Musings

Almost all morning, we had overcast, then the sun broke out for the afternoon. Many leaves still on the trees (for this late in October), and I quite enjoyed this double white birch, sporting mixed golden and green leaves.

In the grass underneath I found a white, unripe puffball, and right in the path this ripe one leaking spores—that black smudge toward the upper right.

One time when I was a kid, my dad harvested a perfect-for-eating puffball from up by the garage, probably an ancestor of one I saw today. It was about the size of a volleyball, and Mom sliced it about ½in thick, and one slice filled an iron skillet. As I recall, it tasted mushroomy, just basic fungi-flavor.

Posted at 7:43 PM | Comments Off on Seasonable

We peninsulized, crossing the Big Mac bridge. Crews are still working on it. Maybe they do maintenance twelve months of the year, only skipping days with the worst weather—wind, snow, ice.? Today, however: sunny and pleasant, some breeze.

We made it to The Place. And the Uncle Dave maple is gloriously displaying the best of autumn golds and red-tinging.

We even got a fine view of the lake. Sooooo good to be here.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on We made it!

It’s harvest time in America’s breadbasket, and we saw it playing out over and over on this fine fall day. We saw dozens of tractors and harvesters busy recovering maize and soybeans, dumping them into hauling vehicles, and many trucks motoring here and there with purpose hauling the harvest from field to…the next stop. I tried to capture the field-transfer from a fast-moving car, and I should have used the burst feature…as a result of my duh!, here’s half a truck and no falling column of golden food-nodules.

Look at the size of the giant tractors! Note how clean the tires are…you can tell the fields are dry and the weather is perfect…. We weren’t out after dark, but I bet many of the harvest crews were…using fancy light bars like this machine sports.

Posted at 9:35 PM | Comments Off on John Deere sample

We hit the road after PT, heading north. In a rural rest area, we found many autumnal still life ensembles, which, judging by sprouting hay and corn cobs, had been in place for some time. The favorite text was “HAPPY FALL Y’ALL.” That is happyfallyall if you run the words together…which looks mighty strange to me—I see happy-fally-all.

Posted at 7:29 PM | Comments Off on Scarecrow features

We made an airport run this morning…well after the standard weekday traffic blockages had dissipated. Nice rays for a church-view, no?

Posted at 8:35 PM | Comments Off on Backlit church

We got out…destination: IKEA. For several reasons. Mine was partly that the floor is pretty darned flat and good for me to practice crutching correctly…form over function, lead with the bad foot, leg straight, then transfer weight to hands so as not to overweight the bum foot.

I did a whole floor of the IKEA maze—yay! For the lower floor, the Guru wheelchaired me about. Note that Fitbit gave me a mere 300 steps…on CRUTCHES…for A WHOLE FLOOR of a good-sized IKEA. [Exhale. Pause. Repeat. Sigh…better now.]

Afterwards, we were famished and the Guru motored us over to our favorite pizza place…yum! And, yes, all three of us took pizza pictures before diving in. Sometimes with a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.

In short, so so so good to get out!

Posted at 6:42 PM | Comments Off on Adventures outside the house

Sloss Furnaces rusting industrial ruins, a National Historic Landmark in Birmingham, Alabama.

Amidst more fun talk-talk, I did an extended session with my big toe, nudging it ever toward a bit more flexibility, and then a bit more. I’m especially trying to get it to bend up at the ball of the foot, and bend down from the last knuckle. It’s at about a 1/4in of movement at present…so a little gain is a big thing.

Posted at 4:32 PM | 1 Comment »

Pretty picture from Florida’s Gulf Coast last winter.

Other than my exercises and walking, I lazed around with the Vermonter, and we looked at hundreds of photos (ours and theirs), talked up a storm and generally enjoyed ourselves to the max. Now, my trusted friend is cooking up anew uncooked leftovers, and the waft of soy sauce and sesame oil and veggies and protein is overcoming me, so I need to sign off and prepare to get to the table.

Posted at 6:43 PM | Comments Off on Slow day, in a good way

We made an early rush-hour airport run this afternoon to fetch a leedle piece of Vermont, come to visit MEEEE, direct from Boston (direct connections, ya know). Such a treat!

Posted at 9:03 PM | 1 Comment »

I received gentle correction today from GeniusC on my crutch-walking. My new mode is with my upper body upright, as if I were walking normally, eyes up, all that. I have to shorten my steps to get the form right. I also extend my healing foot forward with a near-straight knee, mimicking normal walking.

I received more gentle assistance…this is a fine Guru photo…the current wee wave of azalea blooms.

Posted at 9:52 PM | Comments Off on Goodbye, Hunch-ey