Around and about near Mt Gilead, Ohio

Tuesday night, a rain storm moved in about 6:45pm:

It looks pretty threatening, doesn't it?

It was a good rain - I think on and off through the night - which is needed here as they've had some very dry weather.

On Wednesday morning, we drove to the Owl Creek Produce Auction.

They have sales on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11am. Their daily market report can be found at http://owlcreeknews.blogspot.com/

Keith and Ruth Ann had gotten some delicious blueberries there which we enjoyed on Tuesday - we were hoping to find some to purchase, but no blueberries today.

Two auctions go on at the same time, one is for large lots:

... but we were there for the "small" lots out on the back porch / building overhang area:

For many of these lots - they might have, say, 10 quarts of blackberries. The high bidder could take as many as he or she wanted. The next highest bidder could take what they wanted for the high bid price. Then anyone else could claim what they wanted until the 10 quarts were all sold.

I think that most of the folks who brought things to sell were Amish (there were wagons out the other end of the building that I didn't get pictures of)...

I think some of the buyers, especially of the big lots, may have been local grocery stores.

A good reminder!

After we finished our purchases (Keith got two quarts of blackberries that we helped eat later in the afternoon - they were very good!), we headed back to the farm and picked up Ruth Ann who had been on a different morning errand.

We picked up sandwiches for lunch and went to Mt Gilead State Park to eat and hike.

The day was much cooler than the last few days have been, and overcast with rain threatening, but it was such a pleasant hike.

We hiked out and back on the green trail and then out and around the red loop.

 

There were pretty white ball flowers (about 1.5-2" in diameter) - no leaves on the stalks of the flowers.

We saw this interesting fungus / growth on the side of a fallen tree... it was up the hill a little from the path... it looked like a bird bath or vase of some kind...

... Carl climbed up the hill to see what it looked like from the top. It was quite large around - probably about a foot in diameter.

Beautiful big trees...

... and no one else was enjoying the woods with us - we didn't see anyone else except some who were sitting in their cars at the parking area.

The "red" trail was also known as "Fern Ridge Trail"

It was fun to get out, even though we thought we might end up getting rained upon, the rain held off and we enjoyed the cooler and overcast afternoon.