This morning I rolled past the local Dairy Queen while taking the car for a spin. I noticed the DQ’s marquis proclaimed “’Tis the season!” … well “to be freezin'” maybe. That sign might have drawn a crowd for free cone day on the first day of Spring, but I’m sure the folks aren’t lining up in this downright cold weather.
I HAD planned on a jaunt to scenic Elizabeth Park in Trenton, just a 15-mile round trip from home. But, picturing that boardwalk along the Detroit River at 23 degrees, with a 13-degree wind chill and blustery 15 mph NE winds, made me quickly rethink that idea, so I headed to my favorite stomping grounds, Council Point Park, instead.
The sun was in abundance, not that it helped to warm things up, but it looked good and I gave it a 10 on my good shadow day meter. A sunny Sunday, albeit cold, but dry, so who could ask for more?
It was mighty blustery going around each bend and I went through plenty of them, as I walked three complete laps around the entire Park. Each bend in the path caused my coat hood to flip up as the wind tugged at my clothes and infiltrated my warm woolens. But, I wanted to get in some extra steps, so I walked six miles today.
There was ice in some portions of the Creek and very few ducks and geese once again. The squirrels were up and at ‘em as soon as I hit the trail. However, my hunch that the brilliant red cardinal would be ready to receive some peanuts from me proved to be wrong, though a female cardinal was in the exact same spot. Hmm – did my bright-red friend send a proxy and sleep in this morning? I tried to coax Mrs. Cardinal down to ground level with three strategically placed peanuts where I was sure she would see them. It’s just as well she remained aloof, or shy, because a fellow blogger has told me that peanuts are not good for birds as it may cause Aspergillus. I remember that term from my days as a “med-mal” secretary, so I’ll get some sunflower seeds instead to try to entice these beautiful birds for a photo op.
I didn’t take a picture of the female cardinal because her grayish-brown plumage was hardly distinguishable from the weathered tree she was sitting in. In early Spring, Mother Nature’s palette at the Park is rather blah and non-descript as you see in today’s photo above.
With the exception of a man walking his dog on the last leg of my journey, I was the only person on the perimeter path the entire time. Perhaps everyone was at services for Palm Sunday. I walked to the car and headed home. I had timed my walk to coincide with the City’s Annual Easter Egg Hunt, so I wandered over to Memorial Park where kids and their parents were milling around waiting to collect eggs. Last year Easter was in mid-April, so people were in shirtsleeves and shorts, but not today. Kids were zipped up in Winter coats, their mittened hands clutching bags or baskets to collect the colorful plastic eggs. The Easter Bunny was doing a meet-and-greet with the kids and obligingly posed for photos, probably which will now adorn many Facebook and/or Instagram accounts.
I didn’t stay for the Easter Egg hunt, as I’d been out in the cold for almost three hours and was happy to head home and to wrap my frozen fingers around a mug of coffee to warm me up. I was pretty happy about my mileage too … as of today I have walked 151 miles in 2018. That leaves me just 900 miles left to best last year’s record of 1,050 miles walked.
I’m up for the task, as long as Mother Nature cooperates, so onward and upward!
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
You are doing so well with the walking! I’ve done 108 miles so far. You know, our money is different. What if our miles were different? If ours were a little shorter, I might catch up to you!
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You’re going to catch up with me likely very soon because we are having rain a few days this week, and as of now, and they are often wrong, they are calling for freezing rain next weekend and Easter Monday as well. Hope they are wrong. I had set a goal of 151 for the end of March, so am pleased to be ahead, for now. I figure 9 months and 900 more miles, but I will lose walking time come November and December when black ice hits the path. After reading about the fellow blogger’s ordeal after a slip and fall on the icy pathway while retrieving her mail, I will take no chances. Not that I took chances before … I’ve fallen a few times on the ice back when I took the bus, but I was a lot younger then. I’ll pick up extra miles on holiday weekends or when Robb is gone – he’ll be gone away some workdays for Easter, but the weather likely won’t cooperate.
