WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY

Well, the torrential rain finally ended so the ark-building project could be abandoned, but then the wind started gusting with a vengeance. It was a chilly breeze too, not the tropical stuff that we got used to the last week or so. Early this morning, I was still curled up in bed with my radio headphones on wishing the weather prognostication was better than the last few days. I kept switching from one meteorologist to the other willing the weather to improve, but both proclaimed sprinkles, sprinkles and more sprinkles throughout the day. The anchors on both stations quizzed the weathermen repeatedly about the conditions for today’s Tiger game at 1:07 p.m. but their forecast throughout Game 3 of the ALDS was glum and they urged everyone to take rain gear. I decided to throw off the covers from my cozy little cocoon and get up and at it and wait ‘ til daylight and scope it out then for myself. I puttered around and then peeked outside – yup, the wind had kicked up but no rain yet. I had to go out anyway as I wanted to mail my Canadian buddy her birthday card today. I decided I was not going to fly away, even though ‘tis the season for flying, and besides I have no wart on my nose, nor a tall conical hat and my broom is tucked away in the back of the garage.

As a general rule, I check my work e-mail early every morning and usually give my boss a head’s up that I’m out for a walk, or errands, and will check back in later. He likewise fills me in on his schedule via e-mail since we last touched base. Well, what a surprise … Robb was in the office twice yesterday; the last time, an impromptu visit at 8:30 p.m. to make revisions on the work I did Sunday afternoon. Some of the work was labeled ASAP. So, all that agonizing over should I stay or should I go (not to sound like that song of yesteryear) and now it was out of my hands. I still suited up to traipse down to the end of the block and mail my card. I opened the screen door and a wayward gust caught the corner of it and the door soon left my fingers and nearly flew off the hinges. Whew! Whatever leaves were wobbling on their stems yesterday were now strewn on the lawn and sidewalk and starting to gather in small piles along the curb as they were whirling and swirling through the air like a Hallmark card with a subtitle “Happy Fall!!!” It made me a little sad – my favorite time of year and it looked to be almost over in one fell swoop. I enjoy watching Mother Nature dip her paintbrush into the autumn palette to apply those burnt orange, bittersweet and golden colors to be admired by all and then she gently nudges those beautiful leaves onto the ground. Ahhh Fall … but this is too soon! While the leaves were all aflutter around me, I whooshed along like a tumbleweed for that short, one-block trip to the mailbox. By the time the trek was over, my topknot was askew and tendrils were escaping in every direction. I came into the house with a few leaves amongst my loose locks and scattered onto my sweats as well. I brushed them off and deposited them in the garbage and went over and poured a cup of steaming hot coffee before taking on the day. Maybe tomorrow the rain and wind machines will be turned off and I’ll get in a short walk after the HVAC man does his furnace check … brrrrrrrrr.

My shoes are getting a well-deserved break today as my walk was interrupted by rain – the walk has to happen in the morning or I don’t go. Today promises to be an all-day rain. So, I’m sitting here writing this blog post since it is now quite addictive to write every day, whether I walked or not. This was not my original bargain with myself i.e. a trade-off … you walk, and you may write and have one large glass of chocolate milk for those walking efforts. It is good to try to strive for perfection, but sometimes you must fall off the wagon just a little. Buddy, my canary is singing so beautifully, I decided he deserved a paragraph devoted to him. He is singing at the top of his lungs right now so I no longer am able to hear the rain pelting against the window. Unlike me, Buddy does not bemoan the dismal day. This is because Buddy is a perpetually happy little fellow, who starts singing as soon as I uncover him in the morning and continues brightening up the kitchen with his songs until I say “it’s time for bed now kid”. Buddy sings when it is quiet and he sings when the radio is on, whether it is the news or an oldie on WOMC. When I have dictation from Robb, I put the speaker on the Dictaphone and transcribe the tape that way so Buddy does not feel excluded and he sings right along with Robb’s voice. He only stops when he is eating; the rest of the time he is a happy-go-lucky little bird with a beautiful voice You cannot help but smile to yourself when you hear him, just as you must grin when you see this little squirrel, who, unlike me, did not let the rain deter his plans.

