October 1 to December 31: At the request of the property owners, the section of the main trail from approximately km9.5 to km10.5 is closed for hunting. November 7-13, AND December 5-11 : The whole main trail will be closed for hunting. When and where the trail is open inmore…
Trail Talk 231 September 28th 2022
Hugh McGregor had nine hikers on the September 10th walk in the Maitland Woods, two of them had recently moved from Brisbane Australia so were very interested in the Huron County plants. On September 15th Kandyce Affleck from Nature Conservancy Canada lead seven of us on a hike on theirmore…
Trail Talk 230 September 21st 2022
The first time I saw giant puffballs this year was on Sunday September 11th. When I studied them several years ago I discovered that they approximately doubled in volume every day (the volume of a sphere is 4/3 πr3). E.g. a 6 cm diameter puffball, grew to about 7.6 cmmore…
Trail Talk 229 September 7-14th 2022
On Saturday August 21st four of us hiked the Maitland Trail from where the CPR station was located (before it was moved to the new location closer to the shore) to the corner of Salford and Black Hole Road where Jenkins is located. It was a pleasant two hour hike,more…
Trail Talk 228 August 31st 2022
On Friday August 19th Holly Westbrook lead a group of 16 walkers along the Goderich beach explaining the importance of sand dunes for protection of the shore line. I found the Dune Planting Guide published by “The Coastal Centre- The Lake Huron Centre for Coastal Conservation” very interesting and informative.more…
Trail Talk 227 August 24th 2022
Some interesting insects in our garden were a black swallowtail caterpillar on a dill plant and a black swallowtail butterfly. The spicebush swallowtail butterfly is similar to a black swallowtail except its ‘tail’ is much longer. I also saw a butterfly which I first mistook for a small monarch, untilmore…
Trail Talk 226 August 10-17th 2022
In the last part of July I was first in Kelowna and then in Calgary. My daughter in Kelowna took me on a hike in part of the Mission Creek Greenway, but with a temperature in the 30s I found it too hot hiking in the sun, so instead wemore…
Trail Talk 225 July 27-August 3rd 2022
The bench in last week’s Trail talk was one on the Maitland Trail on the section between River Line and Sharpes Creek Line. I installed it so that hikers could rest after climbing up the hill that I labeled Skunk cabbage hill after the large number of skunk cabbages onmore…
Trail Talk 224 July 13-20th 2022
The bench in memory of Tom Lobb was another very recent addition on the George G. Newton Nature Reserve. Helen Lobb submitted this remembrance of Tom, ”In a phrase as quoted by Steve Bowers “Tom was a true champion of the Woods!” Tom had an amazing amount of knowledge about plants,more…
