More Greenway

Tucker and I took a walk on the greenway this morning, and I intentionally left the iPod at home. I tried not to think about the people and relationships in my life, as I would typically do on a walk, but to focus intently on the nature surrounding us. No music but the birds around us, no storyline or symphony piped into my head.

I wound up wishing I had at least brought the camera to enhance the blog. The woods at the greenway are quite dense and it immediately gets pretty dark in there. The trees are unusual and have great shape, not simply straight up and limbs, but crooked arms and great personality, much like the trees in Wizard of Oz, the ones that throw the apples at Dorothy and the Scarecrow. btw, did you ever realize how smart the scarecrow was to manipulate the trees into throwing lots of apples at them? He had intelligence all along...

There is one tree in particular alongside the greenway that looks like a person. I hope to take a picture of it soon and superimpose the characteristics that I imagine on top of the photo.

There is lots of honeysuckle along the greenway now, and what I imagine might be Carolina Jasmine, although the flower is white, and I thought Carolina was yellow. I am also familiar with Confederate Jasmine, and it has white flowers, but the leaves are waxier. Maybe when I take the camera I can also take a pic of this and email it to the Parks guy, a former landscaper who can surely identify it for me. I am in love with an ornamental tree there, a smallish roundish tree whose blooms look like wispy white feathers.

Tucker was more instinctive today, actually preferring to walk on the ground rather than the paved pathway. She sniffed and snorted and fancied herself to be a Great Huntress. She has developed a most comical habit. When the leash is too short for her, she begins coughing loudly, sounding just like a goose. Honk! Honk! She tries to sound like she is choking. Honk! Honk! I am not to be fooled. "Tucker. Cut it out." She turns back to look at me, shrugs her shoulders, sighs, and says, "OK. Never mind." The honking stops and we proceed.

We walked 2 miles today, and it wasn't until the last half-mile that my foot started hurting.

My feet are my weakest spot. I was told once that one in 10,000 women have too much of a certain enzyme when they are pregnant, the enzyme that loosens ligaments so the pelvis can expand to let the baby's head through. We lucky few become extremely limber, and our arches fall like a brick.

The arch is an elegant support for the foot. Without an arch our toes splay flat on the floor, and the entire foot is weaker. Hence my repeated broken toes, and stress fractures in my feet. I dropped a large coffee table on my right foot at Christmas, and the large toe and 2nd toe have been painful ever since. DH remarked last week that the 2nd toe is quite crooked now, and he wonders if it might really be broken? I believe it is. So I hobbled for the last half-mile of the walk, and have elevated it the rest of the morning. It's quite a challenge to be physically active without using one's feet.