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Sunday, September 7, 2008

A Little Nature in a Big City


Looking at our day to day life, our Sunday walks are on my list of weekly favorites.

Today our walk started down a relatively busy street. I have to say, we need to work on functional sidewalks.

Why do we have streets that have partial side walks? One side of the street has a walkway for pedestrians while the other has grass...which you're not supposed to walk on. Then, a few feet down, the sidewalk ends and the opposite side of the street suddenly has the continuation. Why?

Do our city planners suppose we will only walk a block and then turn back? Is there some hidden value in having us cross the street every few blocks? This is a mystery I would like solved.

Anyway, we cut across a pretty near-by neighborhood and through the park. The trees gave great cover, so despite not having much of a breeze, the temperature was quite tolerable.

All was peace and tranquility with birds chirping and dragon flies dancing. Then suddenly a loud screech and a desperate shriek. We froze as a hawk dove, turned and made a knife-edge pass brushing near a tree and missed the squirrel he had identified as his potential lunch by centimeters.

After we had lunch at La Panera, we stopped at our usual little pond on the way home to feed the fish and the turtles. We saw Darwinism in action there, too.

There were tiny fish, so small they were hard to see unless there were at least four or five gathered. There were also larger fish about 5 cm long.

The larger fish would swim about underneath the tiny fish...waiting to pounce. As we threw bread crumbs into the water, the larger fish would wait for the little fish to feed on the bread and then would attack the tiny fish.

The larger fish would startle the little fish and take all the bread. Until the turtle would swim over. There's always a bigger critter out there. The turtle's presence would spook the larger fish, giving the tiny fish a reprieve.

All in all, it took us twice as long to get home. We were completely amused with our little pockets of nature and so very glad to have strolling-friendly weather.

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The NONEXISTENT Rockway Press Short Story Contest

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