A-Caching We Will Go

For the past several weeks, Romie and I have been meaning to try and find some new geocaches that have been placed in our area. We've been so busy in the garden and doing other things that we've not been able to get to them. Romie suggested we do them today.

There were two between our house and Paulding, both adjacent to small cemeteries. We found them both quickly and easily. The third one was located in The Black Swamp Nature Center on the southwest side of Paulding. It was another very warm day today, but walking around in the nature preserve, in the woods, kept us quite cool.

This cache was a multi, meaning you find the first location, at which there will be coordinates for the next location, which might lead you to more coordinates, which eventually will take you to the final hiding place where, if you're good (and sometimes luck doesn't hurt), you'll find the actual cache. Creature From Black Swamp had two stages before we found the final cache.

We thoroughly enjoyed traipsing through the woods and as is the case with locations like this, finding the cache is secondary to our experience of making our way to it. It's usually early to mid-spring when we see lots of wildflowers in bloom, but there were plenty today, too.

Rough-fruited Cinquefoil (Potentilla recta)

Hairy Vetch (Vicia villosa)



Moneywort (Lysimachia nummularia)



Swamp Rose (Rosa palustris)


I first thought this was Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota),
but the more I look at it and investigate, I don't think so.
I don't know what it is, though.


I haven't been able to identify this one.


Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense)

It's past its bloom time, but I love its heart-shaped foliage.
The bloom on ginger is very unusual, and usually goes unnoticed
because it's located under the leaves and close to the ground.



Wood Violet (Viola sororia)

These are finished blooming, too, which was a shame,
because the woodland floor was covered with them.
I can only imagine the beauty of seeing all these in bloom at once.

After we found 'the creature,' we stopped at Dairy Queen for some ice cream. Romie got a pineapple sundae (ewww!) while I got my usual custom-made Blizzard: Heath made with caramel instead of fudge (mmmm!)

We started for home, taking the long way by circling around in an easterly direction so we could find two more caches. I nearly couldn't find one of them, although while looking, I found the ugliest slug I've ever seen. The biggest one, too, at about three inches long. The ones I find in my garden are teeny things, maybe a quarter of an inch long. When I got home, I googled it and it was a leopard slug.

We got home around 6:00, tired but having had an enjoyable afternoon communing with nature outside of Our Little Acre.