Back-to-school, bacon, and ...

... the Boys of Summer.

The Summer is zipping by far too quickly. Between work, walking and writing (or trying to), lately I seem to be flying by the seat of my pants, and hopelessly behind in everything. I am reminded of that quote by Lewis Carroll in the tale “Alice in Wonderland” ... the hurrier I go, the behinder I get!”

Mother Nature continues to tweak the weather – yesterday was beautiful and breezy, this morning was buggy and muggy.

The ads nowadays are all about back-to-school, plus all the facts and figures on what it costs to get your child ready to hit the books once Labor Day is over. This morning I heard a story about the new craze and must-have for school kids, and no, it is not the latest electronic device, but scented pencils. The most-popular pencils smell like bacon or donuts. Hmmm - what if the student was so busy dreaming about bacon and donuts that he forgot to pay attention to what the teacher was saying?

When I was a young tyke, I remember graduating from the really wide pencil that we’d grip in our chubby fingers while practicing cursive, to a bright yellow and very slim #2 pencil. Then we got older and thought we were pretty cool if we had one of those pens that had multi-colored ink in one barrel - at the click of a button you could have red, green or blue ink. We were easily amused, but easy to please back then, weren’t we?

I know the term “Boys of Summer” usually refers to baseball, but I’ve not seen any baseball practice by the Little League teams at Council Point Park this year. Perhaps they have another venue? So, I’ve decided the new Boys of Summer are a local soccer team because those kids have been running and kicking their hearts out every morning at the Park. They may be middle school, or even high school boys. Their coach totes along a big net bag full of soccer balls in one hand, and the other hand holds hula hoops. I’ve watched the coach place the hoops close together on the grass, then the boys take turns jumping back and forth between them – pretty fancy footwork by those Boys of Summer. I’ve not heard anyone yell “goal” yet though.

After the boys run all over the soccer field, their coach makes them run laps around the Park. They often pass me up and last week I called out to them “future World Cup champs!”

This morning along the perimeter path, I saw a goldfinch flitting between the trees. I had my camera ready should he alight somewhere where I could take his picture. The birdsong from this wee soul was just incredible. He was so high up in one tree, but how those beautiful notes carried all the way to ground level. I tried to whistle back at him to lure him to a lower branch, but a noise startled this beautiful bird and he disappeared into the dense treetop. That was the first goldfinch this Summer and they used to be more plentiful, especially perched on a thistle and enjoying its seeds.

The past two days at the Park, I’ve become accustomed to scanning the not-so-friendly skies, before handing out peanuts to any of my squirrel friends. I am mindful that the Cooper’s hawk descended on Stubby out of nowhere. His swift, stealth-like movements took me by surprise and I’m glad my little peanut pal escaped those sharp claws.

Last night, while catching up on Facebook and perusing the local crime sites, I was dismayed to discover there are many hawks in and around our city. I live one mile away from Council Point Park, but this Park is right in the middle of the city and we are not rural at all. For years, it was just a 27-acre wooded area close to the Ecorse Creek, and in1994 it gained amenities like a perimeter walking path, a pavilion area for picnics, a playground and separate fields for baseball and soccer. On the Facebook crime site, Lincoln Park residents posted various pictures of hawks lurking around their backyard and told how the young hawks were learning hunting skills with mice, birds, bunnies and yes, ... sadly, squirrels were among the victims. That sure was a surprise to me. You never know what is lurking out there when you are walking around. I thought it was bad enough running into those near-invisible and sticky spider webs that often cross your path in late August. They are spun overnight by gargantuan garden spiders which have grown fat feasting on everything that was caught in their gossamer traps.

Not only was I pounding the pavement with five miles under my belt from my morning walk, but I also have been pounding the keyboard all day. My boss completed the three-day hearing and I have been hunkered down working on a long, post-hearing Brief. Today he was in Florida on another hearing, and yes, that will yield follow-up work as well. Both these hearings are the culmination of a flurry of documents and preparation the past few months. My brain needs a breather so I was grateful to go to the Park and just BREATHE this morning and I look forward to going on a few jaunts this weekend as well.

You can catch up on my blog posts before I started blogging at Patch in August 2013 by going here: http://lindaschaubblog.net/