Life is good.

“THE RAINY DAY”
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
–By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What a soggy start to this morning, with thunder boomers and torrential rain and more of that ugly weather looming large. Sigh. Well at least the weather is not as bad as other parts of the country where they have alot of snow, tornadoes and tropical storms, so we are grateful for just rain.

This post hearkens back to my German heritage. I am Canadian but my father was German and my mother Canadian. My grandfather hailed from Quebec so there is a little French-Canadian blood coursing through my veins as well.

I don’t understand, speak or write German, but I can turn my German heritage on like a toggle button, just like any other ethnic-related holiday. I am American for your Thanksgiving, munching away on a slice of turkey breast and dressing with a spoonful of cranberry sauce. On St. Paddy’s Day I enjoy my version of corned beef and cabbage, albeit two slices of rye bread piled high with lean corned beef and a side dish of coleslaw, followed by lime green Jell-O for dessert. I’m not Irish, but I am for this holiday. I fix myself a plate of spicy Mexican food to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Oktoberfest will be no different. Today, I will celebrate this festive event, which occurs between September 21st and October 6th this year, with a bratwurst sitting on a bed of sauerkraut and a side dish of green beans and spaetzle. I will forego the apple strudel and have some apple-cinnamon yogurt instead (don’t tell anyone it is Greek yogurt though.)

I am no stranger to German fare. After marrying my father, my mother perfected her German cooking through the years and became a quasi-frau whipping up such favorites as wiener schnitzel, sauerbraten and potato dumplings. She made a sinful Black Forest Cherry Torte. Our family frequented Ray’s Prime Meats, a butcher shop that carried Dimpflmeier hearty German bread and every type of German sausage, or “wurst”, available. My father would make potato pancakes several times each Summer. He was relegated to the backyard to cook them, otherwise the smell of Crisco and frying potatoes permeated the entire house for weeks. My mother would peel a huge sack of potatoes while my father sat patiently hand-grating them (and skinning many a knuckle) for hours, then the patties were dropped into the hot grease in an electric skillet. We had to eat in stages as the hot, crispy, grease-laden potato pancakes were stacked onto a platter and taken quickly into the house to enjoy with a generous dollop of applesauce, while more potato pancakes were sizzling on the skillet outside. It was the only time growing up I can remember eating food with my fingers because I was brought up with the European dining method, i.e. only eating with knife and fork, not matter whether it was finger food or not.

When I was younger, I accompanied my parents to the Germania Club where Germans gathered and talked about the old country while they drank beer, ate alot of fattening food and watched a band where men pranced around in lederhosen and Tyrolean hats and women swung their hips in Alpine-style dirndl skirts with-crisscrossed bodices, puffy-sleeved blouses and had rosy cheeks and braided coiffures. This was the German way … alot of “oom-pah” music and dancing and accordion playing. My mom and I spoke no German and it was not much fun since everyone spoke German at the Club. Oh, sometimes they would speak to us in English when we first arrived, but as the evening wore on, and the beer flowed more freely, English was abandoned and the partygoers reverted to their native German tongue. Alas, there was always the food to try and enjoy.

