July Woods

I started what would have been a 4 mile loop hike in the forest today, circling along a route that I have not travelled in 8 years. My memory of the path, which began on an oil lease road before diverging onto lesser used jeep and ATV trails,was accurate, but time had overgrown one section so much that I doubted my progress. So I retraced my steps and took another path that I hoped would intersect with the original route on top of a ridge. Unfortunately, that trail ended at an old pumpjack-as many paths in the Allegheny forest do. Because it is unwise to bushwack in these woods due to the many old oil and logging roads where it is easy to become lost,I backtracked the full distance to the car. It is possible to approach the loop from the opposite direction, so I will do that someday to complete the circle...Despite not having finished my original intention, a walk is never a failure regardless of it's direction. Along the way I was distracted by a green crab spider that had caught a...parasitic wasp? on some flowers. I had made a conscious effort to look closely at the blossoms rather than simply glancing as people often do, and so this prey and predator drama was unfolding as unceasingly as on any African plain. Thoreau had once written, "Thus each wind is self registering", one interpretation being that we have to look to see. Elsewhere,the bumblebees were pollinating the obscure flowers mid-woods,even when single blossoms were separated by 15 yards or more. They are a prolific species to my eye and seem to be attracted to nearly every flower-much more generalist feeders than honeybees. The prominent woods butterflies now are Tiger Swallowtails and Fritillaries, and even on a mountaintop one sees dragonflies and frogs in the puddles.