Spring at the Old Mill

I have so many favorite places to see in the spring that it's hard to fit them all in, especially with the spring showers we've been having. Well, more than showers . . . downpours! A must see every spring is the Old Mill, but this year I had to dodge the rain and hope the blossoms had not been destroyed. 

A little history of the Old Mill. It is a historic re-creation of an 1880's water-powered grist mill. It's pretty famous. It was used in the opening credits of the 1939 movie "Gone With The Wind."

It's such a beautiful and relaxing place to take a stroll.

No matter what angle you view the mill from, It's breathtaking!

Friends of the Old Mill and the Pulaski County Master Gardeners do an excellent job of keeping it clean and pretty.

Sometimes the water is an icky reddish color, but with all the recent rains it was flowing clear and pretty.

If you look at the foreground of the picture below you can see a concrete bench created by Senor Dionico Rodriquez, a sculptor and artist of Mexico City. There are also concrete sculptures of toadstools, tree stumps, and tree branches entwined to form bridges.

There are some very pretty pathways to stroll along.

I was surprised to see something new at the mill. An unidentified carver had been at work carving an old tree trunk. He carved an amazing replica of the Old Mill and the letters N L R, which stands for North Little Rock where the mill is located in Arkansas.

The Mill has never failed to please in the springtime.

This year it was exceptional!

"The flowers appear on the earth;

the time of the singing of birds is come

and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

Song of Solomon 2:12

Winter Guests

We have special visitors in Arkansas during the winter months. Visitors that normally don't come this far south. Every winter trumpeter swans have chosen Magness Lake and the region near Heber Springs as their winter home. Although trumpeter swans are common in the mid and northwest portions of the United States, they typically do not venture any further south than Colorado, so this is quite a treat for us.

In 1990 three swans showed up at the lake. It's believed they were blown off their normal course by a large storm. Anyway, they liked it here and return each year bringing their extended family. What began as a small group of three, now numbers from 500 to 1,000 on several lakes in Arkansas. Numbers have increased until this has become the largest and most consistent wintering flock of Trumpeters in the southern U.S.

Trumpeter swans at the largest waterfowl in North America weighing about 35 pounds and having a wing span of eight feet. That is HUGE!

They are so beautiful; the epitome of grace. I watched as they peacefully and quietly floated on the lake and then they began to HONK! Not the delicate sound I was expecting, but a loud trumpet-like honk. They made me laugh. As families of swans came near other families, they chatted. All of them honking at the same time carrying on some type of conversation.

Adult male swans, know as cobs and females, know as pens, are snowy white except for their beaks and feet. The young, know as cygnets have more brown coloring.

The lake is also full of ring-necked ducks. They're cute to watch. They seem so small compared to the swans, but they're about 17" long. In the image below do you see the duck on the left that looks like there's a stick coming out of his head? He's actually standing on a tree stump that's right below the surface of the water. He'd jump up there sit a while, jump off, swim around the stump, and then jump back up on it. The ripples of water on the right is where one of the ducks just dove deep in the water. They stay under for a surprising amount of time.

At times fifty or more of these ducks would take off at once. It was amazing to hear they're wings and their feet splashing the water as they lifted. And just as amazing to hear them land again. When a large group landed they sounded like the whirring of a mini helicopter.

I was in the car ready to leave when a group of swans came soaring toward the lake. It was an incredible sight to see the huge fowl shooting like arrows through the sky, necks extended toward the lake. They flared their wings and gracefully landed in the water. Seriously breathtaking!

I had a lovely day visiting some lovely winter guests.