Observations

On my lunchtime walk today, I...

• Found a new "trail". I've lived in this area for over two decades, and traveled the roads on a regular basis. There's a difference, though, between seeing things from the driver's seat and seeing them on foot. As I was walking on the sidewalk along Manchester Road, I saw a street sign I'd never seen before. It indicated the asphalt path next to it was "Vlasis Trail". Intrigued, I followed the trail, which turned out to be a cut-though to Vlasis Park, my starting location. I decided that the trail would be a great way to get to the strip mall across Manchester...if you didn't mind taking your life in your hands as you crossed!

• Stared down a Canadian goose that acted aggressively as I walked by. Because part of my route passed by a lake, I saw several types of waterfowl, but Canadian Geese predominated. There were about a dozen geese hanging out in the grass next to the sidewalk, with one particularly close. My path took me to within three feet of him. He fluffed out his wings a bit, opened his mouth, stuck out his pink tongue, and hissed at me. It was very intimidating; I didn't realize just how big geese could be! My first thought was to move to the other side of the street, but instead I looked the goose in the eye and kept moving quickly. Once I got past, I turned around to look, and he was settling back down.


• Saw an incredible water feature in a back yard. After I recovered from my encounter with the goose, I started observing the houses that backed up to the park. One of them had a dry creek bed which started up by the house, then followed the gently-sloping yard down to the far corner where it emptied into a pond. The only water today was in the basin part; I wondered if the whole thing turned into a circulating system in warm weather, but I couldn't figure it out. The yard also contained a brick patio next to the pond with a grill and fire pit. The people who lived there had obviously put a lot of work into their yard.