Something I haven’t mentioned in the blog previously is that at the end of November, I had started running again. I had considered running for a while before, because I knew I needed to do some kind of cardio, but nothing really stuck with me. While on the elliptical in the gym, I’d be jealous of the people running on the treadmill, so I thought I might consider running again, something I haven’t done in 20 years since high school.
Nature
Never a Free Moment
Either last night, or this morning, I forget which, I had the thought, “wow, we have a whole Sunday with nothing planned! We can just relax and take it easy!” Then last night we had a bad storm blow through, but since we didn’t lose power, I didn’t think much about it. Then this morning, I looked out the screen door, and saw a small tree limb, maybe 6 feet long, had come down near the swing set. “Oh well, that shouldn’t take too long to cut up.”
Then I walked outside and looked at the rest of the backyard.
Oh well. I didn’t really want to take it easy, anyway….
On the other hand, apparently we now have a taste of Scotland in our back yard, as we have some full blown thistles growing. So after the tree is gone, I should probably break out the weeding supplies. Fun fun.
Unusual Traffic Tie-Up
I had a rather unusual drive in to work this morning. Everything was fine until I was one exit away from my workplace. Suddenly, three lanes of traffic ground to a halt. Sighing, I made sure to stay in the far right lane, so I could take the next exit and wind my way in through the backroads, not having any idea how far up the traffic jam started.
Much to my annoyance, some ignorant drivers decided they were more in a hurry, and started driving up on the right shoulder of the road, thus shooting past me. But then confusingly, the third car that did this suddenly braked to a real quick stop next to me, then put on her blinker to come over. The driver pulled in behind me. I found this odd, as the exit wasn’t for another quarter of a mile or so.
Much to my surprise, I then saw what was causing the tie-up in the shoulder. Walking in the shoulder of the road came a man, leading what looked like two miniature horses on leashes or reins, one in each hand. He was just casually walking along, the horses (half the man’s height) trotting along beside him. As soon as I passed him, traffic immediately opened up in front of me.
Thinking about it after the fact, I was reminded of our trips to Scotland, where out in the Highlands you can be driving along and suddenly hit a “traffic jam” as a herd of sheep are being led up the road from one farm to another. At least this incident wasn’t quite that bad, but it’s still quite an usual sight to see in this area.
Gunpowder Falls State Park
On Sunday, Rina and I hung out with our friends Netanel and Sharon and their twin children at Gunpowder Falls State Park.
Welcome to Animal Kingdom
Our yard is becomming quite the zoo, it appears. We’ve always had squirrels, but what homeowner hasn’t? They don’t matter though. For a year or two we’ve had a chipmunk running around (near as I can tell, it doesn’t sing). And there’s the occasional herd of deer that wander around our neighborhood. Fortunately, they haven’t learned how to jump over our fence to get to the tomatoes, although I have seen them jump other privacy fences in the past so I know they could if they wanted to.
This past week, though, has suddenly gotten more disturbing.
Invasion of the Yard Snatchers
Our yard is slowly being encroached upon by a grove of bamboo our stupid neighbor behind us planted. Why they couldn’t choose a grove that stays in its place, instead of one that crawls underground at random and pops up at random, I don’t know. Heck, why they had to plant it at all, I don’t know. I was mowing the lawn this evening, and discovered four shoots of bamboo sticking up, one already as tall as I was. Keeping in mind, two weeks ago, none were popping up at all. Stupid weed that’s impossible to kill and requires concrete to keep out of a yard at all….
TimBlog 