252: Prairie Burn

Ryan and I took a hike up Barn Bluff this afternoon; I still have that campfire smell lingering. We were eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches at the steps, the border between prairie and wet woods when Ryan spotted smoke. "Someone's burning something," he pointed.

Indeed, and I can't imagine this being a controlled burn, what with so many hiking on an Easter Sunday. In fact, for most of the blaze, Ryan and I were separated--I had gone on up to first inspect the smoke, then take some photographs, when the wind picked up and the fire jumped across the path; I couldn't get back down in time, so Ryan remained with the dogs (fortunately, at the steps, they were all safe, though sparks and ash flew about, a strange sight in the wind). The ash, in fact, was swept into a later gust of wind, and reminded me of the birds we'd just been observing, circling in flight.

I'll return later with more photographs from our hike, less dramatic, and I'm happy to report my sneaky photos of many live cedar waxwings and robins devouring the wrinkled crabapples from last summer. I am ashamed to admit how ridiculously foolish I am in that I didn't know how those withered berries vanished from last season to make way for the new buds; I thought perhaps they just fell, but we never had a massive collection (Zephyr...?) on the ground.