Life is good

Since I had to postpone my walk yesterday due to rain (Oh, I still walked, in the afternoon, dragging the kidlet as she ranted and screamed--not really, but she definitely slowed my walking pace!), I checked the weather radar first thing this morning.  A small batch of showers had come through earlier and another blob of green, yellow and red would be heading our way in a few hours.

I took the window of opportunity that I was provided and went on my walk. It was a nice 72 degrees. The air was damp from all the moisture, and I saw the rebirth of springtime on this August day.

After two months of little to no rain, the last five days of cooler weather (Anything under 100 degrees is cool in my books!) and daily rain had wrought an amazing transformation in the Oklahoma landscape.

As I walked on my regular path, the watery sun peeped out from behind the eastern clouds. There wouldn't be much sun today as I looked to the west and saw that the sky was a deep indigo blue. According to the meteorologists, I still had a few hours before the rain hit provided the complex remained intact. The golden brown of the dessicated grasses had become mottled with green as the rain revived the Bermuda grass from its dormancy. Tiny wild flowers opened their buds, sharing their yellow or purple flowers with the world.

I crossed the burbling creek as it rolled over the rocks the city had used to line the basin and turned toward the favorite section of my walk. The deep triangular bowl sat in the middle of three expressways. This was the center of the interchange and it had its own ecosystem. As the path circled around the bottom of two of the three expressways, the third side barrier was the creek. And between the creek and the path, was a marsh.

Well, it's a marsh now with standing water, singing frogs, and happy little corkscrew willow trees.  The frogs had come out of their enforced hibernation to rejoice, sing, attract a mate, and splash happily in the shallow ponds nature had provided. The scissortail flycatchers were out and about, two families flocking together as four of them tried to sit on a sign. Cheeping and piping at me as they wheeled away when I came too close.

A goldfinch flew in front of me chasing it's mate. Yellow flashed against the dark blue of the sky. A flock of robins happily hopped and hunted worms along the mowed 30 ft. grassy verge between the path and the expressway. For the first time in weeks the worms were near the surface and the ground gave when they stabbed their beaks into the ground to pull out wiggly, juicy wormy goodness.

And you know what?

Life is good.

Morning Walks

Yesterday, I wrote about the little toad dude I found dead in my pool skimmer. And this blog is sort of a continuation of yesterday morning.

As you know I've been walking six days a week since mid-June. My weight loss total is now 19 lbs! YAY! Anyway, since we had a decent amount of rain the previous night the air temperature was a wonderful 75 degrees, instead of the usual 85-90 degrees at 7 AM.

So I lollygagged a little bit on my walk, enjoying the sights and sounds of nature. And this is a feat considering the walking/bike path runs next to a major expressway!

--actually the path goes next to one expressway, under two more expressways and one four story tall on ramp, which usually has barn swallows living in their mud houses.

The path meanders in the dead spaces around the expressways, but it's far more than just barren areas. Before the path passes under the first overpass, it goes over a bridge that crosses a creek. For years we had to jump from rock to rock to cross this creek, but a couple years ago they finished the bridge. This was the first time in months that there was water in the creek.

Not just water--rushing water. The dull roar of the water passing over the rocks brought a smile to my lips. The first, but certainly not the last one. It was wonderful listening to the music.

A few years ago, before the bridge was built, this little creek also housed beavers. We never saw the beavers, but we did see their dam and the trees they took down. Like I mentioned before this area has quite a bit of wildlife for being in the city. I've seen wild turkeys, coyotes, hawks, and of course the smaller critters.

I kept walking and watching the antics of the birds swooping and diving over the field, catching bugs. It took me a few minutes to realize they were juveniles of the bird pictured, practicing and strengthening their wings.

This is a Scissortail Flycatcher. Oklahoma's state bird. Isn't it beautiful! I love these birds. The reason I knew they were juveniles was because they hadn't developed their long tail feathers yet. A few of them had one-inch long feathers that stuck out beyond their regular feathers, but most of them had blunt tails. And there must have been a few families together because there were about 8-9 of them.

As I continued back home, I kept seeing a doggy shadow popping up behind me. I could hear two guys talking as they jogged so I kept on my merry way. And up pops a border collie trotting next to me. I love dogs, but I wasn't going to pet it because 1) this dog was off leash (illegal), 2) I had finally got into my walking groove.

So the joggers passed me along with the dog. BUT the dog was so interested in me that he kept looking back and not paying attention to his masters. First he stopped in the path of the jogger on the left who had to do a weird hop to keep from falling on his face. And then the dog scoots under the feet of the right jogger who seriously stumbled and had to recover his footing. Serves him right. If he had his dog on a leash, the dog wouldn't have tripped him.

So my daily chuckle out of the way, I continued my walk. I didn't see much of anything else except a blue jay. With this heat there hasn't been very many birds out except starlings and grackles. And they're just plain boring to look at.

I love walking. I see so much of nature around me. And I also think about my story. Hopefully, now that my other obligations are out of the way, I can settle down to write.

Later, Peeps!