Last weekend had both warm sun and cold rain, but this time around the warmth came first, on Saturday, so that day we went to the Carl R. Hansen Woods, which seem to be part of the larger Shoe Factory Road Prairie Nature Preserve. If you can’t go far, go near.

The greening continues.

I checked on the map, but the body of water in the area doesn’t seem to have a name.

Seems to be an artificial pond, or at least a natural pond extensively modified by people, since it doesn’t connect to Poplar Creek, and manmade embankments run along part of it. We walked roughly from Picnic Grove 1, where there’s parking, to the west side of the pond and then back, maybe a mile and a half.

Elsewhere in the woods, we walked along a creeklet, little more than a damp ditch, but I was pretty sure it flows into Poplar after rain. A small bit of the Mississippi Watershed, one of countless minor waters that combine into something very large, was right under our feet.