My Faithful Friend

The green Assenmacher and I got 2009 off to a good start with our first long ride of the new year. 36° F, damp, and mostly cloudy, but it felt good to put in a few hours on the bike. Found these bales of hay along the Great Miami River bikeway between Franklin and Miamisburg, Ohio.























Plenty of evidence of September's violent wind storms, as displayed by this splintered tree.




















Stopped for lunch in this burned-out tree stump, which provided good shelter from the wind.



















Someone else has been dining here, probably a bird gathering these flowers atop a fallen tree trunk.