Happy First Day of Christmas Vacation to me!

We decided to celebrate the first day of my Christmas vacation week by going on a short walk along Hix Small Cemetery Rd. and a short distance off trail into the woods.

I walked just shy of a mile, while Drew and Toby went a bit further into the woods. It was too rough for my knee to handle.

When we were walking through Hix Small Cemetery, I found a grave stone that was beautifully adorned with possibly a few species of Rock Shield Lichen.

Rock Shield Lichen (Xanthoparmelia sp.) is a foliose lichen with leaf-like lobes that radiate out from a central greenish-yellowish center. I like that you can still see some of the letters on the grave stone. The grave stones in this cemetery range from dates in the 1700's to present day.

I couldn't get close enough to the grave stone to do the lichen justice. This is one of the most common lichens to grow on exposed rocks. And, indeed, this grave stone was smack dab in the middle of the cemetery where it gets a good amount of sunlight.