Go see: Prairie anthills the size of toddlers

Life is so fast paced these days. This is a new weekly feature that will highlight something natural and awe-inspiring happening right now outside your doorstep.

Standing still, I detected an unusual noise: the scuttle of thousands of little red-orange ants marching all around me, coming and going from a roughly 3-foot high mound of dirt.

This above-ground nest of Allegheny ants was unlike anything I'd seen.

I watched, mesmerized, as they moved about the mound and under the wooden footbridge below my feet. This was the highlight of my visit over Memorial Day weekend to Adams Lake State Park, a nice little Ohio park about an hour-and-a-half drive southeast from downtown Cincinnati. This is about as far west as you can find these insects.

The ants pack a formic acid bite, which kills nearby vegetation, so be sure to stay on the path and wooden bridges built to observe the closest mounds on the trail.

They live on something called a xeric prairie, a dry, even bizarre, landscape where plants grow in sand or other dry soils. They are often found on hillsides or other well-drained sites.

Tall sandpaper-textured leaves – resembling gigantic pieces of spinach – cover much of this sun-baked open space, surrounded by an oak forest, where I'm pretty sure I heard the low hoo huhoo, hooo, hoooh of a Great Horned Owl.

I want to go back when the prairie dock will be in bloom, July through September, with soaring small sunflower-like yellow flowers reaching up to 10 feet in height.

The park sits between the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains to the east and glaciated land to the north and west.

"No other area of Ohio boasts a richer abundance of plant species," according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources website.

The trail through the oak forest was nice, nothing to write home about, but the walk along the paved path of the lake was enjoyable. We saw lots of painted turtles, a hummingbird, lots of dragonflies and bullfrogs, even a muskrat swimming with a mouth full of greenery.

On our visit out to Adams County we first stopped by the historic Serpent Mound, internationally recognized as the most intact effigy mound built by ancient people, its shape reminiscent of a snake with a curled tail. The mound is only about 25 minutes north of Adams Lake, and a straight shot from there.