When:  Thursday–Barely in the late afternoon – 2/22/2018
Weather: Rainy, rainy and then it rained again.  We get LOTS of sunny days in Texas, but this year we are getting a good dose of winter.  LOTS of rain and barely any breaks to walk.  When it is only drizzling, walking turns out to be a good idea.
Observations/Thoughts

• Heel, toe: On the rain spectrum, today was more drizzle then rain.  This may seem like a bad thing.  Given all of the rain that has fallen this week, it was a completely good thing.  The saturated ground could swallow no more.  It drooled what it couldn’t swallow across the sidewalks.  As I attempted to cross the sidewalk, especially in the low areas, it was too deep for me to do my normal walk through that area.  (Yesterday, my shoes and socks did not make it through the earthly slobber unscathed. )  When possible, I made an attempt at a middle-age hop across the irrigated area.  When not possible, I walked on my heels or toes.  It was an odd looking gait, but it was only adopted briefly.  The rain doesn’t always play nicely, but it does play fair.
• Rain Has To Go Somewhere:  When all the rain comes, you realize it has to find a path.  It may not be obvious, but when the ground has posted a, “Do Not Disturb” sign, the rain will find a way.  I sometimes walk past the bridge that was covered with debris and say, “I remember when the water was just under the bridge.  It didn’t take a superb tracker to discover where all of the rain came from.  The flattened grass made it quite clear.”  I say or think about how bad it has been.  Seeing it fresh makes the memories of the LAST deluge fresh again.  The sand is rippled across the sidewalk–just like it was on a beach.  (Not as much sand, of course.)  The pile of sand/branches/leaves and whatever other debris was available left a significant pile on the west side of the bridge.  The fence containing the cattle (to the south of the bridge, running along both sides of the creek) was plastered with dead grass forcible conformed to the bottom foot of a sizeable stretch of the fence row.  It was not pure destruction.  It was water doing what it does when the ground cries “Uncle”.
• If You Get Caught…:  On the final part of the walk–the part going toward the closed park, two people were in the pasture/wood shared with the cattle.  I am pretty sure they were not supposed to be there–I have met the owner.  They were NOT the owner.  When caught in a place you shouldn’t be, you need to create enough doubt in anybody who discovers.  What is the easiest way to create doubt?  Greet the person who looks at you strangely (me) with a, “Hi, how are you doing?  I  grunted back.  The warmly dressed twosome wandered deeper into the brush.  So, they were not nearly as visible as I passed their original location.  As long as they hadn’t built a bonfire with one of the pastures longhorns on a rotisserie, I didn’t have enough information to challenge their present occupancy.