Down the rabbit hole

There is a gravel road, across the busy street from here, that only runs about 3 houses deep, and ends with a "Dead End" sign.  If you're in a car, the sign is for you.  If you're walking, or on a bike, not so much.

This path takes you thru to another world, it seems.  The houses are nice, maybe on bigger lots than on this side (except for the ones on the gravel road, which are HUGE), and because of the way the streets only connect to busy streets at a couple of points, there's very little traffic.  And what traffic there is, is usually going much slower than it does out here in the regular world. 

And trees!  Huge, old trees.  Lots of them.

We walk this way most mornings, and often on our last walk of the day, because there are fewer people out, down the rabbit hole, than there are on this side.  It's peaceful, it's mostly quiet, and the people you do encounter are generally rather friendly, as opposed to a lot of the ones on this side. 

And then there are the creatures.  Usually we see some deer, sometimes a whole herd of them.  But the last few days, we've been seeing a fox.  It's reddish, and has a big, bushy tail, but is actually somewhat smaller than Bandit.  I keep telling him we don't really want to meet the fox, up close and personal.  I suspect he'd lose any battle that ensued.

Of course, regardless of what I say, he gets very excited at spotting this creature, and wants to check it out.  So I have to act like Mom the Anchor, and hang on so he doesn't get away to chase the fox.  (This is a pretty good upper body workout, btw.  I highly recommend it.)

Sometimes, the fox comes over to our side of the busy street.  We can hear it, it makes noises almost like a cat but maybe more like a smallish dog.  And Bandit will sense it, at night, outside our fence, he knows there's a creature out there, but I can't see it, and frankly, it kind of scares me a little to know there's something out there, just beyond my fence, that I can't see, but the dog is very interested in handling for me.

This morning we also got a whiff of skunk out there, on the other side.  So far we've not come face to face with one, and I hope our luck holds.  And the other day, there was a racoon sitting on the porch of the house across the street from mine.  This is not a rural area, btw.  And it's always been like this, chock full of creatures.  It's not only since the Corona virus has taken hold.  Tho it is nice to have less traffic, due to the virus, so we can cross over to the other side more quickly, and more safely.

The sun also rises

Deep breath.  Listen to the birds. 

Change is in the air

Or, nothing is normal anymore.  Which is maybe not a bad thing.  Normal wasn't going very well, anyway.

So maybe change is going to be, in the long term, a good thing.  I hope.

For a depressive person like me, hope is an odd thing.  Yet I always - or usually - have hope of one sort or another.

Trying very hard to not get this virus thing.  It's all around, and the people around here are on the rich side of things, so they apparently think the virus doesn't apply to them.  They ignore the social distancing recommendations.  Earlier today, when we were taking our second walk, the entire police dept and the EMTs were assembled in front of the local morning to lunchtime restaurant, which is offering curbside pickup of whatever it is they make (I've never eaten there, so I don't know).  Not sure why, I wasn't about to approach the gendarme and ask what was going on.  Can't be anything good, tho.  Maybe someone tried to pick up their lunch without a mask on.  We took a detour through a bank parking lot, and a strip mall parking lot, then resumed our regular route without getting involved.  I did notice, tho, the cops were not wearing masks.  I guess it doesn't apply to them.

We have various routes, in varying lengths, whereby we rarely run into other people, and manage to get our distance done.  We've been walking between 7 and 8 miles a day, the last several weeks.  This has gotten bigger and bigger, but I think it has to stop growing, there's only so much I can do.  And don't worry, we do it in four walks, not all at once.

Yesterday it was almost summer.  Today it's trying to be winter, even to the extent that it has been trying to snow (not that I would recognize snow anymore, we only had one tiny snow all season).  Cold and WINDY.  Makes it hard to walk, and I'm always worrying one of the old trees is going to drop something on my head.  Hard to remember, we've had so much of the high winds thing this year, most of the self-pruning is already done for the year.  I hope.  And the tree on the corner that is literally falling apart just dropped a big chunk a week or so ago, it's still laying all over the sidewalk and into the street.  The homeowner doesn't care and his lawn company won't touch it if they don't get paid extra for it.  C'est la vie.

In fact, it's hard to remember much of anything from BEFORE.  

Going back to trying to file a stimulus return for a friend....hang in there.  The light at the end of the tunnel might not be an oncoming train.