are we there yeti?

 It's been hot this week...really hot.

We've been so lucky this summer with cool, wet weather, but traditional Indiana summer heat has arrived.  Almost 100 degrees, day after day.  Yikes!

At least the cats like it.

catching a sunbeam

Since mornings were still pretty cool, we decided to hike to Indiana's most haunted cemetery, Stepp Cemetery.  It's only 10 minutes from our house!  

I love cemeteries.  I spent a fair amount of time at Whetzel Cemetery near my house growing up, making rubbings from the old tombstones.  Some date back to the 1700s!  I also made sure to visit the Bonaventura Cemetery when we were in Savannah.  

I love the statues...

...but I'm fascinated by the personal messages on tombstones.  How do you capture the essential quality of a person in just a few sentences?  I absolutely love seeing what people come up with.  

Stepp Cemetery was very odd, though.  The graves had become mini shrines, and you could tell that a lot of the items had been left there recently.

A lot of the "haunting" rumors are centered around a religious cult called the Crabbites that used to gather here.  They were a free-love sex cult who also liked to handle snakes and dance naked around the graves (to add a bit of science cred to their group, they also believed in a square Earth).  They indulged in a bit of small-animal sacrifice, right here at the cemetery! In addition to the Crabbites, there have been several sightings of "a woman in black," and Indiana's very own version of the "hook-man" myth!  Well, hook-woman.  A mother and her son were in a car accident on Old 37 and the son was killed and then buried in Stepp Cemetery.  The mother lost a hand, conveniently replaced by a hook, which she'd wave angrily at cemetery trespassers.  Apparently she continued to do this long after her own life had ended.  Sasquatch has also been sighted, as well as "men in white cloaks" who were definitely "not ghosts" (seen as recently as 2010).  We've hiked here daily for years but somehow have missed this entire cast of characters!  But we've never been here after dark... 

I did see something of interest in the forest this week.  One of my favorite caterpillars, the spicebush swallowtail!  What a beauty!!

If you see a folded-over leaf, there's probably someone inside.

More beautiful mushrooms...

coral fungus

red-capped bolete

amanita muscaria

american caesar mushroom

amanita jacksonii

...but with the weather being so hot, we mostly focused on getting in and getting out.  Mostly spending time at home...in the air conditioning.

Trying to reach some personal goals.

Hopefully the heat will relent soon and we'll be able to get outside again soon...fingers...and paws... crossed!