Now that we’ve dispensed with flakes and quakes ...

The chatter continued all day here in SE Michigan about the “big earthquake” we experienced last night at 8:01 p.m.

So, I was inclined to belt out Carole King’s “I Feel the Earth Move”, having committed that song, as well as the rest of the tunes from her “Tapestry” album, to memory many decades ago.

The sun put me in good spirits, so I settled on “Oh What a Beautiful Morning!” instead.

That song title would be a perfect description to this day. And we so deserve it, don’t we?

I was running late, having hit the snooze button one too many times, after staying up later than usual watching the media roll out news reports on the earthquake, but I aimed to get five miles walked anyway.

As soon as I hit the trail at Council Point Park, the squirrels rushed over for treats. Almost immediately I ran into fellow walkers Joanne and Janet and after we greeted one another, you know the first thing out of our mouths was “did you feel the earthquake?”

As we walked along, we compared notes on how it felt and what we were doing at the time of the big event. Meanwhile, I kept holding up our walk to attend to my peanut pals who were darting here, there and everywhere. They probably resented I was not lavishing 100% of my attention on them, but they didn’t do too bad either, since I stopped and tendered peanuts and endearments to each of them.

At each pit stop I made for my furry friends, the girls marveled that one squirrel rushing to my side for a peanut, suddenly became three or four of them, all scrambling over for their own treat. You know I always give them at least one peanut and “a spare” and if there’s a group, I leave two for each squirrel, otherwise they get pushy with one another. I like to encourage good manners whenever possible you know.

The cardinals were absent during this flurry of activity of passing out peanuts, though I glanced up in the tree, scanning for them, just as they are usually on the lookout for me. Maybe next time?

The girls asked if I’d seen the nest that the swans were building and I told them “no” so I followed them, so we could peek at the site from afar. We crept along a tiny path through the bushes so we could see the nest amongst the reeds. There were no swans nearby and they said there were two swans building that nest the other day. I’ll have to remember where it was and keep checking for any more activity. Right now the entire landscape at the Park looks the same ... blah and unimaginative.

Hopefully, either at Council Point Park or Dingell Park I’ll see a sight the likes of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIbBiSBLQg8

All too soon it was time to be heading home. The bright and sunny morn not only made the birds rejoice in song, it brought the squirrels down from the trees, more walkers pounding the perimeter path, and, believe it or not, I saw a guy mowing his lawn on the way home! As I passed, I said “you’re the first one I’ve seen mowing the lawn” and with a smile he replied “I’m actually cleaning up the leaves because it’s faster to just mow ‘em up!” Smart idea, because the earlier you could get done with chores, and bask in today’s warm sunshine, the better.

I forgot my pedometer at home this morning, but my usual roundtrip route to my favorite stomping grounds, and three loops in that nature nook, would have yielded five miles.

A beautiful weekend ahead will more than make up for last weekend’s abysmal weather.

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