Walking The Walk

Today was another glorious sunny, 50 degree day so after I washed the windows in the rental side and went to the funeral of one of my knitting friends' mother, I got my jeans and walking shoes on, made sure The Walk podcast was indeed on my iPod, and strode off.  I turned on the podcast as I stepped out of the patio door and was transported to the train station in Inverness, Scotland where bad people set off an electromagnetic pulse that crashed all of the electric things like trains and cars and phones so I (Walker, the hero of the tale) have to walk to Edinburgh with a package to save the world, being wary of people I meet, not knowing who's a good guy and who's bad.  By the time I was 10 minutes into the 22 minute segment I had stopped twice because I thought someone was following me only to discover that the footsteps were in the story.  By the time I was almost home I was considering going around again so I could listen to the next installment but the sun was going down, I was chilly, and it was time to make supper.  You'd better bet I'll be taking a walk tomorrow.  Funny how caught up in the story I am after only the first chapter.  And it's free.

To extend my time outside I did a little stick picking up so on the off chance the stick truck comes anytime soon the sticks will be ready.  I grabbed the loppers and some leather gloves and trimmed the rose canes.  Not as short as I did last year, forgetting then that the early blossoms come on the "old wood" and the late blossoms are on the "new wood."  I'm not making that mistake again, I live for those deep red and very fragrant blooms to remind me of Dad.  When I trimmed the roses I had to keep this branch of rose hips.  They're a deep mahogany color and too pretty to put on the stick pile so they're in a vase next to me keeping me company while I type.


Next to the rose bush these two little crocuses are poked up, getting ready to unfurl their petals any day now.  Except it's supposed to get chilly again.  Daytime temps in the mid-30s for the rest of the week.  Good thing I have a warm coat, hat, and mittens so I can keep "walking to Edinburgh."

These are the daffodils I planted 40 years ago when we built this house.  They've come up through juniper bushes, survived me digging out the junipers, and keep coming up faithfully like clockwork.  One year when Mom and Dad lived here, a mama Mallard duck nested in the juniper and sat on her eggs in a ring of yellow flowers.  Looks like it might be time to pile on more mulch...



I've been pretty busy trying to get the rental side ready for new tenants so I don't really have a "big" knitting project going but I took my knitting bag to the funeral (what? I sat in the back and sang along, no lightning struck me down) and cast on another preemie hat.  I decided to make the top cord a bit longer, then sew it down to make a loop.  I like it.  P.S. the yarn does that all by itself.


March 18--Winslow Homer, The Four Leaf Clover.  Amelia crouched over the green patch of rounded leaves.  She took her time examining each stem before moving on to the next.  "Three.  Three.  Three," she said as she rejected them all.  Mary had told her that she had seen a four-leaf clover but Amelia was having no luck finding it at all.  And her fingers were getting green.

Most of the time I don't think my weight loss is very evident but when I was washing windows and would reach over my head my jeans slipped down on my hips.  Not wanting to be mistaken for a young black man on my walk I dug out a belt to keep my pants around my waist where they belong.  Hm, maybe it's evident after all... close to 30# gone.
--Barbara