When: Monday–Afternoon and Evening- 3/26/2018
Weather: Low-70’s, Humid, Breezy
Observations/Thoughts
The walk of the day turned into another split walk. The first walk was what I referred to as “my walk”. The second walk was the spousal walk. It is the one where walking together is more important than the depth of the dialogue. It is the one where the silence is only silence to those observing. My wife and I just view it as pauses between the next discussion topic.
- Dead things: With spring looking like it is moving in for a few months (to be followed by its sister-summer), it is hard to ignore the emerging leaves and the overt and discreet blooms nearly everywhere you look. The effort to find the dead things takes more concentration. On this walk I was able to assume a number of items were dead because nothing green was sprouting off of them. I did see some roadkill that occurred because a squirrel became a little lazy as he let his curiosity get the best of him. (Why did the squirrel cross the road? It is a nut-thing.). I saw the dead foliage that was not cut back over the winter trying to camouflage the new emerging growth. Soon the dead will be completely obscured by the bounteous life. Since life is for the living, I approve.
- Cow walking: As much as I sometimes want to deny it, I am a rule follower. I give some rules varying levels of authority. Conversely, when my wife follows the rules, she prioritizes rules I would consider unworthy of notice. On today’s walk, I saw a puppy poop bag thrown into the cow pasture. I did not verify the bag had an occupant. The wind was not blowing it, so I feel confident believing something was preventing it from being a little, green, untethered kite. Are people really so lazy they can’t hold the bag for another few yards and throw the bag away? (There is a trash can 30 yards away.). Were people to walk a cow, I could understand. The field I passed had plenty of cow patties lying around. If you had to clean up after your cow, you would need a trowel and maybe a bigger bag. The burden of lugging such a poop bag around could possibly be excused. Maybe people should only choose dogs as pets who will not poop beyond their tolerance for carrying the results of one of their #2s. Just a thought…
- Bad trees: Those who live in the suburbs are often a little spoiled. We want trees, but we don’t want the things that trees drop in the spring and fall. We want pools, but we don’t want the headaches of skimming all of the goodies the trees want to contribute in their “busy” seasons. As my wife and I were walking, one of our neighbors said, “I don’t remember the trees having so many seeds before.” Whether the trees are just having a prolific year or whether the memories of myself and my neighbors fades after 300 or so days, the trees continue to drop their gifts. And, those who don’t own the trees that drop all of the stuff in their pool can still dump the contents of their skimmer in a place where its evacuated contents can get blown into the offending neighbor’s garage. Yes, we got to love our trees!
- Buckeye ants: During a gap in the conversation, my wife and I both looked down at the sidewalk. The ants had been busy. In one of the cracks between the larger pieces of sidewalk concrete, it almost seemed like we were dealing with some transplanted OHIO ants who were Buckeye fans. Both my wife and I agreed, it was like the ants had removed the dirt in a pattern where 3 letters were on the sidewalk–“O-IO”. Recognizing fully these letters do readily lend themselves to being mimicked in nature, it still did not make it less interesting. Getting 75% of the letters in the correct order-yes, I know one letter was missing but space had been left in anticipation of smarter ants coming along to create the final letter.
Walking Down Life's Road With Andy 