I’m weary of Winter and over-wary of ice, so this morning’s dry pavement beckoned me to venture out. Even that small sliver of sun in the sky made the wicked wind chill not seem so bad.
Although snow was predicted for three days in a row, on Tuesday and Wednesday, the northern ‘burbs got socked with a lot of snow, and we just had a wintry precip.
The car needed a little run, so I figured I’d roll past Council Point Park to see if anyone was on the trail, because that meant the perimeter path was not ice-covered and slick. I saw one guy running, so I pulled into the parking lot and figured I’d give it a go, feeling confident as I was wearing my lug-soled hiking boots because I didn’t want to end up as an “Easy Slider”.
There was no peanut pal welcoming committee as I arrived, so I don’t know if they figured I’d abandoned them, or merely decided to stay tucked in their cozy nests. I presume the latter and I really couldn’t blame them with the 25-degree air temperature and a biting wind chill in the teens. I even took out a Ziploc bag of peanuts and jiggled it vigorously to entice them, but there still were no takers, not even Parker who usually is at the head of the pack. Ah, well … I just slipped those peanuts back in my pocket until tomorrow, or for this sunny weekend the weather folks are promising us.
I’m still not totally “de-burred” from Sunday’s brush with the burrs by the water’s edge. I was forced to pluck each pesky piece of burr from my wool gloves with a pair of tweezers, but evidently some tiny remnants still remain, since every so often I feel a little stab in the pads of my fingers. Next time I’ll pay more attention to my surroundings before heading willy-nilly through the swamp grass!
I was the only person at the Park since the runner left just as I was walking to the pavilion area. I saw this Canada goose gliding gracefully at the Creek. I followed its journey along the water’s edge. One time it looked right at me and briefly I wondered if it was going to take an attitude, like the swan the other day, but then it turned around and just paddled along, seemingly oblivious to my presence.
I could not help but notice how its sleek black head was moving in a back-and-forth motion, as if those jerky movements would help to propel its body forward. It was as if it was paddling along in sync to music – hmm, a groovin’ goose!
You can see at the photo up top, how the water was parting behind this goose as it paddled along at a fairly good clip. There were no ducks or other geese this morning, so it was quite a blissful walk at the Park, with the only noises being the occasional birdsong or the Downy woodpecker drilling into his favorite tree.
Just as I was enjoying the ambiance and the very faint appearance by the sun, the sleet started. At first it was just a few specks of icy pellets which stung my nose and cheeks and pinged off my eyeglasses. I picked up the pace a bit, but then those icy pellets began to fly in earnest. So, I cut my walk short, hightailed it across the grass and headed for the parking lot. I arrived home with the car tucked into the garage just as the sleet started going sideways.
So, I added about 1 ½ miles to my 2018 tally and gained some ruddy-looking cheeks as well.
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
Those spurs really hurt, I slid down a hill and tried grabbing onto anything to stop when I was younger… The entire way down was “Ouch, ouch, ouch.”
Pretty groovin’ goose. 🙂
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I know and they are inside my pocket too – tried vacuuming out with the skinny nozzle but can’t get them all out of there, or the gloves. I wish I had a video of that goose, it was bopping along, back and forth with its head … it was a goose on a mission!
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We have hundreds of them that fly overhead by us, and land in the pond. All that honking, good lord! LOL! 🙂
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We will have alot at the Park, come April. Not too many now, then they have their whole families once the goslings arrive in mid-May. They monopolize the pathway and take an attitude when you have to pass them on the path. So the DNR comes in and sprays the grass with some kind of grape concentrate once the goslings are old enough to fly. The geese won’t graze on the grass with the grape spray on it – it doesn’t make them sick, but they won’t stop to graze their anymore, so no more geese until Fall. They make a real big mess and you have to watch where you walk, can’t be looking around – have to look down … and up too!
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I love the goslings… they are so cute and fuzzy. I can’t wait until Spring. 🙂
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Me too and we have a lot of ducklings at the Park too – also cute lined up in a row behind Mom. Never saw cygnets though – I’d like to see them as they ride along on their mother’s back.
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Dear Miss “Easy-slider,”……………………………yes I’m glad that that “groovy-goose” didn’t come charging out after you………………………………he probably was annoyed that you were taking his picture
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Ann Marie – did you take advantage of the dry weather and get in a walk before the sleet pellets arrived? I thought of you this morning and was hoping it was a nice walk for you. This goose looked at me like I was disturbing his morning – innocent me! I should have taken along some bread for it, though they say not to feed the waterfowl bread as it is not good for then. I think he was looking at me as if I were a nuisance. 🙂
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I’ll bet your home was welcoming after the side-ways sleet. Brr!
