The Marianist Nature Preserve is maintained by the Marianist Environmental Education Center (MEEC) at Mount St. John. This was my first visit, and I hiked a short loop of the trail that took me from an open wildflower meadow at the Sacred Embrace Earthwork, through oak/hickory/dogwood woods to the Woodland Fen, and then along a little side loop trail through the Moist Woods and overlooking the Brother Don Geiger Tall Grass Prairie.

This fruiting poison ivy was growing up a dead tree along the little meadow at the Sacred Embrace Earthwork.

The Marianist Nature Preserve is maintained by the Marianist Environmental Education Center (MEEC) at Mount St. John. This was my first visit, and I hiked a short loop of the trail that took me from an open wildflower meadow at the Sacred Embrace Earthwork, through oak/hickory/dogwood woods to the Woodland Fen, and then along a little side loop trail through the Moist Woods and overlooking the Brother Don Geiger Tall Grass Prairie.

This sassafras was growing at the edge of the woods facing the open prairie. I was impressed because it had lots of fruit, which is a little unusual for this species. I normally see sterile trees.

My robins and bluejays alerted me to this hawk. I followed it as they harassed it around the yard and finally got a couple of photos when it landed in my young persimmon tree. I'm assuming this is the same hawk that's been visiting my yard for the past couple of summers.

Mugwort is a weed (I've been yanking out shoots of this along my walkway for years now), but at least it's an interesting weed. It was used to flavor beer in the days before hops was common, and many home brewers still experiment with it now. The crushed leaves definitely have a pleasant, spicy/aromatic scent to them.
I'm feeling more mellow about these plants today because I saw my first woolcarder bee in action there, nibbling fluff off the bottoms of the leaves. (European bee, European weed -- I guess this makes sense).
For the plant, under-the-leaf fluff helps slow water loss from the leaves and so is a water conservation feature. For the bee, the leaf fluff is used in nest building. The middle photo shows a leaf on the right with bald patches underneath due to the bee activity.
These plants are perennial (see the rhizome used for conquering new territory in the last photo), so I expect I'll have them for years to come, weeding or no weeding.