February’s weather has been a real smorgasbord, between the record-high or low temperatures and the gargantuan snow and rain events. As we creep toward the end of this shortest month of the year, we have a trio of sunny and mild days to enjoy before March arrives in lion-like fashion. Yup, the early prediction for March 1st has two different weathermen uttering the “S” word – yes “snow” has tumbled from their lips, because two to four inches of snow is on the way!
But, this February day was fabulous, thus my new word I coined above.
All of a sudden, the days are so much longer. Sunrise was at 7:12 a.m. today and that bright sunshine gave me a chance to get in an extra mile on a weekday. Of course, all that good stuff will end when we go to Daylight Savings Time on March 11th and return to darker mornings for a while.
The sun made me feel good and I watched my shadow as I strode purposely to the Park. I wended my way down Pagel Avenue, stewing over whether the rodent would still be hanging by its long tail on the twig in the tall tree. I wondered if I should call the City to have one of the Department of Public Service workers come with a tall ladder or a cherry picker to retrieve that rodent?
And then I saw him … no, not Parker, or any one of the other peanut pals, but a policeman sitting in his patrol vehicle, monitoring the Park, as they sometimes do, just for a police presence. I walked past the patrol car and his head was bent down, so I passed by … then, on a whim, decided to go back. With my bag of peanuts in one hand in anticipation of a squirrel waylaying me, I went to the driver’s side and he rolled down the window. He was young and gave me a big smile. I’ll bet this was his easiest task of the day hearing my tale, especially after I prefaced the story with “please don’t think I’m strange to tell you this, but ….” I relayed the rodent story and asked if he thought it would be wise to contact the DPS to have them take it away because of the germs and disease that rats carry? I also asked if there were any similar incidents he’d heard of. He smiled and said “no, I’ve not heard anything like that and I think it is a beautiful and safe park and you shouldn’t worry at all.” I thanked him and told him to have a good day, then walked up to the pavilion area.
Hungry squirrels rushed right over and I doled out peanuts quickly as I saw a walker – another new face to me, headed in the same direction as I was going. We commented on the nice weather, and, when we neared that tree, I pointed up and said “look up there!” (I wanted another opinion on the rodent story. ) He did a double take – yup, he also was puzzled, but said it looked like someone hung it there, then suggested it might even be fake, as a predator bird would have grabbed it by now, but added “how the heck did someone climb way up there?” “My thoughts exactly!!!” I said.
I’m not going to dwell on it anymore, but you can bet I’ll look up there, out of the corner of my eye, every day when I pass.
Going forward, I hope I only see cute and furry critters like this squirrel, who tucked himself up in the tree to enjoy his peanut in peace.
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
You caught that squirrel beautifully.
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Thank you Anne – I secretly thinks he likes posing. He didn’t move a muscle, not even a twitch of the tail, unlike when they are down on the ground, they are like a whirling dirvish.
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Dear Ms “Febulous”………………………..I was smiling when you told the story of your concern about the dead rodent up in that tree………………………………..I’m glad that young officer was pleasant to you…………………………..no I wouldn’t want a dead anything falling on me nor near me……………………..
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It was scary looking – from looking at the pictures from Saturday’s post, did you think it looked real Ann Marie? He was probably amused and that’s why I hesitated telling him. 🙂 You’ll get two walks in – today and tomorrow before the rain, then snow comes in. Ugh!
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The equivalent of Radio Shack in the UK is called Maplin. Guess what, it’s also just gone bankrupt. I remember before I had a smartphone, how long my friends texts seemed. I had to cram my thoughts into a small number if characters. She must have thought I was being taciturn. I also developed that fast finger texting skill you mentioned. But now I use a smart phone and I’ve lost that ability. I enjoyed reading about your walk.
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Dominic – I really liked Radio Shack and have never had any problems with anything bought there over the years, and, their customer service was always great. One thing I liked was their radio headphones. You could put them onto your ears and block out outside noise and just hear music (AM and FM) plus they had channels for soothing noises like a babbling brook, trains on a train track, waves at a shoreline, even the wind.
I have a flip phone and I don’t try to text from it as it has no QUERTY keyboard so I know what you experienced – it takes forever to write a few words. But, when ATT quit servicing my little 2G phone, I had to get a new 3G one – I ventured into the world of smartphones. It was not an expensive model, and it continually dropped calls, and what little texts I did, dropped them as well, so I went to a flip phone.
Thank you for following me and I’m going to check out your blog as well. Glad you enjoyed reading about the walk – I usually walk in the same Park daily … a little nature nook smack in the middle of the City. There will be no walks in the cards for me for a little while – we had such beautiful weather yesterday, and, just as predicted, even though we could not believe it, we are having a pretty good snowstorm out there right now. We have had a wacky Winter this year and Spring cannot some soon enough!
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So cute.:)
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They were really cute, but the last picture was the best as they were cute and fuzzy. All of sudden they will shoot up and leave the cute and fuzzy stage behind and get all gangly and awkward looking like in the top picture. (I went through that stage too and you will never see any of those photos shared on this blog!) 🙂
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You are fabulous.:)
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Thank you – now I’m blushing!
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🙂
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