Heaven on earth?

This is pretty close, at least for within 20 minutes of home :)

Every year, the Lancaster Library system holds a humongous book sale in the gym of a local college.  I can't always make it every year, but I did this time.  This is also the first time I was there as the doors opened on the first day of the sale.  Let's just say that things were a little ... intense.  lol.

This is the kind of sale people bring wagons and carts to.  But I was happy with my two grocery bags' full  :)

River Walking, Part Two

After we did the Enola Low Grade Line, we decided to do another part of the trail the next day.  Monday evening, actually.  I had heard that a pair of Bald Eagles were nesting close to the trail.  And yeah, they were CLOSE!

I think the sun had actually set at this point, so the photo is a little wonky.  But you get the gist.  

This walk is along the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail.  What's interesting about this trail is that it's not complete.  Different sections of it have come on line over the last decade, and even more will be completed soon.  By the end of this year, we should be able to walk down the street to the River, then go over 10 miles north.  Soon to be even further.  The very long term goal is to connect the trail south to the Enola Low Grade line, of last post's fame.  

Anyway, the rail trail has finally connected up to Shocks Mill Bridge.  This is a rail bridge and is difficult to see from any road.  So the trail really has opened this view up to the public.  The central portion looks different because it was damaged in an ice jam and had to be rebuilt.

We also found the other Eagle, out on a bar in the River.  Very far away, but you can't really mistake one for anything else, at least not in these parts :)

The last thing that was really neat was getting to check out an art project I'd heard about.  Turns out an artist, in conjunction with a local elementary school, has designed a tile mosaic for the long retaining wall at Donegal River Park.  

It's not complete yet, you can see where tiles still need to be placed.  But it's so neat!  The design seems to be the River, connecting various scenes from the countryside.  This is the big arches of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, close to home and lovely.  I'm not sure if the sun is a play on the Rising Sun Hotel building here in town, or whether that's a happy coincidence :)

River Walking, Part One

When we're going for distance in hiking, we tend to stick to flat trails.  Fortunately, there are two big rail trails in our area.  We did a portion of the York County Heritage Rail Trail in April, and now we explored some on the Lancaster side.  

The Enola Low Grade line and the Turkey Hill trail start in the same parking lot.  Neither one of these trails existed as such when we moved to the area, so things have come a lot way!

The Turkey Hill trail is interesting.  It takes you up the river bluffs to the edge of Lancaster County's large landfill facility.  There's a nice overlook out over the Susquehanna River.  What you can't see in this shot is that there are two large wind turbines immediately off to the right.  The islands out into the distance mark the Conojohela Flats, an important area for migratory birds.  

While we were on the Turkey Hill trail, we could hear a bird singing intermittently.  I didn't know what it was, but thought it had a warbler-ish sound to it.  What's really neat is that, once we finished the trail and decided to walk part of the Low Grade Line, we found the bird again.  And I was right, it was a Prairie Warbler!  This is the first of these I have ever seen.  And it came in handy because I was able to recognize one singing the next weekend, during the PAMC.  I would have missed it otherwise!

The part of the Low Grade Line is just beautiful.  The trail follows an old rail bed situated on a bench above the River.  The views from this section are much wider and open than on other parts of the rail trail.  We noticed that a large number of Mennonites were out this lovely Sunday afternoon, and this lady with her bright blue dress caught my eye especially.

This is Mann's Run, as it gets ready to enter the Susquehanna.  And below is a restored rail car, painted to represent a particular scheme that actually was used on these rail lines at one point.  Neat stuff!

We definitely want to come back again, and walk the whole stretch from the parking area to Safe Harbor Dam and back!

A Different Sort of Wigeon

American Wigeon are a type of duck that's pretty common on open water this time of year.  They are striking birds, with a bright cream stripe following the crown of an otherwise green and brownish head.   

But, occasionally, a different Wigeon shows up in the U.S.  Eurasian Wigeons are the Old World counterpart to the New World American Wigeons.  Eurasian Wigeons are pretty rare visitors, seen every year, but in low numbers.  A Eurasian Wigeon's head is a dark cinnamon, although the cream stripe is the same.

I was fortunate to hear about, and locate, a Eurasian Wigeon just up the road from us, hanging out in a wetland mitigation project in a township park.  Usually, in situations like that, I go and see every bird in the world, except for the one I'm looking for.  But this Wigeon was not elusive at all.

The only duck that provided anything close to a good photo opportunity was this Green-Winged Teal and his mate.  Teal are one of the smaller ducks, and they have a Eurasian counterpart, too, called Common Teal.  I don't think I have ever heard of a Common Teal sighting, though, certainly not one nearby.

Auction action

We were at Middle Creek this morning for sunrise, and those pictures will be coming soon.  But first, on the way home, we stopped at Penryn Fire Company's mud sale.  People donate pretty much every kind of goods imaginable and then they're auctioned off to benefit the fire company, and in this case, also a local Amish school.

Despite growing up in PA, I'd never heard of mud sales until moving here, and this is the first one I've checked out.  I was picturing something ... much smaller in scale!  At any given time probably 10 different auctions were going on.  Plus food, oh man, the food.  What a month to decide to eat healthy.

The antiques tent, where the entry was marked by a large cow figurine.  Would love to know what it went for (and where it came from!).  Competition for antiques was intense.

Some categories had their own tents, and others were on flat-bed trailers outside.  If you look closely at this next shot, you can see vees of snow geese in the air.  Penryn is not far from Middle Creek!

Here was where the plant auction was set up.  They had some fantastic stuff - weeping pussy willows, red twig dogwoods, all kinds of things.  There's a reason we didn't get a call number; I probably would've have impulse bought those dogwoods (couldn't afford not to - $7 a piece) if we had one.  lol.

And when I said they had everything, I did mean everything.  Here's their outhouse selection!