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Miss Linda……………….I’m going to look up the term: “aspergillus”……………our parrot eats peanuts for a treat…………………but maybe she means small birds…………………………….our church had an easter egg hunt around 1:00 today too……..because the church was packed with little kids squirming all over the pews……………………holding their baskets…………some were on their heads!………………..I saw and heard my first cardinal this morning too…………………..at the very top of one of our trees by my building……………………….I always whistle back to it
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I’m the one who told Linda that (about the aspergillus). When i was younger, i used to breed macaws. Now that i’m older, we just have two parrots as pets. Aspergillus is a deadly mold to birds and can even easily occur in human grade peanuts. Don’t feed peanuts. If you have a pet parrot do not just feed it a seed diet. We feed Roudybush pellets… and various vegetables, apples, and grapes. https://www.parrotalert.com/article/peanuts-in-shells-danger-of-aspergillosis-to-parrots-7
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Thanks Tom – my Comcast e-mail was not working last night and I could not send my friend the info last night and I see she responded to my second post and you sent her the link. She is not on WordPress so I will cut-and-paste your message for her to see tonight. Today she volunteers at a soup kitchen all day and won’t see her e-mail until tonight.
I am going to share this with a blogger who has a parrot named “Peanut” so she is aware of this. Her parrot is 30 years old. Ann Marie’s Amazon Grey is only 3 years old – her last parrot was 25 years old, but they had a kitchen fire and the smoke inhalation caused that bird to choke and he died. They couldn’t move him out of the kitchen area quickly enough – it was Winter so he could not be put outside. Thank you for your insight. I learned about bird’s respiratory systems when I had my two canaries. They are susceptible to many respiratory issues unlike parakeets which I also had in the past. You cannot open the oven for a long period of time, nor cook with a Teflon-coated pan around a canary. And no aerosol can use either.
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Beckie – this is what I sent to you via e-mail this morning. I remembered I had your e-mail address from when we discussed the framed nature picture and thought you may have read this post already. I didn’t know if your Peanut was a peanut fan.
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Ann Marie – I have just cut-and-pasted Tom’s additional information for you about the Aspergillus and sent you an e-mail which you’ll see tonight. Very scary and you’ll find another treat for Digger that he likes just as much.
The kids love the Easter egg hunts … last year I went to Memorial Park and their’s starts at 1:00 as well. More people last year and the weather was very warm. Remember I had pics of the kids with their baskets and hugging the Easter Bunny? Very cute – we never had those Easter Egg Hunts when I was a kid. Either that or my memory is poor! I like cardinals and they always build a nest in my barberry bushes, once they fill in with leaves. I don’t know how they get in there without scratching themselves up. I always whistle at the birds as well, especially in the Park, until my lips are so dry I have to stop … they still keep going and going though. Makes me smile.
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it is open season on large rabbits I hear
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🙂 And, speaking of rabbits, I’ve not seen one in ages at the Park, or even in the backyard. I mentioned this before several months ago and someone commented that hawks or falcons may be swooping down and nabbing the bunnies in the Park. I hope not – I like their peaceful presence at Council Point Park.
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Rabbits are a problem in some cities here.People purchase them (usually as a Easter present) than realize weeks/months later that they do not want the responsibility anymore.So they drop them off & wish them good luck.Because rabbits breed very quickly,it doesn’t take two many to get many! Car accidents occur,foliage/gardens are damaged & so many other negative events happen because of these abandoned bunnies.Problems have been occurring so much so that some cities have banned them from being sold at pet stories.
It now appears that the bunnies on Vancouver island are catching a virulent disease & dying! So nature is cleaning up our mess!
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That happens here too Wayne. In fact they are usually warning people by now not to buy bunnies and chicks for their kids for Easter, and I haven’t heard those news stories yet this year – the news is full of the “March for Our Lives” or “March Madness” these days. The problem is kids grow tired of them when they big or are bored with taking care of them. It is a good idea to ban rabbits at pet stores, but some people get those large flop-eared rabbits to keep as pets … they are huge!
You’re right, nature takes of cleaning up after us humans – not the first time.
We have people shooting arrows at geese and ducks for sport, like target practice, and they don’t kill them, but these people are inhumane, as they shoot them, and the arrow stays in until someone sees the poor goose/duck and contacts the DNR and they will capture them and remove the arrow and the waterfowl are usually good as new afterward. But people are crazy and mean spirited.
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“SOME” people can be crazy & or mean? Thankfully not many….the world is filled with fairly good souls!
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Yes, just the few crazies who want to feel big and choose to hurt animals, babies, or children. Thankfully, they are in the minority.
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these people were not loved enough during their formative years & so are found wanting.
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I agree with you Wayne. They are crying out for attention to make up for their upbringing.
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Wow… that’s a lot of walking! 🙂 Make sure that you are wearing good quality walking shoes to prevent problems later on as you get older!
