New Walking Path

At my old house I had a beautiful park at my disposal with clear walking paths.  If I wanted a change in scenery I could veer onto one of the other smaller paths or venture through the neighborhood.  It was probably the one thing I liked most about that house.

This morning was my first walk since moving.  And man oh man did my back need that!  Isn't it amazing how something so simple as a 20 minute walk can clear up a whole bunch of problems?  I woke up way too early with an aching back and decided what the hell, get outside.

I get excited whenever I encounter wildlife and the very first thing I heard when I stepped out the door was the hoot of an owl.  I never did see him, but I heard him a couple of times in the distance as I continued to walk (definitely explains the lack of bunny rabbits in my yard).  I opted for the easiest path which was down the street for a few houses.  Had I gone the opposite direction I would have had some hefty hills to hike up - something I'll work towards but not on my first day out in how many months???

On my wish list for my new house was some place green to walk.  Well how much more green can one get than a golf course?  I didn't walk but more than the length of three houses on the golf cart path but who cares?  My wish was fulfilled and I have some wonderful walking paths at my disposal.  I'm not sure if I can get away with it in the middle of the day, not that I'm a mid-day walker anyways, but at 5am? It's just me and the owls (and a rooster in the distance).

Sunday In My City - Elk up Close

We made yet another trip to Lone Elk Park.  We're finding late afternoon seems to be the ideal time to see the animals and we were truly surprised to see the entire herd of elk, right there beside the truck.

Sunday In My City - Lone Elk Park

We made another trip to Lone Elk Park this week.  We have a favorite pizza place that's a decent drive away from our house.  It was drizzling and we were hoping to find a someplace scenic to park where we could to dig into the yumminess sitting in the backseat.

Neither one of us anticipated seeing ANY animals and yet we managed to see everything the park has to offer!

Right off the bat we spotted deer.  You can barely see them, but they are in the very middle of the picture.

Immediately I encountered the crappy lighting conditions.  I zoomed in and caught two males trying to lock horns, one very young with nubs for antlers and the other with a full rack.

We stopped to eat in the truck and then around the next corner saw elk.  This is the best shot I could get as the canopy made it way too dark for my camera.

Then we ventured into the bison area.  I used a flash and you can see his spooky eye glaring back.

They stood in the street completely unaffected by our presence

Here's a calf standing next to the truck

I love fall colors and they are beginning to burst in St. Louis. 

Sunday in my City - Lone Elk Park

We visited Lone Elk Park again.  They have a herd of bison and of course, elk.

The bison were lounging in a distant corner and not being very photogenic.

We nearly left the park, dejected no exciting animals to see.  Instead we looped around the lake again. 

Finally we saw an elk

These lovely signs were all over the place

Elk mating season.  I take these warnings seriously as we have been to the park during mating season and the males were bashing the crap out of each other.

So I was shocked to see several groups of people picnicking a stone's throw away from elk.  It's hard to see them but three elk are grazing on hill above the kid's head and to the left between the trees.

And we also saw a stray deer

Sunday In my City - Wild Bird Sanctuary

With an impromptu trip yesterday we ended up at the Wild Bird Sanctuary.

These birds have been brought in for treatment.  Most are released back into the wild, but some can never leave.  I liked seeing that most of the cages were built as Boy Scout projects, many by Eagle Scouts.  There were plaques stating who had built them and when.

A butterfly flitted into one of the cages.  He didn't hold still long enough for me!

This raven TALKED.  I could have spent all day saying "hi" to him.

Look carefully, the bumble of sticks is actually a recreation of an eagles nest.  It is big enough for someone to lie down in.

Too Hot To Walk

I realized that it had been three weeks since I took my last walk.  THREE WEEKS!

I knew it had been a while, my back was starting to ache.  Yes, daily walks banished the aches in my lower back.  That may be a secret the rest of the world knew, but it was totally unforeseen by me.  So I looked at my calendar and realized three weeks had passed.

Once I stop something, like walking, it takes me forever to nag myself back into doing it again.  It didn't take too much to figure out why I stopped in the first place, the excessive heat courtesy of a ten day long heat wave parked by ass on the couch.

Saturday night I finally broke away from the couch and got some fresh air. 

I definitely worked up a sweat.  It was hot and I was power walking.  And I'm sure a hot flash was setting in - seriously, must I endure both internal and external heat waves concurrently?

