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Yesterday, I said I’d put up something nice for those who didn’t appreciate the post about spiders, so consider this to be it. About a week ago, we spent a couple of hours hiking the Lime Kiln Trail at Mill Pond Conservation Area which lies a few miles south of Smiths Falls. I shot quite a few photos that day – perhaps the most I’ve taken in one day in awhile. The circumstances were unusual for mid-January. No snow on the ground and just the slightest film of ice forming on most of the larger ponds and in the roughly horseshoe-shaped shallow lake that loops around much of the conservation lands. The above photo is a view of one section of the lake. In summer, we occasionally paddle our canoe around the shoreline of the lake and into a couple of very shallow bays populated by the bleached stumps of long submerged trees. We can easily spend 2 or 3 hours paddling and then drifting here and there while I photograph dragonflies, waterlilies and other interesting things. Actually, I just checked and see that I wrote about paddling there on July 30th, 2006.

As mentioned, the most striking thing about our hike was that there was not a flake of snow on the ground. I can’t tell you how odd that seems in mid-January when we would usually be snowshoeing or perhaps just struggling along in our boots along trails covered by a foot or more of snow. Instead, this is how it looked as we set out on the trail that runs along a high ridge above a large beaver pond (click on all images for larger views).

We stopped at the pond to take a look around. I shot a series of photos and have stitched them into a panorama. Just click on the above mini-panorama to see the larger view. Last year around this date, we walked out across the pond, checking out the beaver lodges and other activity. This year, only the very edge of the pond had a bit of thin ice forming. Out across the pond, we could see a new lodge that probably wasn’t there last year.

While standing beside the pond, I noticed the most brilliant miniature “landscape” of fire moss (probably Ceratodon purpureus) carpeting a weathered cedar root. Further along the trail, we saw other interesting things that would normally be covered by snow at this time of the year, such as this verdant club moss — probably Shining Club Moss (Huperzia lucindula).

Along the trail above the beaver pond, I was reminded of something I’ve been meaning to check on for awhile. Most of the trees in a large stand growing in a ravine are marked with large numerals in blue paint. I must make an enquiry about this and shall try to remember to post the reply.

Continuing further along the trail, we came to the low beaver dam over which the hiking trail passes. Sabrina and Don headed out across while I shot a few photos (see above). However, Sabrina stopped in her tracks a split second after I shot this photo. There was water moving through the sticks as the pond level was much higher than would usually be seen at this time of the year. She paused for a moment and then retreated, leaving Don standing on the dam trying to decide what to do. I called out that maybe it wasn’t safe as Sabrina is pretty savvy about such things. However, Don decided to forge ahead on his own. A moment after I shot the prevous linked photo, Don also decided that the path over the dam was too risky after some stick shifted and sank. In mid-January, slipping and falling into freezing water while out on a trail is not worth experiencing, so we decided to circle around downstream following a trail probably made by the deer and beaver that frequent this area. It made for a nice detour as the stream was still open with water flowing over rocks before emptying out into the larger pond we had passed earlier in our hike.

Just a short distance beyond the beaver dam, there’s a short side trail that leads to the lime kiln for which this trail is named. There are quite a lot of these scattered over the countryside. If you’re not familiar with the term, here’s a bit of info. The one in the above photo is just the simple kind that is usually found on homesteads in this region. The one at Mill Pond would most resemble a smaller version of the drawing on this page (look most of the way down the page). The kiln at mill pond is about 3 meters (10 feet) in diameter. This is how it looks when viewed from above.

From the lime kiln, we continued on along the trail, stopping to view other small things of interest along the way. I’ve a selection of my favourite shots in this gallery of my online photo galleries. We’re hoping to get back to Mill Pond again in the next couple of weeks to walk on the pond once it is frozen solid — which seems likely now that we’re finally getting some weather more characteristic of winter.
Note: for those who might be interested, here’s a .pdf map of the Mill Pond Conservation Area. We hiked the trail that goes by the lime kiln (marked in yellow), but also the dotted trail that goes out onto that long peninsula.

Tags: Lime Kiln Trail, Mill Pond Conservation Area