Friday

Many a retired person will tell you that Fridays aren't the game changer they once were for us. The TGIF acronym fizzles and fades. We're more likely to say "thank goodness it's Monday!" because on Mondays parks, trails, markets empty out as people return to work. That is, non retired people return to work. We the no longer employed continue with our engagement in projects, families, gardens, and routines on Tuesdays, Saturdays, Mondays and yes, Fridays. Each day is at once unique and special, and independent of its position in the weekly line up.

Still, if you have kids in your life, you pick up that weekly rhythm again. Their Friday becomes your Friday. And weekends become breakaways from routine.

 

This morning, the bugs were out again and so once more I walked briskly to take care of the animals and then equally briskly, I retreated inside.

(chicks)

(tubs)

(the buggy farmette)

To the porch!

For reasons of various visits and engagements, I did not see the kids as much this week as I normally would so today I trudged out to their place to hand over some odd stuff I'd picked up for them in preparation for school. Perhaps the best thing about living so close to them is the fact that I can drop in like that. Even a few minutes matters. 

(They are speed reading library books to meet the public library's summer challenge. Their baby sitter is keeping an eye on things. Sandpiper is not participating in the challenge. He prefers to nap during reading hour.)

(a break for art)

Since I am now very close to Owen Conservation Park, I decide to take a walk there afterwards. I've not checked it out since my spring search for Virginia Bluebells. 

At the end of August, the fields here are deliciously golden!

Really stunning!

The park isn't vast, but it's large enough to be home to a herd of deer. Nonetheless, in all my decades of hiking here, I have never crossed paths with a deer. Until today. A young fawn, engaging me in a staring contest.

Owen Woods Park puts me back in another era, when my daughters were little (we lived just blocks away from it) and when I would come here for solitary walks to clear the head and refresh the spirit. I still like it for solitary walks: the loops aren't especially long, and still you have to love the feeling of nature's dominance, right in the middle of the city.

Once again I can't help thinking that Ed and I live in a perfect bubble of farmette rural quiet, yet we are so close to the city, and within that city -- to a world of nature all over again.

I did my walk for the day. Afterwards, I felt no guilt in picking up my kindle and spending the rest of the day reading. On the couch. I even chased Ed off to the lesser (smaller) couch so I could stretch out on the big one. No guilt whatsoever!