Our Walks

the walnut tree from the end of the road

We have started what I hope will become a habit. I say this because we have done it two days in a row and I do not classify doing something twice as being a habit but it will not become one until we decide it is one. Habits are funny things.

So we walked to the end of the road; not our street, and not the next street but where the neighborhood meets the road that has business on it instead of just homes. Going there and back again twice fulfills my need to walk three miles, three times a week. I read somewhere that this is the recipe for avoiding diabetes. I have a somewhat rational fear of diabetes (coupled with a completely irrational fear of scurvy) and so we will walk.

Along the way last night, as we walked and talked and laughed, we saw cedar waxwings and eastern bluebirds by the handfuls. It is warbler season and the little flitting, flying, caterpillar chasing things still get the best of us. Too fast for us, they are.

On the first lap through, we passed The House With The Golden Retrievers and there was a teenager stabbing the ground with a pitchfork. Ears plugged with headphones, he never even looked up for a "hello." On the second lap, in his place was his dad, spreading grass seed onto The Bank That Will Not Grow Grass and lamenting. We stopped for a chat. "Throwing money on the ground, that's all I'm doing," he said. "For fifteen years I've been trying to get this bank to grow grass and it never works, maybe this time it will." Yes, maybe this time it will. Habits are funny things.