In the Woods

The tropical winter weather continues in MN. It was 24 degrees when we woke up this morning! We decided to take advantage of it and headed to River Bend Nature Center for a trek through the woods. Although the Owatonna park system is awesome, it is nice to have the nature center nearby for when we need a stronger dose of...well...nature.

We spent quite a bit of time looking for animal tracks in the snow. It was obvious to us that lots of bunnies and deer live in the woods, and even a moose - Miles found moose tracks right away. And not just any old moose tracks. BIG moose tracks. He yelled to the moose on several occasions, but unfortunately the moose didn't hear him. We decided Mr. Moose must not have been wearing his good listening ears today.

We "hiked" for about 45 minutes, and Miles walked every step of the way. Tanner and I were quite impressed with the boy (especially because he was trodding around in poorly insulated sneakers, as I forgot his boots at daycare. Bad mama.).

Here Miles and Tanner look for chickadees. A chickadee's song sounds like "chick-a-dee-dee-dee", making the little birdies super easy to recognize (I learned this from the great Jim Gilbert during J-term exactly 7 years ago).

Needless to say, Miles has been singing "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" quite a bit today.

We enjoyed our adventures in the woods this morning. The fog has since burned off, the sun is shining, and I see melting snow dripping from the roof...we'd better get back outside!