If you’ve got a hearty appetite then you will enjoy delicious German food. When my parents and I visited my great Aunt and Uncle in Germany in 1979 we tried different German specialties every day for two weeks; there was good eating all around because Uncle Karl’s occupation had been as a chef on a train and he was eager to please and impress us with his culinary skills. He was a wonderful cook and loved making desserts for us from fruit trees he grew in his garden – plum kuchens, pear strudels … all topped with fresh pure whipping cream. We travelled through Austria with them and they wanted to have a large meal at mid-day and at night as well. They laughed at my mom and I who ate a large mid-day meal but opted to split a “wurstplatte” every night for dinner at each restaurant in every venue where we stopped. The platter was laden with at least a whole loaf’s worth of bread and no less than three dozen samples of different sliced sausages. Plenty to feed a family of four!! Germans like their food, their beer with friends in a biergarten and their music. It is the Teutonic way of life … this is probably why, when my parents discussed their only child learning to play an instrument, my father insisted I take accordion lessons. This photo above is me with my first, full-sized accordion, circa 1964. Such an ungainly musical instrument for such a little girl and I wonder if I was playing a German polka in this picture? Most likely I was playing “Lady of Spain”, a song in every accordion player’s repertoire. When we moved to the States there were no music conservatories offering accordion lessons so my studies were tabled and I haven’t played in years, so I’m likely not hooking up with any German bands anytime soon.

Breaker-breaker!!! Today is “National CB Radio Day” – well that’s a big 10-4. It is also the day where many of my former high school classmates will be part of a convoy headed to Arnaldo’s Banquet Hall to attend our 40-year high school reunion. I am opting out of this reunion, having decided to await the 50-year gathering and catch up on everyone’s life post-retirement. I have to admit that with the advent of Facebook, there would not be much to look forward to at a high school reunion nowadays, since the element of surprise in seeing former classmates and rekindling friendships is rather wrecked from glimpses of their lives via Facebook. Yup, Facebook should carry a “spoiler alert” as to high school or college reunions. We don’t even have to exert alot of effort to look up our old buddies. Once you plug in your high school name and graduation year, Facebook searches and gravitates former classmates’ profiles to your home page. Once you’ve “friended” one another, it’s time to reconnect to recollect old times. You can even check out Facebook friends and/or former classmates’ photo albums to view their significant other, children, … maybe even grandchildren. It is the modern era equivalent of the little “brag book” mini photo album that people used to carry around. So, essentially reviewing forty years’ passage of time is now accomplished with some messaging and a few mouse clicks through a friend’s Facebook pages. Perhaps nametags at reunions are no longer necessary since most people are on Facebook now.

I have connected and revisited old times with many high school chums since joining Facebook in 2010, but the girls I spent the most time with my last few years of high school are absent from my connections. I detailed how my very close girlfriends (or what you’d call your “BFF” nowadays) drifted so far apart soon after high school graduation in my July 28, 2013 blog post entitled “Wondering???” https://lindaschaubblog.net/2013/07/28/wondering
Sadly, our promises to one another to remain “forever friends” never applied once we set out in different directions, and an attempt at a five-year reunion amongst just us girls turned out to be an abysmal evening that could not end soon enough.

Via Facebook, I have been monitoring the LPHS Reunion Group which has added more and more grads from our class as the reunion plans progressed. I know I would not recognize most of these people if they stood next to me on the street; actually I’ve never met most of the people in the reunion group. We had 613 students in our June 1973 graduating class! A few people are trekking in from out of state and one is coming from Poland where he now lives. People are promising to take pictures tonight for the Facebook reunion site so I will look forward to vicariously enjoying the post-reunion dialogue and photos.

Sometimes it seems like just yesterday that we hastily scrawled “RMA” for Remember Me Always in one another’s class yearbook or on the back of a sepia-toned, wallet-sized photo. Can it really be four decades since we grouped together the morning after the all-night party to tearfully say our goodbyes? Those days are long gone but not forgotten. My handle is still “Linda Schaub” and I’ll catch you good buddies on the flip-flop. Over and out now….

