(How I love alliteration!) This morning just didn’t go right from the get go. I got up and heard the weather report – yes … it was foggy, just as predicted, and yes … it would clear up, maybe mid-morn if we were lucky. I was grateful, once again, that I had seized those two sunny days last weekend and claimed them for a marathon walking-and-photo-taking session.
I peered out the front door around 8:45 a.m. and the pavement was still damp and the trees and bushes had water droplets on them. I came back to the computer and noticed I lost my internet connection while I was away – great. Actually, I was not done, and was still responding to comments to yesterday’s post, so that was just plain annoying. I decided to just shut it down and go, but there were eight updates. Would I ever get going out into the murky morn? Finally, almost an hour later, the updates were done and I decided I should hightail it before the computer gremlins made even more mischief. I grabbed a couple of Ziploc bags of peanuts and headed out.
There was only one other person at Council Point Park and that was Todd, the weekend jogger. I saw his car, yet I never saw him on the path. I looked around for squirrels and they were similarly absent, even Parker. Did the dregs of the fog deter them from coming down from their nests for a visit?
I started along the trail and the asphalt was still wet from Friday’s rain and then the subsequent fog. Surprisingly, since it was 35 degrees, there was a thin veil of ice on the Creek and black ice on the pathway. I felt my feet slide a few times, so I thought it might be more prudent to walk on the soggy grass. My sudden movement raised the hackles of a half-dozen Canada geese and a couple of them got rowdy and flapped their wings, and one even hissed with its bright pink tongue aimed in my direction. They then decided I wasn’t worth the aggravation of ganging up on me and stopped their collective hissy fit. “Wait a minute! I meant no harm and I’m certainly not intruding in your space” I growled to none of them in particular, but they waddled off in a huff anyway.
A group of crows were high above and cawing loudly – they were making quite a ruckus, and, despite the tree branches being bare, I didn’t see a single crow so I had no idea where they were, or what was getting them so agitated.
Harry, the resident heron, was up in a tree. He was positioned way inside the dead branches, and there was no use in pulling out the camera to take his picture as he just blended into the tree’s dead wood, so the dull sky and his blue-gray body just became one big blur. “You’ve off the hook Harry – no photo sessions today!” I called out as I passed him.
I had to walk almost the entire loop before the word got out that the Peanut Lady had arrived and was looking for takers, then the word spread quickly because soon there were furry bodies scrambling all over the path, and headed toward me. Parker was not in the bunch so he must have been slacking up in his nest. “That’s better” I told them as I tossed out peanuts, and added “I was hoping I didn’t have to summon you down!”
I emptied most of the Ziploc bags with the eight squirrels, but had to save some peanuts for the other side in case any squirrels were over there. There were none, and, unbelievably I walked in that second loop without seeing a single soul, human or otherwise.
I wanted to spotlight another memorial tree today. You’ll recall back on November 23rd I wrote about Brian Skinner’s memorial tree which had not one, but two, Christmas wreaths, both in a red-and-white color combo. One wreath had a hockey theme so Brian might have been a Red Wings fan, or “wing nut” as they are called. It was very festive.
There is only one other tree at Council Point Park that sports Christmas décor and it belongs to Earl “Butch” Paryaski.
Every year this tree is decorated with old-fashioned glass bulbs and nostalgic-looking ornaments. I picked today to mention this memorial tree since Mr. Paryaski passed away 15 years ago on this date and tomorrow would have been his 79th birthday. I found out his information simply by Googling his name and landing on the “Find a Grave” site.
These ornaments sure do shimmer against a gray and lackluster background don’t they?
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
Dear Ms “Alliteration”……………………I enjoy reading your alliteration………………………..
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I am glad Ann Marie – sometimes it is easy to do, like this post. I couldn’t resist!
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What nice and so unique with glass bulbs in the tree!😊 You have the same boring weather as we have here. Gray and sad every day. I’m not a fan of snow, but I think it’s lit up in the dark and gray winter that we have now.
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I agree John … the weather is downright boring. Here we have fog again this morning and freezing fog in the northern suburbs (not me). I thought of you when I took the pictures in the bulbs as they reflected me (you did that recently and in the Summer one time as well) … though they are a little distorted due to the round bulbs. The weather has been a disappointment here and there in Sweden for almost a year now. .
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I love the photo of your reflection in the Christmas ball. That must be a lot of work to put up those Christmas decorations every year. It looks like whoever put them up must have used a ladder.
I guess Parker lost out on getting a treat by lounging around in his nest and not coming down for the peanut lady! Be careful around those geese! A flock of hundreds of geese has descended in the little park below our house. They are fun to watch and I love to hear them flying overhead, but the area is getting very dirty with goose poop. I have to watch where I walk or run on the little path.
