Different words, new pictures, same walking path. Another Leaky edition of Wednesday Walk.
I wish I could give you more sights but our town is small so my options are limited.
On a positive note though it's a really pretty area, especially at the right time of day when the sun is low and casting its golden light on the landscape.
Some people call that time the "Golden Hour," but I like to refer to it as the "Golden Time" because it sounds idiotic and drives my wife crazy.
"Honey, we should go for a walk right now. It's the Golden Time and I need some new pictures for my stories."
On another more bizarre note I just looked up the meaning of "Golden Hour" to make sure that I using the appropriate term and the first two sites that popped up for me suggested something different than what I was expecting.
They stated that it's the time "immediately following a traumatic injury in which medical treatment to prevent irreversible internal damage and optimize the chance of survival is most effective." - Merriam Webster Medical.
Blinks multiple times in rapid succession. "Well that seems way off now doesn't it?"
Anyhoo, I do really like this area around our house at this hour in the evening.
It changes just a little each night we walk by too. This year is wheat on one side and barley on the other again, just like last year. They grow a little taller each day and the wheat turns a little more golden.
The rest of the walk is nice and all but not quite as dramatic as this spot so I rarely take any more along the way.
Last night a bird hit the window. I noticed it a while later when I let the cat outside. It was sitting next to the door, dazed and breathing heavy. It was a woodpecker all red and speckled. I pulled the cat inside quickly before she started to paw at it and I watched it through the glass trying to decide what needed to be done, hoping that I didn't have to put it out of its misery. I opened the door a few times and got close to it but it didnt move from the spot. It just blinked at me all dazed like.
"Shit."
I put on some gloves and went outside with a box thinking maybe I'd bring it inside and see if it would recuperate. I reached down and put my hands around it gently. It looked me square in the eye and squawked as if it were yelling,
"Don't F-ing touch me, I'm hurt you fool!"
I lifted gently and there was resistance somehow so I released to investigate if it's foot was caught on the deck boards. I reached down in a second attempt and it squawked again, a big
"Fuck you bitch!"
before taking off into the forest.
"Oh thank god"
I sighed. Literally the best thing that could have happened in that scenario.
Bear with me now as I change the subject to something as equally mundane and rambling (i.e. walking around my backyard).
I cut the grass today. "Oh boy here we go." I know you're thinking it. "He's really scraping the bottom of the barrel today."
The grass itself wasn't very long but we have these wild weed flowers in the yard that grow quite rapidly. They were at least a foot tall and had stems as thick as mouse tails. I told myself a hundred times that I was going to take photos before and after to show just how absurd the lawn looked prior to cutting it.
Of course I didn't end up taking photos before though. At the time I thought "What's the point? No one wants to read about me mowing the lawn!" But now here I am talking about it and I don't even have any photos to give you a visiual. How foolish of me. I'll never learn.
As you can see in the after images the lawn is slowly being overrun by weeds.
Not just any weeds mind you. That's a big field of stinging nettles at least three feet tall.
I used cut them back and mow the lawn down to our second tier but I left it too long and now it looks like this. I'm afraid to go past our weeping willow these days.
I know that people eat nettles like cooked spinach and make tea out of them but I have enough back there to feed my small village. I feel like that amount of nettles could eat me if it wanted to.
I gave it a go one day and made some tea and it was actually pretty good. It had a pleasant earthy flavor that tasted like grass and mildly like dirt. "Yum."
Nettles lose their sting when dried and after they've been boiled, but you definitely have to wear gloves when picking them. I used to keep some that I dried on hand but I've since given up on that. Now I just stick to coffee mostly and green tea in the afternoon.
Conclusions have never been my strong suit so I'm going to wrap this up quickly here an now. Thanks for joining my walk around town and yard during the "Golden Time," and for listening to my ramblings.