Wondering and walking often go hand in hand for me. I love the solitariness of walking without a care in the world, sometime pondering life and sometimes just drinking it all in. “It” would be nature or perhaps people-watching sometimes … I love this little “me time” that I have allotted myself and as I set out this morning on a balmy day which feels more like August or early September, I was greedily wishing it was still Summer and I had more months to enjoy my daily walks. I was musing to myself that Autumn is the only season with two monikers – we refer to this season as “Autumn” and “Fall”. Spring, Summer or Winter are simply as stated. Who decided Autumn is also called “Fall”? Why “Fall”? Well everything “falls” in autumn – temps are usually falling, leaves are falling – well, that is stating the obvious. In the last week alot more leaves have fallen. Not enough to rake yet, but noticeably leaving some branches looking bare. Fresh leaves are strewn all about, as well as old, crumpled-up ones that are crispy beneath my feet as I trek down the sidewalk.

Today while walking I spotted a perfect maple leaf laying right-side up on the sidewalk. It was a brilliant brandy color and must’ve just dropped off the nearby tree as it was still supple and unmarred by sidewalk irregularities and not trampled by footprints. I stooped and picked it up, and admired it, then I was absently twirling it around in between my forefinger and thumb as I walked along. I decided to take it home with me – a little touch of the harvest season in the house until it withered. Perhaps I should press it between the pages of a book like I did so many years ago?

Dwelling on that idea, my thoughts were transported via the way-back machine to an assignment by my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Deakon, at E.A. Orr Public School in Oakville, Ontario. Our class assignment was to go to a beautiful, wooded area on Speers Road, not far from our elementary school, to gather and identify leaves. We had to find one near-perfect leaf from as many different deciduous trees as possible in this tiny forest. I remember going on the weekend with my father. We trudged through the woods, striving to get a few samples of maple, elm, oak, chestnut, sycamore, poplar and birch leaves. I recall this memorable assignment with such precision now … plucking some leaves from the ground or having my father bend a high branch down to my height to get that perfect leaf, then putting it into a brown paper bag for safekeeping until I got home. I had many different maple specimens as I recall. Once the leaves were gathered, each different leaf had to be carefully “pressed” between waxed paper to preserve them, layered into the pages of a heavy book to totally flatten them, then later scotch-taped to a sheet of paper. Lastly we had to oh-so-carefully print the Latin and common name of the tree in the lower, right-hand corner. We had to make a front and back cover with construction paper for our scrapbook of leaves and submit it to our teacher by the end of October.

I cannot help but wonder if teachers today would have their young charges compile and submit a collection of real leaves. My assignment was five decades ago … (gulp) a half-century ago. Go ahead and call me a cynic, but I am sure the same assignment in 2013 would involve school kids “collecting” clip art of leaves from Google Images, cutting-and-pasting those pictures into a Word document and submitting it to the teacher online.

Well, I kinda sorta like the old way better. I toted today’s maple leaf home and propped it up on the windowsill . It will last a day or two before it wilts or turns brittle on the edges – maybe it will last until the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday on the 14th, but I doubt it. It shall brighten up the kitchen and it has made my heart light as well … thanks for the memories little leaf.

Is “foodie” still one of those trending words, like “selfie”? I originally thought it applied only to cooks, but I think it fits the general description of anyone who likes to eat. I don’t think you have to be a gourmand or a gourmet to be a “foodie” … I’m neither, but I appreciate food, especially this time of year with all the fun Fall food out there. As to food, I am certainly not hard to please … so this begs the question of “do you live to eat, or do you eat to live?”