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I have been wearing Easy Spirit which feel like slippers to me, but they are good supporting walking shoes. I get a lot of mileage on those shoes – I one time wrote to Easy Spirit and said that I wore their shoes two years and just then got a hole in them. I was disappointed they never wrote back. I bought hiking boots to walk more in Winter, and they were recommended by the owner of the store, also an avid walker, but I had a difficult time breaking them in and they reach my ankles – not a fan of that so I put bubble wrap around my ankles and it helped, but I was glad the snow/ice left and I could return to my walking shoes once again. Actually in 2016 I walked 754 miles and it is my goal to just best the prior year’s mileage by one mile. Our Fall was so mild and I kept walking and walking and setting new goals. I decided to push for 1,050 miles for year end as I was nearing 1,050 blog posts and thus celebrate two milestones at the same time. That last goal was tough though – we had snow beginning the second week in December and it really never let up much. I went to Memorial Park by my house and walked laps in the snow just to get the miles in – I don’t have a treadmill.
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That’s a tremendous amount of walking, my legs would have fallen off the first 10 yards. LOL!
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I never intended to walk 1,050 miles in 2017. I had already passed my goal (one more mile than the year before) and we had a beautiful Fall here, so I got out every morning and walked extra on weekends. I felt like the Energizer Bunny and kept going and going. Then I was close to 1,000 miles and had to get there, then passed that and decided I could get to 1,050 blog posts by 12/31/17 so why not match the miles? But this time, the weather got really ugly and I was determined to do this, so I walked laps in the snowy grass in a park near my house – I have parks within about a block on either side – not with water and critters, but it is a large grassy area so fine for getting walks done. I hope I’ve not bitten off more than I can chew, and we’re having some ugly weather this coming week – maybe freezing rain for Easter or Easter Monday – ugh.
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I know, the weather has been very unpredictable lately. We’re getting rain every other day this upcoming week.
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Yes, same here – better than snow, but still …
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By the way, the new page is lovely! 🙂
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Thanks Beckie – I created my blog five years ago and the only tweak I ever made was to change the header from a WordPress theme to a more personal header. I thought about changing the actual theme too, but my current theme is retired, and one that is comparable is Twenty Sixteen, but I thought “what if I previewed it and it looked nice, but after I published it, I didn’t like it?” There was no reverting to what I had … you can keep a retired theme as long as you keep it as is. I had fun with it, adding a few pictures from the past year. Glad you like it!
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I’ve been thinking of changing my back round to reflect Sping, that is… Until it begins to be Spring. LOL!
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I was liking the cold as it meant no rain – 14 days with no precip which they said was unusual, but now it has to come all at once. The weather people are often wrong though.
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They’re wrong most of the time. I want that job, where I can lie all day, and get paid the big bucks for it. 🙂
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That’s for d*mn sure!
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150 crossed.. Great job 👍
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Thank you. It was my goal for the end of March – good thing I got there as we have a rainy, maybe snowy (not measurable) week ahead.
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Miss Linda I just looked up aspergillosis. It’s caused by the mold aspergillus. I believe it may be abundant in peanuts that why it causes allergic reactions in some people or animals.♥️🌺
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I never knew that Iriowen … I wanted my friend Anne Marie to know about it because she has a n African Grey parrot and I know she feeds him peanuts. I knew this because she moved to another city a few years ago, and before that we often walked at Council Point Park around the same time, so got to be good friends. Now she’ll come to Lincoln Park a few times a year “for old time’s sake” and I always hand her a Ziploc bag of peanuts … she takes what is left home for “Digger” her parrot.
I have a high school friend and her grandson is allergic to peanuts. He cannot be anywhere near where there are peanuts or peanut residue or else he has a very serious reaction. He’s had to go to the E.R. on several occasions. I get the “Food Poisoning Report” in my e-mail everyday and pass on reports of peanuts that are detected in some foods that are not supposed to have them, accidental placement of nuts which could threaten Len’s life. Very scary.
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It’s sad that peanuts can be life threatening. 😢 I wish something could be done about it. Although there have been speculations that early introduction of peanuts to a child’s diet can prevent development of allergies reactions.