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It was … that wind chill made it nippy and this time of the year with no trees to act as a buffer from the winds off the water tend to make it even worse. That sleet just came out of nowhere. One Christmas Day, I was at the Park and it was clear as a bell when I arrived there, and within a half hour of my arrival, we had a snow squall. I had on shoes as it had been clear and dry weather for days, so felt confident that walking shoes were fine to wear. I was in the middle of the trail when the snow started coming down heavily. No mention of it on the weather forecast or I might have worn boots. It slickened up the path and I was covered in snow from head to toe by the time I started to walk home. I had to walk 3/4s of a mile to get home and snow had caked in every crevice of my coat and my clothing and hat were soaking wet and it was slippery walking home. I have to look for pictures of the entire Park to show you how it is laid out … the figure 8 set-up makes it difficult to just “quit” when on the pathway, so you’d have to cut across the grass (the donut hole of the loops) and it is just as quick to stay on the path. I had never been in a snow squall before and could not believe how much snow came down in such a short time. I was the only one there … when I first got there a man was walking his dog and we exchanged Christmas greetings and remarked on the beautiful day. Sun was out – no indication of pending snow squall.
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That’s quite a story. We were in a squall in Belgium — probably Bruges. It was fun and amazing.
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We had a squall here in Michigan today and caused quite a pileup on the expressway – no one was killed but some injuries (three I believe). We had a larger pileup due to a snow squall last year where 150 vehicles were involved. If memory serves me right, they eventually determined it was one driver at fault who caused the initial crash as he was speeding, but that story didn’t become verified for a long time after the crash reports were compiled. This story made the national news and there were some people filming part of it from the other side of the highway – the squall was bad and drivers could not see ahead of them and just crashed into the existing pile of cars. Just unbelievable. Here is a video of it – the first part anyway, then they turned the camera upside down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9fI5M6_XVk
Were you on a tour in Belgium? I went through Belgium years ago on a train – it passed by Flanders Field, but that is all I saw of Belgium.
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That crash video was something! We lived in England from 1980 to 1982 and traveled whenever we could. John was a history major, so he knew what things we needed to see.
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Yes, it was very scary … they kept replaying it on the news and featured the video on the CBS news station that I listen to all the time. That’s nice about the traveling. My mom had difficulties getting around, but we went to England in 1979 for a week, then went by train to Germany and stayed with his aunt and uncle for a week and traveled with them to Austria for another week. I liked England and we were lucky to be there one week in mid-May and had no rain at all. We stayed in a bed and board in Surbiton, Surrey and we had a taxi pick us up to take us into town several days and went on a few day trips, one was to Dover and Canterbury (it might have been the same day – not sure).
I have a blogger from the UK hat started following me a few weeks ago. He writes a blog about walking and I never tagged my posts until after I celebrated my fifth anniversary blogging on February 11th – then I started. Well, he saw my blog and followed me and I followed back. He writes a blog called “Walking Wandsworth” … what he does is take pictures of the walk, and he records audio of the places where he goes from people who talk about the history of places on that particular walk. You or John may be interested in this since you lived there and since John was a history major. What I didn’t realize until I read the first post is that not only does he put the pictures and some narrative, but he takes the audio that he made on the trip and has a radio show about it. He asked me if he could read my comment into the show and I said “sure” … his walking podcast is: https://walkingpod.com/
His name is Dom and this is his site and a message he wrote to me below:
Hi Linda, I asked that Nicola about that. They are pollarded and cut back and maintained like that. I’m not sure if it is the civic council that do it or the guerrilla gardener. Have you heard the podcast? Please give it a listen. I’m trying to get it to trend on Mixcloud https://www.mixcloud.com/WandsworthRadio/walking-wandsworth-13-wandle-trail/. Last week we got 1300 listens. It’s a long way off that this week.Thanks for reading and supporting walkingpod.com
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I did not intend to press “Send” … I had something else to add, which was the actual WordPress site … that is not the first time I have scrolled down and hit “send” … I wish it was in another part of the chat box. Anyway, this is the blog post format how he does it. I think he is near Newbury.
https://walkingpod.com/2018/03/01/wandle-trail-part-2/
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Are these Canadian Geese. So beautiful.:)
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Yes, they are – so graceful and very quiet when I was there yesterday. Usually they are in a group and honking like crazy. I am anxiously awaiting early May when the ducklings and goslings arrive. Lots of cute antics and lots of picture-taking opportunities.
There are often five or six families of geese on the perimeter path grazing with their babies. Here is a picture of the parents and their goslings from last year to give you a smile.
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Your photography is incredible.:)
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Thank you for saying that, but for me I am still such an amateur photographer. Taking photos of moving creatures is not always easy and I come home all excited with a ton of pictures and by the time I look through them, and weed out the duds, there are maybe 5-10 that look okay, and are not blurry. I like looking at nature photography and you would like to see some beautiful pictures of birds and peaceful scenes, try this link. This gentleman is a photographer who lives in Tofino, British Columbia. He will wow you with his up-close eagle pictures and some of the other birds and scenery … just incredible.
https://tofinophotography.wordpress.com/
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In the beginning, everybody is learner when they first start.:)
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Wow.. It gave you a great pose 😊
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It must have known it would end up as the header picture on my blog. 🙂
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The kinder/gentler version of getting goosed. 🙂 Good on you! Nice pics, too.
Love the water shimmers! Hope your weather turns better soon. It has to! Yes?
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Thanks Uncle Tree … that’s true. This goose looks so peaceful because as you know they are often fractious. I like the water glimmers as well. I am just getting ready to post and have ducks on glimmering water today too.
Weather was cold again and some snowflakes, but not sticking. Cold but sunny this weekend so that’s a good thing – much Park time, more pictures … have you seen the end of your snow yet?
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