Traffic (reworked)

I'm very lucky that I come across a scarce few vehicles early in the morning.   Usually zero.    I consider that lucky because they are not expecting to see two dogs and a man as they are driving the back roads that time of day.   Whenever we do meet, my concern is what they are doing in that car.   My guess is reaching for coffee, fumbling with papers, cell phone, a cigarette, who knows what else.

I know something besides driving is going on because it often seems like they are headed right for us.   Then they do my least favorite thing...they hit the high beams.   If anyone reading this blog comes across walkers, runners, or bikers treat them as you would another vehicle and put the headlights on low beam.   Please don't blind my dogs and I.   If you really want to make them feel safe and secure, slow down and swing wide.   If you are interested in entering their heart, make eye contact, smile and wave...even if it's just a small lift of a finger off the steering wheel.

It is probably important to remember that waving one finger may be misinterpreted

When the cars and trucks do show up I pull my dogs close to me and head for the border of the road.   I stop walking and let the car pass while I make eye contact, smile and wave.    This reinforces that I am appreciative that they didn't crush us.   I like giving drivers positive reinforcement but sometimes I get hard headed.   If an oncoming vehicle doesn't move over a little and doesn't slow, I don't wave.

I don't think they care.

.

Walking in a Fog (posted again 'cause I like it)

Some would say the title of today's blog is my autobiography in four words.   But I'm discussing the weather phenomena, not my twisted brain. 

I enjoy walking just before dawn through the clouds that fall from the sky.

I like the small patches of thick fog that truly look like a cloud that fell from the sky.   Sometimes, in  low lying areas and around small ponds, the fog is set in so thick that it appears a large hand pushed bunches of cotton balls into a basket.

I must walk to appreciate fog.    The headlights from a vehicle ruin the experience...even with low beams.

Fog can mix with the environment and and take on completely different visual experiences.  Moonlight shining on fog gives off an almost blue glow, a near florescence.   When fog mixes with dust from a gravel road, I walk through a beige cloud. 

On some rare occasions there is too much fog.    My little red blinkers just wouldn't be seen until it was too late.   On those days I call for a "fog out"and my dogs and I turn around and go home.   Like a rain out, it is a walk lost.

Training Dogs to Walk ( A new look)

Since folks read that I walk with dogs they sometimes ask how I train my dogs to walk.   I hate it when my belly vibrates and shakes when laughing but that's what happens when I hear this question.   I do not and cannot train dogs.   My neighbor Doc trains his dogs.   They walk with him, never on a leash and they never stray far from him, even when wild animals or my dogs get close.   His dogs make my dogs seem like coyotes.

I use leash technology.   A ten foot canvas strap and a nifty little thing called a gentle leader.   It leaves a little mark on the big girl's snoot but it's much better than dislocated shoulders.  The vet thinks I should try invisible fencing at my place.   Again, I hate it when my belly vibrates and shakes when laughing.

 I did build a pen for them outside...and then made it taller...and then made it taller again.   My little girl can both jump and climb.   Since I rescued her, I am not completely sure of her heritage but it would seem her mother was a mountain lion.   The older girl dropped out of obedience training.   The two tiny little animals that were in class with her were very glad.   My dogs will sit if given the proper motivation.   I call them treat whores.  

But I do a little training.   During part of every walk, I shorten the leash and make them walk right beside me.   I also do this when they begin a chase or when I come across the occasional vehicle.   I actually believe this makes them walk much calmer.   The casual observer would not notice the calm.

Traffic Control in the Country (stopping again)

Every three days I walk east.   Five years ago they put up two stop signs (one in each direction) on the gravel road east of my cabin.   It is now a three-way stop.   For the first hundred years, north and south moved with the right of way and the traffic from the east stopped.   Not anymore.   There are more dogs in this area than people but somehow one more person must have built a house and tipped the demographic scale.   Now we have a three-way stop.

Since I had lived there for ten years without the sign I of course ignored it.   And, I of course got stopped by the county sheriff.   She was a deputy and was embarrassed to pull me over (but not embarrassed enough to ignore me).  She explained that the new sign was to slow gravel trucks and gave me a warning.

I guess the warning worked because now when I come to that intersection I slow down a bit before I run the stop sign.

