This, my friends, is Digging RI’s 500th post. Hard to believe, especially for me. There have been many times that I have wanted to chuck the blog altogether, but I have stuck with it through the years and here I am, still writing about gardens and orchids and nature, still taking photos and sharing them, and still, often, wracking my brain for a subject.

I have a lot on my mind these days, and a lot of venting I’d like to do about the state of the world in general. But I won’t do it here. Not today, anyway. Once again, I will share my personal refuge from the global madness: the outdoors.

Here in Rhode Island, most people seem to head indoors after Labor Day. I don’t know what they’re doing – maybe watching sports or working on home improvement projects. Of course, they are free to do whatever they wish in their leisure time. I like to spend mine outside getting the fresh air and sunlight I crave.

The upside to people’s apparent distaste for anything but hot summer “beach weather” means we have the beaches and the hiking trails almost entirely to ourselves for several months of the year.

Rhode Island also offers some beautiful and relatively wild inland places. This is a recent hike a friend and I did at the Tillinghast Pond Management area, a terrific network of Nature Conservancy trails. There is even a composting toilet at the trail head. Sheer luxury.

We hiked for about three hours without seeing a soul. It stayed cloudy, and the woods were silent, except for the tapping of an occasional woodpecker and a small flock of kinglets browsing a hemlock canopy.

This lovely stream provided the perfect opportunity for a drink and a quick dip for my water-loving corgi.

We make sure to wear blaze orange this time of year. There are signs at the trail head telling hikers to wear it, and it’s the law. We still run into people not wearing blaze who seem to think they’re safe in the woods during hunting season, which they are – if the hunters can see them.

No snow yet, and the ticks are still active. I found one on my dog when we got home. All in all, prime time for hiking, though.

I will close by saying thanks to those people who have kept reading over the years. It means more than you know.