I thought about going to Bradbury today to run my scheduled ten miles. I put out feelers on the TM group site hoping someone would want to join me. No takers. Well, I was hard put to justify the nearly extra hour in travel time, in addition to the gas (both pollution-wise and price-wise) spent traveling if I went to just run by myself. Oh, I realize the same time and gas would be used if I was meeting up with people, but, somehow, it's easier to rationalize.
Though I enjoyed my crappy run yesterday, I had no desire to run through goose poop again, especially if I was going to be out there so long. I was unsure of how to get in my miles off road without incorporating those fields. I'd try, knowing I could throw in some road miles if necessary.
I started out on yesterday's course. I brought my camera and thought I'd get a picture of the offending geese. I even debated taking a shot of the...evidence, but decided that was too much. From there I headed back into another field of Linda's. I was scared my gun shots. I know one of our neighbor hunts and shoots, but didn't know where he was shooting or if he knew I was out there. Fortunately, I had my cell phone and called Linda's. Her daughter-in-law called the neighbor, who, turns out, was aware I was there and tried to signal that to me. Still, I was happy when they stopped.
On to across the road, over the hill, and down to the beaver lodge. Looked like the beaver added some new wood to the top of their lodge. I spent time taking pics of their handy work and looking for signs of life in their little swamp. I saw some active water bugs and a snail, still no signs of polliwogs.
Then I decided to run through the woods along their swamp, rightly thinking I'd come out to the gas line. I followed that clearing down to Webster Rd, crossed it, and continued on what had been the snowmobile trail. I found lots of tracks of deer, who seemed to be having lots of post-holing issues. I laughed at the idea of the graceful animals having my problems. If they were watching, they could have done lots of laughing at me! In addition to the deer tracks, there were turkeys prints, fox prints, something I haven't identified yet, and lots of little rodent tracks.
It was around then that I noticed how cold my wet feet were. I had two toes that didn't have feeling. My hands were cold, too. I laughed cause I was sure I was overdressed at the start of the run. Where had my beautiful, sunny spring day gone? I was running in a snow squall! Just added to the adventure though.
 |
| The Crapadian Geese |
 |
| Beaver lodge with new wood on top |
|
 |
| Some beaver gnawing |
 |
| Looking up stream in their swamp |
 |
| More beaver work |
 |
| My post-holing into icy water |
 |
| Where a deer had done the same |
 |
| Unidentified prints |
 |
| One beautiful kitty! |
When I got back home, I'd gone just 9.1 miles in two hours. I'd call it a nature walk with bouts of running, but, for the most part I was working pretty hard. Another good thing about running at home, my Ally cat always walks down the driveway to greet me!
Those are some big deer prints! And Ally cat, as always, is beautiful :-)
ReplyDeleteBoy that water under the snow sure does look cold.....it's hard to judge by the photo but the tips of the deer tracks look more rounded than pointed.....could that have been a small moose?
ReplyDeleteYes, D & K, I almost guessed moose, but the snow was so sloppy and the animal seemed to slide a good deal, so I thought more likely just deer tracks. There were lots and lots!
ReplyDeleteActually, environmentally, I think it would be less of an impact to do the drive and run alone, because if you succeed in getting others to do the same they all end up burning gas to get there as well.
ReplyDeleteThe lesser of evils justification might work: at least you're not snowmobiling, riding dirt bikes, or jet-skiing.