Food was on my mind this morning as I went to the grocery store, and in between chocking up 2½ miles walking amidst the aisles and store perimeter, I perused pumpkin and apple delights galore, and I don’t mean in the produce section. Meijer’s goodies were arranged to grab your attention when you entered the store and the displays didn’t disappoint. There was a Halloween extravaganza in the bakery section – lots of orange-and-chocolate cupcakes and cookies infused with harvest-colored M&Ms (OMG) just to name a few. Plus, it is Oktoberfest time, so please do bop over to buy some brats and buns and a package of sauerkraut to get the full flavor of a Bavarian meal. Sounds yummy and why not try one of these beers with that? Well guten appetit to you too! As your head swirls round and round at each display, please remember to pay homage to harvest time. There were plump pumpkin donuts and apple cider donuts paired up with pumpkin latte and apple cider and while you’re tossing some or all of those items into your cart, might as well pick up a few caramel apples as well because after all, they are more fruit than caramel, so they are good for you, right? It hardly depends on whether you say “carmel” or “caramel”, enunciating that extra vowel, they are yummy. As I strolled through the bread section, apple and cinnamon plus pumpkin spice wafted from the bread wrappers, saying “try me”. I may have passed up the donuts and taffy apples, but I am a sucker for bread so it was here I succumbed and decided to treat myself to Thomas’ Special Edition Pumpkin Spice Bagels, Once the bagels were in my hot little hands, I hustled over to get the Special Edition Philadelphia Cream Cheese in Pumpkin Spice. Right now my whole kitchen smells of the as-yet-unopened bagels, so I will close this post now for some self-indulgence. I’m so very thankful for the harvest season. (Smile)

I wish I had been clever enough to coin today’s weather word “Aug-tober” to describe how it is feeling like August in October, but that was how our WWJ meteorologist handily defined our first day of this new month. The temps truly belied the calendar date and while I appreciated the warm and sunny day, I’m glad we didn’t climb to near 80. I’m still hating these darkish mornings and when the sun finally came up, I headed out with multiple layers and I shrugged out of my sweater before I was a block away. Two blocks later I shucked my sweatshirt top and looped it around my neck and walked in a tee-shirt only. I passed nearby a schoolyard where kids awaited the morning bell wearing shorts and tee-shirts and one had on flip-flops! I thanked a young man, who was the “safety” for the corner, who permitted me to cross the street. He, like I, had left the house overdressed and I saw a lightweight jacket, a sweatshirt and his backpack laying in a heap at his feet. He was clothed only in a tee-shirt and his bright orange safety harness was sagging, no doubt because he adjusted it for more layers of clothes during the past week or so. It didn’t matter and it didn’t take away from his “safety” credibility, because he was in charge and he was all puffed up with importance as he instructed his classmates (and me) when and where to safely cross the street.

We’re ready to turn the calendar page to October and Michiganders are still hoppin’ and boppin’ to the orange barrel polka out there. In our neck of the woods, thankfully, the final phase of the Fort Street construction will wrap up in a few weeks after two long, dust-filled years which has been a nightmare to local residents and businesses. Well, our reward for the inconvenience is four miles of wider roads, new traffic signals and new sewers to the tune of $40 million dollars.

The first phase included Lincoln Park, so we were spared alot of the latter extended mess, but now the County has been resurfacing Fort Street and tarring the top of each street. I stopped walking along Fort Street since the tar dribbles were sticking to my shoes at every street I crossed. The workers made a slopping mess by putting so much tar on the road that it looks like the La Brea Tar Pits and the weather on the horizon will spell one hot, gooey mess for sure.

When I finally made it out for a walk after the morning rain, it was for just a petite promenade. I thought I’d just stay in the neighborhood because of the mess on Fort Street. First, I went down one street and there was a striping crew so I switched over to the next street where a jackhammer was both piercing and pounding the pavement so I took still another detour. Alas, all was calm while a group of workers sat on the porch steps sipping from Tim Horton take-out cups while waiting for the churning cement mixer to finish tumbling their cement so they could get troweling. (I was not wearing my fluorescent Cement Masons shirt today so I didn’t feel obligated to ask if they needed a hand.)

‘Tis the season for construction in Michigan and we know that those same crews will be back for repairs and patching after a few hard Michigan Winters take their toll on the roads. Turning the calendar over to October we know only too well that those wintry days are not far off.

Yesterday, all the weather people predicted overnight rain lasting into the early morning hours so I didn’t set the alarm figuring I’d sleep in and rest on my laurels. Of course I regretted the extended slumber when the rain didn’t arrive for hours … grrrrrrr. Well, I’ll be back to pounding the pavement again tomorrow, striding toward that 400-mile goal.

