above the swampy sections. Most of that trail is gone now, but the thicker supports from the boardwalk remain.
I was pleased to see the bridge still standing; covered in moss and almost completely gone, but still standing.
I have fond memories of that bridge; it was a great place for finding snails and turtles. It was a tiny piece of solace in the chaos that ensued any Scout gathering.
I moved on, winding my way toward the road. Several sections of the trail were covered in an inch or two of standing water; the worst was right next to the road. The area all around was flooded to several inches. I hiked through, astonished at how cold the water felt.
On the other side of the road, just past the turn-off for the old Nature Center, I saw several small three-leaved plants on either side of me. My first thought was, “the strawberries were coming up early this year,” and my second thought was, “oh wait, is that baby poison ivy?!” The leaves can sometimes be red, and to my eyes, in that light, they looked very red. I snapped several pictures, and moved on, cognizant of the fact that my shoes might now be covered in urushiol.
When I got home, I uploaded the picture shown here to Pl@ntNet, and was able to confirm that this was not immature poison ivy; it’s swamp dewberry. Reading up more on it, I found an interesting paper on how swamp dewberry and a related species affects cranberry bogs. It seems like this might be the plant that likes to whip around your ankle when you’re walking through the grasslands here at the sand plains. I also found a blog with lots of relevant plant and fungus pictures.
My hike was mostly uneventful after that, though I did hear a Barred Owl as I approached the fire tower. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the bridge over Delegan Pond’s outlet had finally been replaced. It had been closed for a few years, and I was honestly expecting the route to be abandoned in favor of the road that’s 25’ away.
One final note: this plaque has been erected in Larry Gordon’s honor. He was a fixture at Camp Saratoga when it was a Scout camp, and he stayed on as the property transitioned to a town park and state wildlife management area. May he rest in peace.
Sunday: Rest day.