I always love visiting the fish hatchery at Powder Mills Park in Monroe County. Before I even see the fish or hike the trails, I always look forward to driving into the Park’s entrance. About a mile into the entrance, as the trees start to surround your car, you see a mushroom house that has been constructed in Powder Mills ravines. I have always marveled at this house. Standing next to it, I sometimes feel like I have shrunk and transformed into an ant that is looking up at these huge mushrooms growing in a field or rather, trees. They are a magnificent sight to see! Unfortunately, seeing is all you will be doing because they do not offer tours of the home.

Once you have passed by the mushroom house, you come upon the fish hatchery. My boyfriend and I love to visit here in the spring because there is also a pond near the hatchery and little baby geese and ducklings are all waddling around and looking as cute as ever! My boyfriend likes to feed the different ages of fish, but he really loves to feed the little ones because they all race against each other, jumping in the air to catch the food pellets in their mouth. Feeding the fish is fun and relatively inexpensive. The fish pellets cost a quarter and come by the handful out of a gumball style machine.

On this particular visit to the fish hatchery, my boyfriend and I decided to hike the Hatchery Trail, which is about a mile long. I was wearing flip flops and I was worried that I would be falling all over the place, but the trail is very well maintained and I had no problem walking around or following the trail. Halfway through the hike, I got quite a surprise. I was walking up a hill and I stopped at the top because there was a teepee made out of logs and it was around a fire pit. It looked really cool and I thought it must be made by some bikers that use this trail a lot. But, then I looked at the teepee again and there it was, a deer staring at me! I looked at my boyfriend, who had been walking behind me, and with a calm, cool, and collected voice I said, “Oh look, it’s a deer.” He then looked at me and said a few non-mentionable words and told me that we should turn around and walk back. Now, you have to understand that the house I grew up in was located in the back of a forest and my boyfriend grew up in a house that was surrounded by rows of houses and a few trees here and there. So, I was used to seeing deer and having close encounters with them, but my boyfriend was and still is not. So, I looked at him with a smile, took out my car keys, and shook them – the deer went running down the hill. My boyfriend looked at me and we both started laughing. This day was definitely one I will remember for awhile and one that I will keep retelling every time deer or Powder Mills Park is mentioned.

Clare Scott