Tonight is the long-anticipated return of “Sixty Minutes” after Summer hiatus. It seems like forever since there was a new episode. This is the only show I follow. I don’t say that I watch it on TV because I listen to “Sixty Minutes” on radio station WWJ 950 AM every Sunday night. I don’t sit staring at the radio with rapt attention like this girl pictured above who was probably engrossed in “The Lone Ranger”. I have the radio on in the background. Sometimes a particular “Sixty Minutes” story will intrigue me and I’ll check out the interviewee or perhaps the scenery on a podcast or “Sixty Minutes Overtime” the next time I’m online, but mostly it is just listening to the show on the radio. My mom and I watched “Sixty Minutes” live for years and never missed an episode, even though it never started on time during football season. Those stellar interviews by Mike Wallace kept you gripping your armrests and on the end of your seat while you watched him interrogating someone or you were privy to what dirt he uncovered. He was the best in my opinion. I don’t think “Sixty Minutes” is as interesting as it was years ago; they seem to interject more fluff stories or world politics pieces now. I miss that old curmudgeon Andy Rooney as well.

As to not watching TV … well, I cancelled my cable years ago and unplugged the TV from the wall. I have not seen a television program, nor rented a movie in many years. I’ve not been to the show since ”Sommersby” in February of 1993.

After the FCC switched our TVs over from analog to digital, my mom’s tiny bedroom TV no longer worker, even with the new converter box. That RCA TV never had stellar reception to begin with. It had extraordinarily large rabbit ears attached to the back of the TV. You could adjust the rabbit ears and it was still fuzzy on some stations. Sometimes we’d hang a paperclip or wadded-up piece of aluminum foil off the top of the antenna … very scientific, but it worked! I bought my mom a 7-inch digital TV for her nightstand and it worked about half of the time. She liked to watch the news and in the middle of a news story, the picture would freeze and only the audio worked. I bought and hooked up a flat antenna, but freeze-frame was the name of the game with this TV so I gave the TV and antenna away.

I don’t miss TV. I’m a bit of an oddity I suppose. I’m probably the only person alive who has never watched one reality TV show. Reality TV would not be my cup of tea. After last Sunday’s Emmy Awards, I listened to the names of the winners the following morning and realized I had no clue about any of the shows, nor their players, despite hearing bits and pieces of TV shows or trending movies on the Warren Pierce or Mitch Albom radio programs. I am hopelessly behind in knowing who’s who in the TV zoo, so gone are the days of “must-see TV” … for me anyway. I watched more TV before I got a VCR. Of course I was younger then and staying up ’til 11:00 p.m. watching TV, then topping it off with the news followed by Johnny Carson’s monologue before turning in for the night was easy. We didn’t get our first VCR until 1989. Before then it was hard to pick and choose what to watch. There was alot of excitement in September when Premiere Week started and the old favorites were back and there were always great made-for-TV movies. The sweeps in November and February had absolutely awesome television – how about all those wonderful miniseries from years ago? My favorites were “Roots”, “Lonesome Dove” and “The Thornbirds” … I was just glued to the tube every night. I had my favorite night-time soaps: Thursday was “Knots Landing” and Friday night was “Dallas” and “Falcon Crest”. Sometimes by the end of the workweek, a nap was in order after dinner to ensure not nodding off during the Friday night television shows. There were spectacular end-of-season cliffhangers and we’d speculate around the water cooler all Summer who Abby Cunningham would be stabbing in the back or who shot JR? Do the new shows have that intrigue? Just wondering? And what happened to walking over and turning on the TV with the “on” button and checking out the regular channels 2, 4 and 7? Now you have low-tier cable, high-tier premium cable or Netflix, Hulu – it is mind boggling. I’m glad TV no longer has its hooks in me. I am liking the simplicity in my life now. Perhaps I should have lived in another era and been classmates with Richie, Potsie and Ralph Malph and suckin’ down a malt at Arnold’s Drive-in. How about living in Mayberry, North Carolina with Aunt Bee, Sheriff Taylor and his boy, Opie? Life and TV was a whole lot simpler in those days, even with those dumb ol’ rabbit ears.

