I visited the misnamed Cedar Bog today. It is misnamed because it is really a fen. It is a remnent of the glaciers that covered Ohio 10,000 years ago. What looks like grasses are really sedges. Sedges are closely related to grasses, but they have triangular stems. The mastedon found in Ohio some years ago had a stomach full of the varieties of sedges that are still growing in the fen. The entire walk is a boardwalk full of mosquitos and strange plants and trees. White cedar and dwarf birch trees atre ones I hane never heard of. The strangest thing is tha the West branch of Cedar Creek never freezes. The fen keeps it that warm. This seems nearly impossible. I will check it this winter! Walking out I noticed some beautiful flowers. How I missed them on the way in is impossible to understand. It was a showy ladyslipper, the largest northern orchid. This is the first one I have ever seen. It is beautiful. This entire fen is a beautiful gem that refused to die, It has remained long after the glacier that created it disappeared. And it even survived the attempts to drain it in the early part of the 20th century. They cut all the trees to the west of the creek and dredged the creek itself, but to no avail.

I entered the Greater Ohio Bicycle Adventure again this year. It will make a 300 mile circle around Dayton, Ohio. I entered at the last minute and have number 3131 out of 3000 riders. They do not recycle numbers, so I am replacing the 131st dropout. I am not in nearly as good shape as I was last year. But I learned in my first ride last year that riding a bike 50 miles is not too hard if you have all day.

Poison Hemlock is blooming everywhere. I noticed them last night, but I didn't know what they were. Roger Tory Peterson's wildflower book provided the answer. The givaway is the purple spots on the stem. I even saw some growing in a wheat field... that is unheard of! We are awash in the poison that took Sophicles' life. Astonishing.

I am sitting on a bench on the Yellow Springs - Xenia bike trail next to Oldtown Creek on another GOBA training ride. This is the site of the Shawnee village where Tecumseh was born in 1768. A comet blazed across the sky the evening he was born, fortelling great accomplishments. Intersating that both the Native Americans and the invading Europeans believed in the same signs.

The creek is running clear, even though it rained heavily yesterday. It turns north and runs along US route 68 for a mile before losing itself into Massey's Creek. The flat, open area bounded by Oldtown Creek, Massey's Creek and the Little Miami River was the site of Shawnee town of Chalahgawtha, two and a half miles north of the center of Xenia. All of the Shawnee towns had this same name, which we today call Chilicothe. Tecumseh was born at a sping about 200 yards east of this bench on the south side of the creek.

US Route 68 follows an old buffalo and indian trail from the middle of Kentucky to Northern Ohio. At Pleasant Hill 25 miles south of Lexington, KY, it is called the Shawnee Trail as it runs through the Shaker Village there. The Shawnee Tribe is now located in Kansas, moved there by the government. I can't help making a connection between this and our occupation of Iraq, I started to read Alan Ekart's A Sorrow In Our Hearts, The Life of Tecumseh last year. But it quickly filled my heart with sorrow and I stopped. Perhaps it is time to finish this book. This is too close to home... my home. The Little Miami River and Massey's Creek both have their source near the western edge of Madison County. My family has lived and farmed in Madison County since Tecumseh's death. No doubt his death made it possoble for my family to move here.

I am also reminded that I have not yet returned to the Rock House in Hocking County to photograph the rock carvings of Tecumsah that appeared soon after he died in 1813. Much of what I have done in the past year has revolved around Route 68 and other places important in his life. Cedar Bog is only a quarter of a mile from this highway.