Pakistani highway

 On the way to A's village.

Just a taste -- send more.

Yes, it does resemble the LIE out East!

Sweetgum

Liquidambar styraciflua -- beautiful name.

It does well here on Long Island.

Can you see the woody capsules forming?

Teacher Hanya

Relief map of the Greek Isles?

No, just the roots of an old beech tree

Muttontown Preserve -- another great hike

 Jane, our leader, talking about monkey vines, I mean wild grapevines

 Perfect weather yesterday brought out a large group (25)

 This preserve in Nassau County has 550 acres of varied terrain:

 old woods, fields, estate grounds, ponds, marshes, and many trails

 "Horse on trail, all move aside" calls our leader

 we step into the brush hoping the tick-repellant works

 Euphorbia's subtile tones

 The speedy half of the group waiting for the rest of us

 who are admiring the neat horse pasture

and photographing the buttercups, etc.

(Pictures of tree frog and little

praying mantis hatching were no good)

 And then we came upon the colony of pink lady slippers!

 Endangered, protected,

in bloom for just one week a year,

 and utterly gorgeous

 the highlight of the day for me

 The way back was downhill, thank goodness

It was about a three mile hike in all, one of the best I've been on.

People were from the Sierra Club and a few other groups.

Muttontown Preserve is well worth a visit!

Batchelor's buttons have sprouted

Yellow this year

My changeable iris -- blue last year, yellow the year before.

5/7/12 -- No, I'm wrong. I just checked.
 They were yellow last year and blue/white in 2010.
Time flies.