An absolutely perfect Fall day! I started my morning with a trek to Council Point Park, then walked to Wyandotte toward the river, and finally reluctantly headed home rather than risk shin splints. I walked a total of five miles and am happy to report I have now beaten the car’s mileage by 2.75 miles, thus I have earned my half-gallon of Honeycrisp apple cider. My stats on my sweet success are as follows:

Total miles walked as of 09/28/13: 318.75
Total miles driven as of 09/28/13: 316.00
Thus, I have walked 2.75 miles more than I drove the car in 2013.

I may be able to stay ahead of the car’s mileage for the balance of this year if there are minimal errands to be run and the weather cooperates like it has the last few weeks. Unfortunately, the days are getting shorter, so the likelihood of getting three or more miles in daily will diminish and rain will put a damper on the morning walk as well. My next goal will be to reach 400 miles before year-end.

Council Point Park was the first stop on my walk. It was very tranquil there this morning. There was one jogger on the path and one sprinter running back and forth across the grassy area between the paths. The fog was present again in the Park’s shallow baseball and soccer fields and there were several gaggles of geese in each field. It seemed as if the fog was creeping up their legs so all you saw was their waddling bodies and long, graceful necks bending down to graze as they seemingly glided along in a mist created by dry ice special effects. As I watched the geese in the foggy fields, right on cue I heard the unmistakable low humming of a foghorn from the river. As I walked along the water’s edge, I saw a Sandhill Crane between the reeds on the banks of the Ecorse Creek. I stopped, and ducked behind a bush, hoping to see the crane foraging for food, but it remained motionless the entire time I paused so I moved on. That’s a first for me at this Park; a Facebook friend posted a picture of a Sandhill Crane in her Milford neighborhood earlier this week so I could readily identify it. The songbirds were just delightful, as they appeared to be outdoing one another, each with their own unique song, while I wound my way around the two-mile path. When I finished at the Park, I walked toward the train track and I heard a train’s horn repeatedly blowing, its long and mournful sound interrupting the still morn. Then the horn finally stopped, followed by the creaking and rattling sound of the train as it groaned along the railroad tracks.

I finally headed home, after taking the longest route I know to rack up the steps to get to five miles. I passed the house where, as I detailed in my September 1st blog post “Corncobs”, I told the older man who tends the garden out back that he reminded me of Farmer Jack, of local supermarket fame. As I approached the house, I noticed some harvest décor around the yard, including a few scarecrows lined up like soldiers along the fence. I mused that perhaps the scarecrows were not harvest décor at all, but were guarding his garden. Today, once again he carried a large wicker basket filled with his garden veggies. He nodded his head to me to acknowledge my “good morning” greeting because his hands were full. He was wearing his perpetual straw hat, a flannel plaid shirt and worn-looking denim pants. The resemblance between him and the scarecrows was evident, but I refrained from commenting that a scarecrow was his doppelganger, even in jest, because that just may not be interpreted as complimentary.

I came home and changed clothes and got out in the yard to round up the yard ornaments, pots and baskets and corral them in the garage. This was easier said than done. It’s a small garage and alot of garden paraphernalia has been accumulated through the years, but I finished three hours later. There is absolutely no room for one more thing. The shelves which line the driver’s side of the garage are great for organizing and stacking but it becomes dicey to enter and exit the car, especially when wearing a bulky Winter coat. I stopped looking for new garden ornaments a few years back once I had to encroach into the basement with my white rocking chair, colonial blue pout chair, Precious Moments resin figurines and St. Francis statue. My hose reel/hose has overwintered at my next-door neighbor Marge’s garage for nearly twenty years.

Less is more – it’s my new mantra!