This intersection is considered dangerous by some.   I know that once at that intersection a deer attacked Checking Kim's Jeep and we had to get it towed out of the ditch.   Deer don't pay anymore attention to that stop sign than I do.

Part Four of Walking with the Ones You Love

Part four was described by my niece far better than I could. 

When my uncle, Walking Wild, posted about walks with my grandfather, I was reminded of similar excursions I’d had with the man. Whistle Lew, as WW refers to him, was a different man by the time I came along. He was a little older and a little softer. When we went on gathering trips, often we’d drive in his boat of a car, but the experience was still similar enough. He took me a few times to gather fresh walnuts. The place we went was a property that was in my neighborhood, but it never occurred to me that those pungent green balls beneath the tree I often walked right by were actually hiding the nuts that my Grandma would use to bake her treats.

It’s still such a fond childhood memory of mine, folding the hem of my over-sized  tee shirt up to create a makeshift sling which I’d fill with my bounty. I’d carry the few I’d collected over for inspection by my grandfather, who would either add them to the bushel of quality ones he’d cut from the tree or toss them back under the tree if they were too far gone. I didn’t actually like walnuts and never ate them, but that never took away from my enjoyment of this exercise and the feeling that I’d pleased my Grandpap somehow by doing a good job.
Walnuts weren’t the only thing we gathered. Sometimes it was berries, sometimes pears. Nearly all of my favorite memories of my childhood take place in my grandfather’s expansive backyard gardens. I still have a love for food that comes directly from the source to the table, and I can’t help but have respect for the frugality of these adventures. Grandpap also taught me, with every nut piled in a bushel and every tousle of my hair along the way, that time spent with children is never wasted.


http://thepajamamama.net/2011/09/15/walking-wild-a-cross-post/#comment-227

Part Three of Walking with the Ones You Love

This is hard to admit and my youngest has given me ample grief.   I have, on many occasions, been a mall walker.   Why would anyone who writes like he's Daniel Boone and lives in near seclusion walk inside a shopping mall?   That's simple, for love.

Checking Kim has convinced me to walk around the pond at the mall and walk inside the mall.   It really isn't that bad.   I play a head game.   I pretend that I am a running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers and everyone else in the mall are tacklers.   I dodge them all as we make our way around the large oval.   My walking partner is very patient with my childish fantasies.

It has been a while but bad weather is on the way.    If you see us in the mall you won't recognize us.   Don't expect to see Davey Crockett and Calamity Jane scooting around the mall.   We will look like any other boring couple.   There is a way to pick us out.   If you see a blonde girl frequently walking in and out of stores and an old man walking in circles while he waits, that will be us.

I don't really have many mall walking tips but I do know something that makes sense.   "Walk where they ain't."   Go up and down stairs, crisscross the mall, do whatever it takes to hide from as much of the crowd as possible.    Some of the walkers zip around that place so aggressively you might think they are playing roller derby.  

"Walk where they ain't."

Part Two of Walking with the Ones you Love

The foothills of the Appalachians were a good place for my first walks.   In the woods around the Youghiogheny River, trees belonged to everyone. Walking to one particular tree was an annual tradition.   On a Saturday in the Fall, when he didn't have to work, Whistle Lew grabbed his duffel bag he had brought home when discharged after WWII and his first born son as he headed up the hill.

I could never have found this tree but somehow we always did.   When it appeared I was always in awe.   Every branch was heavy with ripe apples.   We harvested in a special way.   Daddy climbed the tree and starting with the lowest branches, threw the apples down to me.   I stood under the limbs with my leather mitt.

When I had caught enough apples to fill the entire duffel, he picked a few more for eating on the walk home.   I was never able to carry the load but Whistle Lew flung it over his shoulder and on his back as we walked across and down the hill.   We laughed about all the "pop flies" I had caught and decided how much apple sauce and how many apple pies Mum would make.    We ate our extra apples before we got home.   Kind of our own little unspoken secret.   The foothills of the Appalachians were a good place for my first walks.

You don't need to write down everything that happens on a walk but be careful to remember the good stuff.

Walking with the Ones You Love

My first walks were in the foothills of the Appalachians.   Strangely enough, these early walks were for the purpose of foraging.   It's not near as primitive as it sounds.   These walks always followed a similar framework.   The only difference was the availability of the fruit or vegetable.

