Around the corner from my house, at the end of the street, there is a dirt path that leads back into the woods. I've noticed it growing wider over the last few months, and though I've never seen any vehicles back there, it's obvious that it's a fairly well-used shortcut through to the neighborhood behind us. It was such a beautiful day today, though a bit chilly with the breeze, that we decided to take the pups for a walk, and this mysterious path seemed like a perfect opportunity to explore.
It's been a bit of a tough week - the first half of the week was spent in Inova Alexandria hospital with Mom - we thought initially that she'd had a TIA (mini-stroke), but it turns out she's just in very poor health and needs to take care of herself quite a bit better. In addition to the stress of the unknown, there was quite a bit of incompetence in Inova that about drove me crazy - I'll spare you the incredible rant on managed healthcare, and simply say that I'll bleed to death in my driveway before ever going back there. Oh, and it's been raining all week - so we were definitely ready for a stroll in the sun.
So we took a stroll down the dirt path, just to see where it led. It was absolutely chock full of mud puddles, to Dora's pouncing delight, all filled with brackish water and skitterbugs. Homer, bless his hip-shaking little heart, was simply along for the stroll.
Unfortunately, we noticed as we went deeper into the woods that there was garbage everywhere - food wrappers, broken bottles, discarded furniture. It seems that instead of paying the dumping fees to the county facility, people have been using the shortcut to get rid of their trash. We'll have to come back soon and clean up as much as we can, though I wonder if it will make much of a difference.
Once we got past the refuse, we decided to stray a bit off the path, and take a small trek through the woods, to the pup's enthusiastic approval. We'd only walked about a hundred yards through the marshy woods when we came upon an overflow pond - how have I managed to live in this house for more than a decade and not notice this?
It was a surprisingly pretty place, even though the banks were filled with discarded tires and floating jetsam. The far banks were cleaner, as they were not accessible from the path, and the pups went wading merrily in. Dora found a small sinkhole and tumbled in headfirst, though she bobbed back up immediately and went back in for more.
Homer, as always, was simply happy to be out in the woods, and back to his hound roots.
So we were out for a few hours, enjoying the walk in the woods. We disturbed a blacksnake by accident, who chose to depart rather than socialize, and collected more than a few ticks, which definitely igged me out. Homer turned out to be strangely immune, while Dora and I were magnets. (Naturally Dora went to lay on my bed before I found all of the ticks on her, now I'm a bit skeeved out and am going to change all the linens...) I hate ticks with a passion, and wish they made a people version of the tick-repellent I give the pups (which it's obviously time to renew!).
Ticks, snakes, and trash aside, it was a nice day, which I desperately needed after this week. It's nice to have a break every once in a while, to take a few hours and enjoy the sunshine, smell the flowers, and break in the new shoes in the mud.
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