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I do too – I just heard that theory again a few weeks ago and mentioned it to my friend. They are saying the earlier the better, and even patients, under the direct care of a doctor, even with peanut allergies can have a small amount to become immune to the allergy. I’d be scared to try it though, even if the doctor recommended it. I have allergies to trees, mold, dust and other things – I have taken shots for decades … immunotherapy does work. It takes a while to get to the maintenance level which is what I am on now, just getting shots once a month, but it is well worth the investment of time and money for the shots. I still sneeze in Spring when everything comes out, in fact, I saw tree dander on the ground last week and all those red buds made me sneeze so I went on the OTC “Alavert” to keep the sneezing at bay. I will stay on this medicine until 4th of July – by then, everything is out and no more sneezing.
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That’s a good idea Linda. Take baby step towards managing your allergies. No worries the pollen will be gone before you know it. 😊
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Iriowen … here is what happened to me. I had Summer allergies for years. My friends and I went to an outside concert venue (Pine Knob) every Summer and I’d sneeze my head off the entire time. Being outside when everyone mowed the lawn was a killer. I began allergy shots in 1975. After nearly two years, it was manageable. My allergist retired in 1995, and he told me after twenty years on the shots, that I could stop them if I wanted. This worked fine because the allergist who took over his practice did not want to have Saturday morning hours, nor did he want to stay open one night a week until 8:00 a.m. He wanted a 9:00-5 Monday through Friday job only. He thought he was an office worker I guess. I think he was closed Wednesday afternoons as well. So I stopped going after Dr. Blanks retired. It took nine years for the allergies to return and in 2003 I was walking to the bus stop one early Spring day and I started sneezing.
Allergies to pollen are not like when you have a cold (for me anyway)… you get a tickle in your noise, like it is really itchy and it triggers a sneeze. Your eyes feel itchy as well and sometimes, if allergies are bad, your throat is itchy, like you want to scratch it. I used to eat Grape Nuts cereal (the nuggets) to make the scratchy throat better.
I endured it one season thinking it was a fluke, then started back on the allergy regimen again in 2004. I know the immunotherapy works and recommend it to people who have allergies to common items like pollen, ragweed, dust, mold. Now I won’t stop the shots. The first doctor was wrong, but now my allergies are not in Summer, just in Spring and I have the exact same allergies as before. It’s very strange.
I am blessed with good health, the allergies are a pain, but such a minor thing when I see and hear what people go through with their medical conditions. My mother had bad health most of her life. She was hit by a car at age 11 and spent four years in the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and had 42 orthopedic operations in her lifetime.
She died of a perforated bowel and a year before she passed away she had a dizzy episode, which I am sure was a TIA or mini strokek though the E.R. doctors said she was dehydrated. She was never the same afterward. I had watched her in pain for many years, so consider myself blessed to have come almost 62 years with just allergies.
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You’re indeed blessed. Like you said your allergies cannot be compared to the serious medical conditions some of your peers have.😊🌺♥️
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That’s how I see it Iriowen and try to put it into perspective that way. My mom was in constant pain all those years, and when Winter came, she was reluctant to go out as she was afraid of falling on the ice and breaking something. Come Spring, when she could go out and not worry so much about the icy or snowy conditions, it would be rainy, damp or humid and that affected her arthritis and sciatica, so I know there were no pain-free days from age 11 to when she passed away two weeks before her 84th birthday.
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Oh! I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s good that you keep her memory alive. ♥️🌺
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Thank you Iriowen – yes, we were very close. I do write about her in this blog, especially on her birthday or Mother’s Day.
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That’s very sweet of you! ♥️🌺💋
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Kudos to you and your walking efforts!! I’m awestruck! I wish I could get more into walkiness. Unfortunately I seem to be cursed with a laziness gene instead. Sigh.
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Thank you Ellie. I walked more last year than ever before since I started walking in 2011. We had a mild January and February and then a mild Fall, up until the last two weeks of December when we had a snow storm and then ice. I had set that goal of 1,050 in the last few weeks, since I thought I would get to 1,050 WordPress posts, so I thought I should have the same amount of miles and posts. I walked 300 more miles than my original goal. I started walking because once I started working from home, here I was, sitting hour after hour at the table and barely moving. I realized that was not healthy to be doing that day after day, so I started walking. Just around the block and gradually increasing it every day. I started at Labor Day 2011 and we had a mild Winter that year as well, so I was able to walk most days in the Winter, about 2 1/2 miles a day. I now try to walk 4 miles a day and sometimes 5 miles on weekends. The weather for the next 10 days is a little iffy so I am going to fall behind now if what the weather people say comes true.
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