There was enough energy to do another block but I was sweating.  A lot.  I headed home. 

Mere houses away from my front door a damn BAT swoops within inches of my head!  Bats don't terrify me, although I'm not fond of one tangling itself in my hair.

Last night I saw a hawk land in a nearby tree.  It's been a couple of years since I've seen a hawk on one of my walks.  When I got closer he flew off and was clearly carrying something, probably a chipmunk or a mouse.

Encounters with wildlife are enough to encourage me to venture out again.

Of course another heatwave (external) is supposed to set in this week.  ugh!

Shouldn't He Be HIBERNATING?

The squirrels amuse me to no end, but the chipmunks really fascinate me.  There are a few that live between the few yards by my house and occasionally I will spot one for a few seconds.  They aren't nearly as bold as the squirrels and quickly dart into hiding.

Around Thanksgiving we saw our last chipmunk and I figured they had started hibernation.  The hole where I had spotted activity over the summer was covered in matted leaves.  Farewell to spring.  Imagine my surprise as I looked out my window while eating breakfast and saw this

He popped up again a few days later

And here is the new hole, smack dab in the middle of my front yard (yeah, please ignore the complete lack of lawn.  We're hoping with the tree trimming a few months ago sunlight may actually reach the ground)

Slug Hunting

Once upon a time, many houses ago, I planted a garden. 

I had lots of fun tending my flower garden, pulling the weeds, planning for the next year.  But we were riddled with slugs.  Big slimy, gross slugs, some several inches long and as thick as a hot dog.  They weren't nearly as amusing as the snails in my Grandparents' Los Angeles yard since there was no way to pick them up without getting slimed.

The most popular way to control your slug population is to sink bowls or jars of beer into the ground.  Now does anybody else besides me think that is a dreadful waste to a bottle of beer, no matter how cheap or warm or outdated?  Yeah, so I looked for other means.  Salt has some desirable results, but then you have a shriveled carcass to remove - EW or you destroy all of the plants in the process depending on how/where you apply your salt.

But then I discovered, probably by mistake, that slugs die rather quickly if submerged in soapy water.   Soon I was hunting slugs, scooping them up with a dedicated slug-hunting spoon and dropping them in a container (also dedicated to slug hunting) of fresh water and dish soap.  I became quite the expert at slug hunting, knowing where they hide (under rocks) and when they come out (after dark).  Their favorite food is wild violets, which were plentiful throughout my yard and garden.

The only drawback to this method is that you absolutely must discard the slimy, goopy soap water or it will quickly start to stink.  Just dumping it in the yard was unsavory because the slug bodies still have a lot of decomposing to go through, generating even more stink.  I found a storm sewer near the house and made that the final resting place of the dearly departed.

Soon little toddler Ian joined in mommy's evening jaunts, bravely scooping the icky beasts into their watery graves.  It was fabulous bonding time.  It didn't do much to deter the destruction on my plant leaves, but we had a good time.

I Saw A ZEBRA Today!

...and I wasn't even at the zoo!

Today was a scheduled day off work to deal with some details with our new business.  It was kind of a cool day, like a mini vacation.  I got to DRIVE, something I simply adore.  I spent the better part of the day winding through country roads in the middle of BFE with the destination of Sullivan MO.  Yeah, I know, it's a straight shot down the highway from my house, but there was a little detour stop I had to make, so all morning I was winding through roads that make me green to the gills as a passenger.  As the driver, though, AWESOME!

And that's when I saw what resembled a zebra, but it turned quickly so all I could see was the ass end of a horse.  Then as I got closer, IT WAS A ZEBRA!  The roads were too twisty for me to grab my camera to PROVE I saw a live zebra in someone's yard like a damn horse.  But it was there.  And I passed several old barns that would have been awesome pictures, but again, twisty roads, not wanting to drive into a ditch or a pond...

But here is the lone picture I DID take without threat of swerving off into a ditch or pond

To sum it up - beautiful day, awesome drive, no asshole traffic issues, and a FREAKING ZEBRA.  In the middle of Missouri.  Where zebras are not native.  In case you're confused.

A Flock Of Robins

I have never seen so many robins converge at one spot in my entire life. Ever. When we came home yesterday, er, Thursday (it just rounded past midnight - I really need to get to bed). Anywhoo after going to the in-laws we came home before sunset to find a neighbor's yard fully engulfed by robins. Big, full-breasted, robins jumping over each other, vying for space.

