Well, hello there! I bet you thought we had given up on this blog. We hadn’t. But we, admittedly, took a longer-than-expected break for a while this spring and summer. You haven’t heard from us since May 26. Ouch.
And even now, as we are attempting to again try to get a somewhat regular walking program back underway, it is going to be spotty at best for a while.
Because of this one:
As regular blog readers know, I was pregnant, which was a convenient (yet weak) excuse for not wanting to walk this past winter and spring. Well, Amelia finally joined the family exactly one month ago today. And since then, I have been on maternity leave, which has made – and will continue to make – my availability for walking less dependable.
But, today, we walked. All four of us. Laurie and I (Trail Mix) and my two daughters, the aforementioned Amelia and her older sister, 3-year-old Lola.
I had the double stroller, so we kept to paved surfaces. Usually, that means we head toward Central Elementary and beyond, but I really didn’t want to take the older daughter past the schoolyard playground. So we went the other direction.
We started out, basically, at the new Harmony Foods.
Then, we walked along downtown…
We passed a field downtown filled with wildflowers (weeds? I’m never sure…). Laurie showed Lola what seemed to be a giant dandelion.
Lola loved it.
Then, I made Lola get into the stroller so Laurie and I could pick up the pace a bit. I mean, 3-year-olds aren’t exactly speed demons.
We walked along the train outside of the Wastewater Treatment Plant. We took a longer-than-usual walk (thanks to my current work-free schedule) and went to Lueken’s South before looping back to downtown.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day today. Sure, it was a little on the warm side, but the nice thing about having the stroller is the cup holders: We had water with us – a Trail Mix rarity. The sun was shining and the wind was refreshing. Well, to us anyway. Lola was mad at the wind because it kept blowing to pieces her giant dandelion things.
But then Laurie found some wild baby’s breath.
She shared that with Lola, who was thankful for flowers that don’t blow away.
”Well, that’s interesting,” I said the Laurie as we walked by.
She thought I meant the hanging wood structure from the roof overhang. Had it held a sign at some point? OK, it was a fair question, one that got me wondering. But that wasn’t what I meant. I was intrigued by the wooden bench that had partitions to mark off individual seats.
Laurie went and tried it out.
(I have to say what makes this picture great, in my opinion, is that she brought the baby’s breath with her!)
It was a great afternoon walk. I enjoyed having a conversation that isn’t about Dora the Explorer. Or Disney princesses.
So that is all for today. I would like to say check back next week, that we plan to walk again. But I don’t want you to count on it. With us, you just never know. But, if you want, check our our Facebook page, which lets you know when we do get out and about again.
Have a great weekend!
Congratulations & well come back. ‘Adorable photos, specially with the giant ‘dandelion.’
Welcome back, welcome Amelia, and hello Lola:
The “giant dandelion” is, I believe, goatsbeard. It and baby’s breath are two of the plants Elaine introduced me to, and I regularly brought home one or the other, or some other wildflower when I came back from BSU or a jaunt somewhere.* The pinkish/purple ground hugging flower is one we used to grow on Upper Calihan, but the name escapes me. [Scrolling down, I realized I'd somehow missed some spring '11 posts.] One of your Master Gardeners would know. The wooden bench with separators is standard railroad station furniture, and it’s outside an old terminal, right?
*That reminds me: Have someone point out birdsfoot trefoil to you, if you don’t know the plant already. It’s a legume, so the bacteria on its root nodules fix nitrogen [there's a usage lesson in that phrase]; it’s good for the soil and is good forage for cattle. For my money, it’s also the prettiest local wildflower. Tiny, but oh my! It does well in wet summers.
After I post this, I think I’ll search Metacrawler for goatsbeard [or is goat's beard?] and birdsfoot [or is bird's foot?]. 100% rain today; no wildflower picking, but a good day for nit picking.
Peace,
Evan
Not surprising with common names: goatsbeard, goat’s beard, birdsfoot, and bird’s foot are all used. Both plants and some of their relatives are immigrants from Eurasia. This particular goat’s beard is Tragopogon, in the daisy family [Asteraceae]. The same common name is used for plants in two other families; common names are like that.
“There will be a short quiz next time.”
Evan
Awww…dorable! Congrats and welcome back, to all of youse.
Hey–It’s really great that you guys are back…I too thought you had given the blog up!
Was in Park Rapids since Memorial Day and came home this week, so was glad to catch the July 22nd entry as I’d given up expecting to see it in the website. Congrats!! Two sweet cute little gals!! Enjoy!!! Look forward to reading your adventures and seeing the pics!!