Out and About

Up until the past few weeks, I’ve led a rather sedentary life; better said, I was a couch potato. Now with doctor’s orders, I’m walking at least 40 minutes each day. Most days closer to 30 minutes, since my pace has increased, and the distance I walk is taking less time.

One path I take is along a dirt lane. It passes through an old farm, a home, and dead ends at another old farm. The first farm has free range chickens that cackle, scratch in the dirt, and scurry away as I approach. Their shapes and colors are myriad: copper, black, white, and gray. Some hues are flat while others are iridescent. There are roosters with their red combs and wattles, chubby hens, and even a few that wear a topknot of feathers. Several barn cats eye me warily. Farther along, I pass under several tall hemlocks, then pass by a house where a dog often barks at my passing. Closer to the dead end farm house and barn, I’ve seen a roly-poly ground hog. It hustles into the woods as I approach.

 The other route I walk is on a Macadam road. There’s less chance for me to stumble than on the other graveled, stony pathway. I try to walk early before the neighbor’s three dogs are out. The smallest looks like a terrier mix, the middle is a cocoa brown lab, and the third is a huge brindle mastiff. They sound the alarm. Most times the owners have to call out to settle them. I’m safe; the owners say there’s an electric fence keeps them from joining me.

The road has a slightly steeper incline. I take my time. When I mentioned this walkway to my rehabilitation nurse, she said I should stay on the level, but I said, “This is western Pennsylvania. It’s almost impossible to find a straight road let alone a flat one.”

Along this roadway, the blooming wild cherry trees almost form an ivory lace canopy over dark green tangles of mountain laurel and young long needled pines. A movement caught my eye. A deer appears as a gray-brown shadow that silently disappears into the laurel and pine tangle. It was only seen for an instant.

I turn from the road onto another dirt lane that leads past an abandoned saw mill. Small piles of weathered lumber line the path. Just beyond the lumber piles is a long open grassy area beneath power lines. I walk in the lush grass until the slope becomes too steep and I return home. As I return home, I’m serenaded by songs of many birds; robins, sparrows, wrens and even a mocking bird.