Night of the living Marmot

(Okay the title's a little misleading, but bear with...)

At least a couple of my very favorite readers would struggle a bit to go along on one of our walks, so I am more than glad to bring you all along.  This was, however, not the week to do so.  Combine work, rain, high temps and higher humidity, and you'll understand why I couldn't so much as say, "shoe" or "sock" without disappointing a little brown somebody.

Add to that last night I started getting a little twinging pain in my right calf.  Not a big deal, except.... just prior to the birth of this blog, I had something called a pseudoaneurysm in that calf.  Basically, a blood vessel sprung a leak between inner and outer walls, and like a blood blister on steroids, it expanded to balloon size and had to be surgically repaired.  And just as basically, I was pretty much immobile from roughly the beginning of October till Christmas.  So twinges like that scare me.  Especially when I'm spending the day going back and forth between my cutter (7 times clocked in for total 3 hours and 5 minutes) and the box-sewer (another seven times for all but 24 minutes of the remainder of the eight-hour day) and have a lot of time to think about it.  But around 10:30 we had the lay-off meeting, after which it didn't bother me again... until..

It was 7 PM and a beautiful night for a walk.  Temps were cool, a breeze just enough to make the leaves hiss in the trees, the sun on the slide down.  The pain spot (but not the twinge) came back as we left, but this time in the back of the calf.  There, it doesn't worry me.  But it was still uncomfortable as we crossed the canal and started south down the trail.  Soon Scrappy saw a ground hog- and I, daydreaming, did not. (Bad habit of writing posts as we walk.)  He decided to run to where ever the little bugger disappeared to, and I tried to keep up, bad leg and all.

And you know what?  By the time we stopped it was fine.

Just moments later, I saw a ground hog, and Scrappy didn't:

Scrappy soon figured what I had seen, though he couldn't find him.

And it wasn't long after that along came a marmot we BOTH saw:

And off we ran...

...predictably, to no avail.
So on we went, to inspect the progress on the new bridge (seemingly, none...).  Oh, I've never shown you the "bridge" across the canal that they made for construction...

Once up on the road, we saw evidence of progress; piles of concrete slabs for the building.

 From there we went to the swamp to scare the frogs...

After a quick, refreshing dip in the river (I'll bet you didn't know Scrappy was quick and refreshing),  it was off to the bunny field ( the land south of the swamp, formerly IPFW's  baseball field).  And soon, off to the south, I spied ground hog #4:

Again, Scrappy never saw him, even as we closed in and he took off.  But this area is not one we generally venture into, so we said, why not?

Besides, where else can you pee under the open sky, so close to Coliseum Blvd.?  (Sorry, ladies...)

We wandered over to where the dirt road south from the being-built-bridge meets up with Coliseum, and headed back north...
 I thought the daisies were all done by now.

"...We went down to the crossroads..."  Ahead is the new bridge, to the right is the river, the left goes to the alumni center.  At this point we (meaning I) had just seen a rabbit scamper from under a construction trailer.  Scrappy's trying to figure out where it went.  Which is good for him, because he usually goes from where you saw something last and tracks backwards to where you saw it first.

Going ponding at the Alumni Center...

We had just crested the rise from the pond when, across the street, I saw bunny rabbit #2, tearing butt far too fast for an old man getting tired to photograph.  Then it was into the woods.  Sometimes I feel like just taking a picture every step. Every shot contains a beauty.

Just after that pic, we ran into a guy and his two dogs, a Dalmatian and what looked like a chow mix.  They said hello politely, and we moved on.  Shortly there after, I saw a deer in the back field, but couldn't get a shot for sun glare.  Bummer!

Moments later, we ran into a lady and her dog, which looked like a double-sized border collie.  The dog had just done one of Scrappy's patented "let me circle behind you" moves when he saw Mr. Boy, and came charging so fast that the lady literally sat down on his leash before she regained her balance.  Fortunately, the dog was good at the command, "sit", and did so- VERRRRRY reluctantly- as we went on past.

As I said, we were getting tired (although sniffing the trail of dogs gone before had re-energized Scrappy), so it was out the north end and through our adjoining addition for the way home.  At the first cross street, an older lady has this urn-style planter in her yard.  Peeing on this thing is on Scrappy's bucket list, but I told him no once again, and at the last second he obeyed.  He's a good boy, but someday, I know he'll catch me off guard.  Not today, though.

Turn the corner onto mighty River Run Trail, and we're almost Home.  The last street on our left is a circle, and standing square in the middle of the circle...

"What?  Isn't the Tupperware party at one of these houses?"