Maybe tomorrow will be sunny!
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Thanks Laurie – I was trying to be different and noticed my reflection in the Christmas ball and decided to stay as close as I could to capture it. At one time I had several different reflections from several ornaments, but some were blurry so I had to discard those photos. I think they used a ladder too because it is a fairly tall tree – they decorate the same way every year and I am surprised that more people don’t decorate their memorial trees at that Park.
I wonder what happened to Parker – it is unusual for him to stay away and I will look for him today – we have some fog and murkiness again this morning so I am later going down there. The geese are really fractious in the Spring when they have their goslings in tow and I have some pictures of them standing in front of their goslings and hissing at me and flapping their wings when I merely walked by. Most of the walkers will just walk on the grass if the geese and their goslings are monopolizing the pathway which is something they like to do! The goose poop is terrible and I am always stopping and looking at the soles of my shoes to see if I walked in it, especially on days when I drive to the Park to give the car a run as I don’t want to mess up the car.
We are supposed to get near 50 degrees and the sun will come out later … the weather is really bizarre these days and we will not have a white Christmas, but I am fine with that. More walking and I have a special treat for the critters for Christmas, so I hope I can get down there to give it to all of them. Surely one of the Saturday through Tuesday mornings will be good to do this and take some pictures. Have a good day Laurie.
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My hubby took a picture like that out in Seattle when we visited the Chihuly glass museum. You could see a reflection of us with the Space Needle in the background reflected in one of Chihuly’s glass balls. It was very cool!
I hope the weather cooperates with you so that you can get your walk in and find Parker. I don’t think we will have a white Christmas, either. That suits me just fine, too. My son and DIL will be visiting from Oregon. They don’t see snow too often so they will be disappointed. You have a good day too!
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That sounds very cool Laurie. My friend Evelyn lives in Richmond, Virginia and when the Chihuly exhibit was there a few years ago, she sent me some pictures from her phone of the exhibits, including some glass flowers with reflections. Very nice and unusual too.
Our weather was gorgeous as I may have said in the other comment and Parker was there when I got to the parking lot. So that made me feel better – I was worrying about him.
They originally said we’d have an El Nino Winter but not mentioned that prediction much after we had all the icy mornings and minimal snow in November that slickened the roads and caused accidents. Oregon has been having a lot of rain I hear … a fellow blogger who is housebound after a knee replacement lives there and mentioned all the rain a few times. So maybe no snow is too bad, but dry weather will make them happy.
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That decorated tree is wonderful!
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I thought so too Sarah – how nice to celebrate his life by decorating for Christmas, which would have been also his birthday month.
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At our cemetery, someone always puts up a Christmas tree with ornaments on a grave. The grave belongs to a young person but not a child but obviously very much loved.
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That is sad to see. There is a memorial tree at the Park for a young woman who died … every Spring they put angels on it when it blossoms – it is beautiful, all white, and they have planted tulips beneath it … but the strangest thing is they never come back any other time of the year, nor do they tend to the tree. The City does nothing with these trees, they don’t mulch or even water them. So some people do bring their own mulch or use silk flowers. I think they must not live around here because the mulch needs weeding and tending to.
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How nice that they decorate the tree in remembrance of Mr Paryaski! I feel for you about the computer….so frustrating!
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Yes, too many hours here at the computer … that’s not healthy really and that is why I started walking as I told you. I need to look into standing at the computer – I have an old laptop and am going to put it up high so I have to stand. I went past Mr. Paryaski’s tree this morning – said “Happy Birthday” … he is buried about 3 miles away. His family always decorates so I’m guessing they are missing him today on his birthday which falls so close to Christmas time.
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I bet they miss him too but what a great way to remember him by celebrating his life and decorating a tree for everyone to see!
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I agree with you Diane … it is always good to keep people’s memory alive, long after they are gone. We actually have sun again today – we are on a run, but ugly weather the end of the week they say and the weather people are crowing about a possible white Christmas. It can stay a green Christmas in my opinion. 🙂
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Haha I will take white grass and dry roads and sidewalks. We don’t ask for much right?
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That’s my kind of snow too Diane – that’s what we had the last three times. You had that nasty ice, but the silver lining there was you had the day off!
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How nice it is to read your daily posts. You really do not have to your usual stuff to find meaning. Very nice read today. John.
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Thank you John. I am glad you are enjoying the posts. I do like being out in a nature setting and today we were lucky to have a rare sunny and warmish (for Southeast Michigan) day today … 43 degrees is almost unheard of here in my neck of the woods for mid-December.
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Way to make the frustrations of the morning turn out on a positive note! Love the photos of your reflection in the bulbs. Take care, hope today is better for you!
