A Day of Remembrance

Today we pause on our journey to remember those who have gone on before us. We are thankful for all the service men and women who have given their lives so that we may be free. Their sacrifice does not go unnoticed. We also pause to remember loved ones who have run and finished their race and whose absence leaves empty spaces in our hearts and lives that only they could fill. We are thankful that they watch over us now and we will be re-united after we have run our own race. Brownie and I's journey is filled with a little more walking than running, but still.... We want to take time to smell the roses (or the mushrooms, or the wild honeysuckle, or the river....)

Much to our delight....Mushrooms!

Well whadya know, the mushrooms are back! With all the tearing out of trees, ripping up the earth to make new paths, and generally being a nuisance to us and nature (for keeping us from our path for a year and nature for uprooting and disturbing the area), nature has prevailed!

On our walk near the beginning of the month, Brownie took me off the beaten path (as we both like exploring AND traipsing off the beaten path) and I was following her. I glanced down and gasped. There, much to my delight, were the first mushrooms I've seen in over a year. Look how cute they are (huddled close to the tree for protection). Beauty, thy name is mushroom.

Tornado Damage on our newly opened trail

We are back on our walking trail!!!

Our usual trail has now been opened for somewhere around two months!! Of course, for the first almost month of it being open, they were still working on finishing up things like planting new trees, cleaning up the mess they'd made, finishing up the little "rest" spots by adding benches, and just generally finishing up a big job. So, we could only go on the trail on the days we didn't see a lot of workers on it (due to the fact that when they back up with their little backhoes, etc., they make a high pitched beeping sound that Brownie does not like and anytime she heard it, it was straight back to our vehicle as fast as she could pull me/I could walk).

I didn't realize until now how starved I'd been for beauty. I guess to truly be well, I need beauty. I'd just taken a (figurative) breath and held it in for almost the year it took for them to finish and I'm slowly letting it out and realizing how much I need beauty to be truly happy. I knew I liked nature, but didn't realize I really craved the beauty of it until I let out the breath and began taking pictures again. Hadn't really realized I stopped taking pictures (because I wasn't finding beauty), but truthfully, I don't have many pictures from the past year.

So, they finally get the trail all nice and cleaned up and looking good, then last weekend a tornado comes through and damaged a lot of trees, etc. (and homes) in our area. Our block was completely bypassed, but a half a block in either direction and there was damage. (I have to give the praise to God as he is the only one who can make a storm/tornado/damaging hail go completely around us and I am grateful.)

So, the workers are back to cleaning up and taking out the damaged trees and re-planting some new ones, etc. I don't know how long this will take them to get completely cleaned up as the ice storm from two years ago that did terrible damage to the trees in the same area took them almost a year to clean up. Shoot, I'm just waiting for them to come in and mow as the grass is really growing in and is close to getting out of control, but I don't know if they are going to before July 1st. I heard on the news that they had a budget shortfall and it affected the mowing. Their fiscal years ends June 30th, so maybe they can afford to mow it after July 1st????

Who knows with this crazy city. Above are the pictures of our newly remodeled trail with the new tornado damage. And an FYI: the mushrooms ARE back!!!!