Gathering place

Seen during a recent walk at an area park.  In one narrow grassy passageway between unmown areas, there's a groundhog, a rabbit, and closest to the camera, a squirrel.

 

A distant encounter

Taken at the edge of a nearby park where I've seen deer before.  The digital-zoom grain in the image shows I wasn't very close to them, but seconds later, they disappeared into the trees.

Field report

 From my walking app:  "1.22 mi walk / Thursday, August 6 at 9:51 a.m.

"Getting out in the morning instead of evening due to coming heat and humidity.  Three rabbits, two goldfinches, several barn swallows, and a few chicory flowers along the road in the nearby park. Possibly a killdeer cry from a stony area in the park.

"A house along the way has a for-sale sign in its front yard.  The yard also has little yellow flowers all over it.  I'm a fan of wildflowers, so I like the way it looks.  It's unique in the development.  I do wonder, considering the elevated price tag, how a potential buyer might view a house with a front yard full of what they consider to be weeds.  Considered taking a picture, but decided that standing in front of someone's house taking pictures might be seen as suspicious, even if it is for sale.

"A couple of houses down, a butterfly bush more than a foot tall has sprouted from a crack along the curb.  Pretty purple flowers, though."

Looking back

I knew it had been awhile, but nothing since mid-July?  And I've been taking pictures all along, I just haven't felt they were stuff I wanted to share right away.  Here's one from this past Sunday afternoon, so see if you don't agree.  It's something I wanted to have a memory of seeing, but not something I thought would be a post I couldn't wait to make.  

I'll go through the other snapshots and put up two or three of them. 

 "I don't fill every minute of every day with purpose and joy, but I do all right." - On retirement, July 2026.

A walk in the park

Clematis terniflora (sweet autumn clematis)

40°35'39.7"N 75°30'03.2"W

On the road

I usually take a walk around the neighborhood in late afternoon, when traffic in the area has thinned out, but today's mid-afternoon forecast was calling for rain in the near future.  A quick look at the radar showed the leading edge of the rain far enough to the west that I thought I'd be OK, so I put on my walking shoes and went outside.

  

I took one of my usual routes around the neighborhood, which led me into a nearby park.  The road into the park also contained a small lane facing traffic for pedestrians, and that's where I was when a car approached me.  

Instead of passing, it slowed to a stop next to me and the passenger-side window went down.  A young woman leaned across the seat, and with a smile, she stretched a hand toward me.  In it was a small clover.  "Four leaves?  How about that?" I said, and she nodded.  I took the clover and thanked her, we wished each other luck, and she drove on.  

I've had some unexpected experiences on these almost-daily walks: finding several coins, seeing a deer, a fox, even a coyote; and one evening, in someone's front yard I counted seven cottontail rabbits.  But until this afternoon, never a human stopping to hand me a four-leaf clover.  

My guess is that she was having a good day and wanted to share it with someone else.  At least I hope so.  

For what it's worth, less than a minute after she gave me the clover, it began to rain lightly, and it continued the remaining half-mile back to the house.

Today's walk in the park

I forgot anyway (until now)

Last month, I took a walk in a local park and snapped this image.  For whatever reason, I forgot to do anything about it until now.  

 

While strolling in the park

   Spotted Jewelweed, considered a class-C noxious weed in Washington State.  The park where I was today had great swaths of it.  (Fortunately, I wasn't in Washington State.)  

Kind of stands out, doesn't it?

If we are to believe Google Lens, this is a solitary Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus), "a large conifer native to eastern North America."

Also seen in the park:  Swamp Rose Mallow, White Vervain, Prunella vulgaris (aka Common Self-Heal), and a lot of purple loosestrife.  They're the reason for the wiggles in the path on the lower right below.

Thoughts while strolling

A mile and a quarter at a slightly faster pace than I set when walking around this neighborhood.  I saw two deer, many swallows swooping over the surface of the pond, and one large downed tree.  

High muddy water in the pond and the creek that feeds into it.

I was strolling in the park one day

A couple of brief stops along the way, first to watch a bluebird whose box I'd walked by, and then to admire a patch of Dame's rocket along the creek.  Interested today in the distance, not the time on task.

At the end of the day

   

The worm/caterpillar on the left was dangling at eye level over the sidewalk from an oak tree on the next door neighbor's property.  Between its size and its constant motion, I knew it would take a miracle to get a good focused image, and after four blurry tries, I settled for the one you see above.  What it is doesn't feel as useful to remember as just recording that it was there, and that I almost walked into it.

And now, what you've no doubt been waiting for:  Google Lens guessed that the thing in the photo above right is possibly an x-ray of a tibia, or else an image of paint peeling from a Ford F-150.  Guess I'll have to try something else.

Later:  Blue-tailed damselfly?  OK, I can accept that.

Ancora Imparo:  (1) learned that the WIN/Shift/S combination that does screen grabs also records videos, the way Dropbox used to do.  Used it to save a clip from a post on Xitter that showed a dog jumping ropes being twirled by a human and two other dogs.  (2) learned that FastStone accesses the latitude and longitude recorded on pictures taken with my Samsung Galaxy, and it can place them on a screen in Google Maps (Windows 11).  The grab below shows where I saw the insect on the right above.

Lots of unnecessary eating today, so I needed a walk late this afternoon.  The timeline on Google Maps (Android) isn't as detailed as it used to be, so when it told me just now that I'd only walked half a mile, I had my doubts.  (There should be an app for that.  A free one would be best for my budget.)

EDIT:  Did some searching and eventually settled on MapMyWalk.  Yesterday's walks totaled a bit over a mile and a half.  

Sunday in the park

Strolling around Trexler Park with a camera on a bright, warm mid-October day.  Views of Little Cedar Creek, looking first east and then west.