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Thank you Shelley – that Comcast acted up again this morning and, while the internet did not go out, I could not get into several sites. I don’t know what is up. I suspect that Shutterfly, where I store my photos, had many people creating photo gifts but it was around 7:00 a.m. … so go figure. When I came back from walking and settled in, I could not get into WordPress. (WordPress closed the connection/connection error. This was a first for me.) The bulb reflection was fun – I took many pictures and was going to use the round picture feature and pictured that in my head, but it was better in my head than when I went to implement it. We had beautiful weather here today – 43 degrees and sunny. And nice through to Thursday – pinch me! We’re doing better than we did all of October and November!
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Very nice Christmas ornamentation! Crows like shiny things and i wonder if they might want to zoom closer to get a better view! 🙂
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Thanks Tom – I thought it would be fun to see if I could take some up close-up photos of the ornaments and blur some in the background. I must have taken 50 pictures – anyone watching me in the houses across the street from the Park would be wondering what I was doing there for so long. When I saw my image in the ornament … time to take a few more pictures to see if I could get a clear image. The background was murky and cloudy looking, so it really made the ornaments look brighter. That’s right, crows do like shiny objects – I never saw them around that tree and in all the time I walked past it, I never saw any ornaments fall to the ground so no crows are messing with the ornaments. They had a few bow ornaments with glitter and the purple ornament with all the holes was glittery – the crows would have a field day!
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Not edible so they may not have been interested in them in cold weather. Perhaps in warm weather, they would have to bonus energy to play with shiny toys, but now it’s all about getting what little food there is. Or maybe the ornamentation was just not up to their taste. 🙂
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They might have been scared when they saw their reflection, even though it is distorted, on the side of the bulb?
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It does look like a murky morning, but you still managed to find the beauty in it!! Those ornaments are gorgeous!
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It was still murky – I was going to say “the fog crept in on little squirrel feet” but I had been corny the day before … 🙂 Those ornaments were so shiny and bright on a dull and lackluster day – amazing!
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Mackenzie – I can’t recall our thread about Evelyn, but had to share this – yesterday I said Evelyn had not gotten a volunteer position for her required 600-hour internship – she just sent me an e-mail and I had to share it with you since you and I chat about her:
“I just heard from the guy in Charlottesville and they have accepted me as their AIT. I’m really nervous and excited at the same time!”
It is a 75-mile round trip and hopefully the weather is not too brutal for her … Richmond, VA has been having weather like the Midwest for goodness sake.
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Yay! Oh congrats to her. I pray the weather is ok for all her travels. I so admire her tenacity and perseverance
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I thought it was funny – the day after I said they were not interested … a 75-mile roundtrip is rigorous, especially since Richmond, VA has been having Midwestern-style Winters of late.
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I like the color you found on an otherwise grey day. I am praying for Parker. His dupe hasn’t made an appearance after that day, right ?
How is the little grey squirrel doing ?
Glad you got the peanut delivery done safe and sound. Would you have a Christmas vacation from work ?
The geese must have been furious when you jumped onto their grass- “their”. 🙂
I am reading your posts after I receive your email notifications- thank you so much for that.
Please continue your writing.
Susie
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Hi Susie – I should have posted a quick post just to say Parker was fine and he bounded over to see me when I arrived at the Park yesterday.
I had some internet issues in the morning which kept me from even getting online and Comcast was fitful, then I couldn’t get into Shutterfly where I store all my pictures – that was quite frustrating as well. I transfer pics from the memory card to my old computer and then to Shutterfly so I had to send the pics that way and just ran out of time … my cookie post will wait til later this week. I will just have off Christmas Eve and Christmas and New Year’s Eve and Christmas but my boss leaves for Mexico this Thursday and returns on Friday 12/28. Over the last year, every vacation he has been on he would give me work as we’ve been so busy over the last 12 months to 18 months. I’ve been busy this last week trying to get him out the door … Wednesday is his last day. I’m hoping no emergencies come in the next few days and maybe I can have some time off … during the day I will monitor his e-mail and voicemail and the rest of the day can be for me. I saw the geese get their “we are mad you have intruded on our space” look and gave them wide berth. I will send you my posts by e-mail. I did that for my friend/neighbor Marge for years … she had Yahoo e-mail and after the big “hack” … two hacks in fact, she just communicated via Facebook, so every time I posted, I sent her the link to the post. I will do that for you too.
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Love your decorations, Linda. :0)
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Thanks Pam!
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How beautiful with the decorations in the tree. Taking the time to Google ones who have passed is such a lovely sentiment as their memories live on.
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Thank you Zena – It is nice because they decorate this tree every Christmas with the old-fashioned glass bulbs … sad that his death date and birthdate were one day apart – I think it would be it harder and sadder on the family. I felt badly so I decided to track down some info on him.
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