Pierced fungus

I'm not sure I've ever before seen a shelf fungus pierced with a branch like this one is. I don't know whether the fungus grew around the branch or the branch grew through; either seems unlikely to have produced such a perfect penetration as we see.

Sycamore Bottoms trail

On the South side of town, a branching network of trails goes around an area of marsh and pond and field, as well as the city soccer field and sewage plant. This is one of the more distant and hard to find arms of trail in the network, going along a raised bar of land between to zones of marsh, through a thin band of young woods.

Train barn

Near the Celebration Barn stands the peculiar building on the right. If you look closely, you'll see that it has a short length of train track coming out its doors, going just about one engine-length in front of the building. The building itself is just about the right size to hold a train car, and I think that's what it does. Beyond that, I cannot find any record of it being a business open to the public or who might own it, so it remains some level of mystery for me.

Woodsy concrete bridge

 Another quiet woodsy bridge over a creek in conservation land near the Celebration Barn.

Covered foot bridge

In the trails below the Celebration Barn, a covered foot bridge over a small creek.

Round barn

 One more view of a round barn standing framed by trees in the woods.

Round barns

 A couple of other round barns nearby, looking a bit more utilitarian than the big one on the hill.

Celebration Barn

Nearby, another patch of public land hosts a big round building known as the Celebration Barn, where people hold weddings and such on this beautiful patch of land.

Big Grove trail

Another piece of conversation land, the Big Grove was a lovely bit of woods to walk through in the Fall.

Militarized conservation

The county natural resources department apparently gets some of its equipment from military surplus, which is a quite incongruous thing to encounter in the peaceful woods.

Frytown trail

Another little-known bit of conservation parkland near us, the Frytown trails wind more than a mile or so through a wooded fold of land and creek-bed valleys between two fields.

Goldenrod

Goldenrod, blooming in the early Autumn, bringing joy and beauty to me and misery to hay fever sufferers.

Late season soy

Soybeans late in the season in mid-September, all dry from the late summer droughts, beans hanging in their fuzzy pods beneath the leaves.

Iowa ropes course

Discovered while wandering near the Clear Creek trail: what appears to be a ropes course, with all sorts of things to climb and dangle from.

Clear Creek trail

On another part of the Clear Creek trail in a warmer season, a bridge near the University of Iowa athletic complex.

Clear Creek trail

I've been exploring a lot of the lesser-used and lesser-known trails and parks near us. Here's a lovely passage through trees on the Clear Creek trail near Tiffin.

Snowy branches

More lovely snowy branches in our back yard.
 

Nest in lilac

 Remains of a birds nest in our lilac, standing out like a dark hairball against the snow.

Snowy branches

 Lovely light and fluffy snow clinging to branches in our back yard.

Diwali goddess

The goddess Durga and her family at Diwali, lit from below by candles.
 

Well-appreciated pumpkin

Gnawed-down face of the pumpkin. By the end, the squirrels had eaten nearly the entirety of both our pumpkins.

Post-Halloween visitor

We inverted our Halloween this year: rather than trick-or-treating, we set up our pumpkins in the backyard and did a family haunted house inside. Afterwards, we left the pumpkins out to feed the squirrels, who were quite happy with our decision.

Drive-thru voting

Another new experience this year was drive-through voting, which our country set up to minimize COVID exposure for early voting. Like everywhere else this year, turnout and early voting were quite high, which in this case meant that I was sitting for nearly in an hour in a traffic jam to vote.

Derecho damage

 Out in the countryside, a much heavier example of damage, a barn essentially blown apart.

Derecho damage

A little later on, the main tree is clear, but the sides of the road are still clogged with piles of downed limbs deposited there for pickup by the city over the next few weeks.

Derecho damage

This past August was the great derecho, a weather phenomenon I'd never heard of until it flattened trees all around us and knocked our connections to the outside world down for days. Hurricane force winds for just a brief and violent time, then weeks and weeks of cleanup afterward. We got off lucky, but here's a city crew nearby removing a massive tree from a road and power line.

Months of quarantine

Like many others fortunate enough to be able to work from home, we've been in lockdown in our house a long, long time. Everything that enters our house goes through a six day period of quarantine, sitting down in the basement, and there's been a lot of cycles of those, as attested to by this sticky note that served for a period of more than four months of six-day quarantines.

Where the bows went

This incident also solved a mystery for us, of why we couldn't seem to keep bows on the presents beneath our Christmas tree. Answer: somebody was plucking them off methodically and incorporating them into her projects around the house.

Forbidden stair play

Our toddler is not supposed to play on the stairs, but sometimes a little bit of unsupervised time goes a long way in misbehavior. We're still trying to convey that projects like this are not appropriate, but I've got to admire her enterprise and industry in filling the stairway so rapidly and thoroughly.

House cat

Salvatore also really liked our gingerbread house for some reason. He would often get up on the table and roll against it on his back.

Colonized tree

I'll welcome in the new year with this snuggle image: Salvatore snuggling up close to the tree, in this little nook on the right hand side. When he wasn't there, our other cat Veronica liked to snuggle in this same spot also.