Trying not to look like a stalker freak, I attempted to get some pictures of the mayhem, but photos will never capture the insanity. There were birds everywhere. It truly looked like something out of Hitchcock's movie. The trees and yards were filled with robins. They were focused on one particular tree with full, red... cherries? crabapples? Something. Others, not fortunate enough to get in on the berry action, were down the street mauling the yards. I guess the worms were close to the surface?

The sky was filled with birds dive bombing the yard. There is a twin tree on the street behind my house and I will assume the birds were darting back and forth between the two locations. The air was filled with chirps and squeaks unique to robins. A few other birds would flit in and then leave. The regular pack of starlings were nowhere to be seen and I'm not sure where the neighborhood hawks were, but certainly not patrolling my street.

I don't know when they left, but there is no hint of the carnage that happened on my street yesterday... er, Thursday. Was this a pre-migration feast? A little-seen bird version of Thanksgiving? Hard to say, but it was damn weird.

Hit In The Head

Do you have squirrels?

Once I was visited by a woman and her father. They were from Canada and evidently did not have squirrels. They were amused by their cute little faces and endless antics. And let's be honest, they are entertaining. That is, until one has chewed through your kitchen screen, devoured an entire loaf of bread and then spaz out when you come home and try to "scoot" him out with a broom so that he does body slams on your giant picture window and then hides in some mysterious spot INSIDE your couch only to be chased out by your cat and then out the front door. Yeah, they stop being cute then. Or when they nest in your attic and chew through your cable. Or when they dig up each and every potted plant in your yard. Their antics aren't quite so entertaining anymore.

I forget all of that when I look out the window and see three young squirrels chase each other up and around a tree trunk and do flips and flying leaps as they wrestle. They are cute. Then they remind me what jackasses they are when I take my walks and get pelted in the head by acorns. Or when I run outside to discover the source of plip plip plip BAM and see tiny bartlett pears come rolling down my roof and onto my aluminum awning.


Or when they terrorize your bird feeder. This picture is several years old. The bird feeder had been a housewarming gift and spent possibly one month hanging from the tree before its suspending rope was gnawed to pieces. It didn't take me too long to relent and just put it out where the squirrels could easily access it.

I'm pretty sure they are the ADD sufferers of the animal kingdom. In all of their cuteness they are incredibly forgetful so they expend an amazing amount of energy searching for the nuts they buried just yesterday. And in the spring you find itty bitty oak trees sprouting in the damnedest places, like your untended planters and the BBQ pit.

I wonder what it's like to live in Canada?

Another Walk

Yippee I managed another walk this morning! Aren't you proud of me? I really hope this blog doesn't turn into my exercise diary because that would be boring. But I might tell you about my walks because so far they haven't been boring.

Today a woman was walking her yellow lab puppy. Little dude totally didn't get the concept of taking a walk. He was bouncing all around tethered by a stupid leash. He was excited to jump on the grass and he was excited to prance on the asphalt and yippee there's a sign post to sniff!!! Out of nowhere he just dropped creating a fur blob on the ground, begging for a jogger to pet his cuteness. She fell for it. Then we parted ways. I'm sure he was still bouncing by the time they got home.

Then I saw a possum. It was a baby and almost cute. I've seen these things in not so cute mode, cornering my pit bull with hissing and sharp teeth. Does anyone else see the irony here? A big vicious flesh ripping pit bull and a rodent so wimpy his biggest defense is playing dead? Poor Bandit was absolutely terrified by this freak and to be honest it had the snot scared out of me. The little guy I saw today also wasn't playing dead. He stopped and stared at me and then darted towards a tree behind me. I followed him and actually snapped a picture. I'm not sure the quality of this photo since it was on my phone and I haven't tried to download it yet. I mean I need something to do at work today, right?

WooHoo! Another successful phone download! This excites me more than accomplishing day four's walk. You can barely see it, but there is in fact a baby possum clinging to the tree.



















AND THEN I downloaded yesterday's picture of the hawk. There really were three hawks lined up on that soccer goal. By the time I got close enough that you can even recognize that this was a soccer goal the birds flew off, but one stopped on the fence. You can barely see it, the itty bitty white dot just behind the goal - that is, in fact, a hawk.