This turkey vulture was making a meal out of a dead snake in the road.

The bracts have now fallen off, but the dogwood in our front yard was looking nice this spring.

This snake emerged from a hole in our front yard.  If you have an aversion to snakes, keeping your grass cut short may help you avoid unwanted surprises.

Last Sunday was a gorgeous day; we went on a short hike around Lake Thompson in the G. Richard Thompson Wildlife Management Area.

Periwinkle is an invasive species from Europe, but sometimes you find it deep in the woods presumably planted by someone long ago.  An evergreen with nice flowers, periwinkle is a popular plant that does well in the shade.

If you decide to grow periwinkle you should keep it to a confined area where it cannot spread out-of-control.  Periwinkle can form a thick mat which can choke out native wildflowers like bloodroot.

Here’s another picture of a bloodroot flower.  This one shows the bloodroot’s leaves as well as the flower.

We went for a jog in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains today and noticed that the bloodroot wildflowers are starting to bloom.