Nature, Books, and Gardening

The trails have been busy lately.  Of course, the weather has been decent, so the people come out.  One day I was irritated by 2 large groups of high school kids running the trail for track.  Of course, they took up the whole width of the trail, not leaving any room for hikers or walkers.  To top it all off, their adult chaperons were keeping up with the groups by riding bikes...there is a sign posted at the beginning of the trail "foot traffic only".  Luckily, they were on their way out as I was on my way in.

There was another group of 3 who were walking and doing the exercise stations along the trail.  Two guys and one girl.  The girl was so loud just talking, you could hear her all over the place.  I tried walking faster so that I could get away from the sound of her voice.  I really didn't want to hear everything she had to say.  Haha.  Well the next two days the top of my foot hurt, I guess I overdid the pace.  Oh well, it's all better now.

The following are a few pictures from my last hikes.

The deep blue color doesn't show up very well in this picture.

I've seen quite a few bunnies lately on the trail.

Another pretty flower.

I'm always on the lookout for my turkey friends too.  This guy didn't want his picture taken, I guess.

This last video is from daughter's house.  Our flowers look nothing like hers...that's a whole different story.  Love the butterfly!

An update on our book clearing out.  Herb managed to sort through his books and rearranged them on the shelves.  Some of the older books that are outdated etc., he didn't get rid of.  He packed them in boxes and took them to the basement.  Sigh.  Soon we are going to run out of room in the basement.  Disappointed he didn't get rid of anything.  We still have a box and a stack still sitting in the room upstairs...and there still isn't any empty spaces on the shelves.

I am disappointed in him, he is disappointed in me because I did it once again.  Over the years, while trimming bushes with an electric trimmer, I have cut more wires than I care to admit.  I am always super aware that the wire is there and I try my darndest not to nip it.  Well, I did it again yesterday!  Yikes I was mad at myself, and I wasn't the only one.  I guess I just shouldn't work in the yard anymore.  It's not my favorite thing to do anyway.

Some Changes Being Made and Back to Hiking!

I took some time off of hiking recently because I had a small growth removed from my back.  I wasn't worried about it, and it turned out to be benign.  It was a seborrheic keratosis, common in older folks.  However, once it was removed, I didn't want to get really sweaty and cause it to get infected, so I took some time off until the area healed.

In the meantime, I decided to start making changes in the house...nothing major.  However, the last several years I've been wanting to get some extra seating for our family room.  It seems during the holidays our family never has enough places to sit.  Our rooms are quite small, and I promised myself this would be the year for a new sofa.  It always seems that some other bills come up and I put off the purchase of the sofa.  Well, it's now in the process of being made!!  Yay!  It should be here within the month.  Can't wait!  I'm sure our cats can't wait either...but I will be watching them closely and making sure the sofa stays intact.  With this extra sofa, we will have more places to sit.

My next project was to clean up our bookcases.  We had books stuffed everywhere!  I started with my books.  I recently bought a new bookcase to hold all of my dvds.  Once that was all organized, I moved some of my books from one room to a second room, utilizing the older smaller dvd stand for the books I want to read first.

Here is the new dvd bookcase.  Yes, those are Santa pictures hanging on the wall to the left.  I like Santa.

The following is a picture of the original "bookcase" after I organized it better.  There are cookbooks on there too.  Herb still buys cookbooks...I don't know why.  I don't like to cook...I guess he plans to, some day.

This is a picture of my old dvd stand.  This is in what I call "The Quiet Room".  I sit in here a lot when Herb and I want to watch different shows on TV.  I crochet in here, and now the books will be in here too.

And to my surprise!  Herb is off today and he has tackled ALL of his books!  I have asked him to at least box up some of them so that we will have some room on our bookshelves.  I'm hoping once he gets started he will decide to throw them away!  Fingers crossed!

His progress so far.

Today was also my first day back to hiking.  I know I posted pictures before of how the area  looks now where the bridge used to be.  I was hoping that a new bridge would be in place, but this is how it looks today.  Pretty much the same.  Still too treacherous looking for me.  Maybe I'll take my hiking poles tomorrow and give it a try. We'll see...

This is how the parking lot looked today...just the way I like it...just my car.