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wonder what these are?

these were growing wild in a field, look like limes but more like a gourd

pretty mushroom

under side of mushroom

Merchants Millpond

Merchants Millpond is a North Carolina Natural Area.

It is located in Wake County, on the border of Rolesville and Zebulon, off of Hwy 96.

At this end of the area it is wide swaths of granite, water levels vary depending on the season, and woods on both sides.

If you walk downstream you will come to an old mill site, the mill is no longer there but the dam is, huge rectangles of granite stacked 25ft high by 50ft long, quite a site.

You can walk along the top of the dam, be aware of poison ivy all year long and snakes in the spring and summer.

The mill makers also dug a short canal to channel the stream over the dam. If you walk along the canal you can see a large beaver lodge built into the bank, if you are hiking close to dusk you might even see the beavers, or hear them slapping their tails on the water as a warning to stay away!

sound of rushing water over the granite

Mitchell’s Millpond State Natural Area contains what may be the largest expanse of excellent quality 

Granitic Flatrock natural communities in North Carolina.  These support the State Threatened Small’s 

portulaca (Portulaca smallii) and Piedmont quillwort (Isoetes piedmontana).  Most of the site is owned 

by the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation; this is a Registered Heritage Area. 

The Setting: When you enter this park, you are approaching one of the largest naturally exposed outcrops of granite in NC. Such a large outcropping in a horizontal orientation is called a pavement, but please don’t try to drive on to it!

This is part of the Rolesville batholith - a batholith is a large mass of magma that cooled below the earth’s surface. Because layers of rock and earth above it insulated the magma, the mineral crystals are larger than if this had been a volcano and the magma had cooled on the earth’s surface.

Some of the rock that you are standing on cooled over 298 million years ago, during the Paleozoic Era. These rocks represent one of the youngest stages in the formation of the Alleghenian Mountain building event, which was a stage in the formation of the Appalachians mountains. The Rolesville batholith is the largest of these magma masses (otherwise called a pluton) in the southern Appalachians.

You are seeing only a fraction of it, N to S it runs from north of Henderson to south of Clayton - and that’s just where it is the surface bedrock!

what i saw today

running water, if sam was here he would be building a dam

a path by the lake

so small i almost stepped on it

so warm today, nov 14,2012 even the turtles were out

some trees don't mind being chewed by beavers, this little beech was growing back out of the stump

someone had a good time building this lean to

a tiny nest waiting for me to rescue it

boulders and beech trees, wonder why they are not all over the park

so pretty, why do different trees leaves turn different colors?

walked at durant nature park today