In the Spring, when new tender plants were beginning to sprout, Whistle Lew would grab a bucket, a bag, a couple of old knives and his oldest son.   The two would walk through local cow pastures looking for just the right dandelion plants.   A few hours later, when dressed with wine vinegar and olive oil, these young plants made a great salad for a family of eight.   Usually we had a bonus.   Whistle Lew knew just the right mushrooms to pluck and bring home.   Mum would dress some sort of meat with fried mushrooms.   When served with a dandelion salad it was fine dining.

I never cared much about any of that.   My first thoughts would always be, "Where in the hell are those cows?"   I was afraid of cows.   With the milk cows in their proper place, I could proudly take on the awesome responsibility of making sure all of the dandelions and mushrooms made it from the pasture to the kitchen counter.   I wanted to make daddy proud.

Every now and again, walk with someone you love.

Daylight Savings Time and Bad Habits

Each walk is a little darker...no, no, literally, not figuratively.    I love the sense of solitude that beginning and ending a 60 minute walk in the dark brings to my mind.   It is one of the few things that keeps the ADD monster at bay.   Some mornings are so dark that I worry that my vision is failing.   Of course it is but it's not related to the darkness.

When there is no Moon and it is partly cloudy, it can be so dark I barely make out the details of my two dogs at the end of a ten-foot leash.    Ending Daylight Savings Time will change this and I can't wake up any earlier.   

Of course the light never really can be preserved, it actually is more like daylight changing time.   For people that enjoy outdoor evening activities that require light, it is helpful.    To the contrary, a former neighbor, Fix-it Chuck, said that Daylight Savings Time is a conspiracy against the working man.   Designed to make us work an hour longer each day.

Often overlooked is the idea that this extension is only happening in the evening.   For me Daylight Savings Time increases the amount of dark I can walk in and I love it.   When we all 'fall back', there will be less daylight in the evening but more in the morning, when I prefer dark.   My high school counselor predicted I would spend my life 'bass ackwards'.

Dumb Deer and Clothing (2)

I'm happily away from computers for the next 5 days.   This is an earlier post.

I'm surprised that the deer population is as high as it is. A doe is one of the dumbest animals in the wild. Each morning two excited dogs and a shuffling human walker come close enough to pee on female deer. When these feeble-minded creatures do become concerned and decide to move, it is generally at a slow prance. If I were a poacher or a wild cat I could get my fill each day.

As it turns out I'm neither so I just end up with elongated arms from holding on to two excited dogs that feature themselves as mighty hunters. Truth be known if the deer would ever turn and snort I would be elongated in another direction...the dogs are not brave hunters.

It's different for the male deer. The bucks in Dallas County stay invisible or visible only from a distance, much like my neighbors.

Today's walking tip is on clothing. I have a lot of ideas about this topic so it will be revisited from time to time. Notice that I didn't say I have a lot of expertise. Most folks would share that I have no idea how to dress. That's not so. My taste is just confused between a Pennsylvania street punk and an Iowa country boy.

Anyway, folks in the know are always telling walkers to wear light clothing so they can be easily seen. That's OK advice if the background is a dark screen. What if I'm walking in a snow storm or in front of a patch of Queen Anne's Lace? Personally, I wear a combination of white and colored clothing. I think that makes me stand out from the ditches and the limestone gravel road.

I don't know if any of this is right so I have a back up plan. I wear a flashing red light. I know this works cause freaks out the farmer down the lane when he is out in his underwear getting his newspaper. However, my dogs and I can be seen from half-a-mile away.

In a future blog I will mention the idiots who shine their high beams on this merry threesome.

Counting (Twice)

Walking generally calms my often frantic behaviors.   Not always.   One of those behaviors is counting.   I count stuff.   That turns out to be a very annoying behavior pattern.   I know this because Checking Kim kindly interrupts my space visits to ask if I'm counting.   10 times I've said "No".

42 toes, 10 legs, 2 canvas straps, 6 eyes, 6 ears, 3 noses, 2 tails...

...this weekend I counted my dogs and I as we walked a familiar 6 mile course.   Too many teeth to count...

...6 miles, 1 fox, 3 deer...I'm trying to quit.  3 stop signs.   1.9 miles to the concrete.    1.0 miles to road sign.   2.9 miles to cemetery.  

 I have medication...any rich Burgundy.