I have been walking for several years now. Well, I’ve been walking since I was about nine months old, but I mean I have taken up walking as a hobby. I got up to five miles a day for a while, but this winter it has been hard to get outside and walk very far without slipping and sliding. Now I am training for a 5K walk and am trying to walk several times a week.
I usually take a dog with me. Belle has been walking with me since she was a pup. She very rarely pulls or tugs on the leash, unless she sees a rabbit or a squirrel, so she is a fine companion. We have walked hundreds of miles together. I use to walk with Bonnie, but the farthest she wants to walk now is to the car because she thinks we are going to the vet or to our daughter’s house in the woods.
Through the years I have found several things alongside the road. When Bonnie was a pup, she found an American flag. I brought it home and washed it and still have it. Once I found a pair of scissors. I found a really big knife once. I was a ways from home and got odd looks from people as I walked down the road carrying a knife. I found a really nice pair of pliers once that I gave to David. I don’t know how someone lost a pair of pliers alongside the road, but they did. This is a different story, but once when I was cleaning our church and taking out the trash I found money laying all over the church parking lot. Bills. I gathered all that I could find and took it to the office in case someone came asking if anyone had found any money. My daughter and I found a purse in a parking lot in a cart at a store once and we could see a big wad of money in it. We took the purse, with the money, of course, inside to the office, but I have always wondered if the person whose purse it was, found the money in it when she picked it up. I should have had them call her before I left the store. Hope they were honest.
One day a couple of years ago I was walking with Belle when I saw something flying up in the sky. I watched it come closer and closer and then it began to drop lower and I could see it was in the shape of a fish. It kept coming down and landed in the parking lot of a business across the road. I went to see it and saw it was a rather large shark. It was a remote control one. It had lost all its air. I took it home to use one day. I don’t throw anything away. This past summer when we had our family reunion, we put helium in it and set it free. I wonder who found it this time.
I found a complete set of keys laying in the street last fall. There were probably ten or more keys on it. I took it home and asked David if he would go over and ask at the businesses across the street if anyone had lost some keys. There was a man who had just done a good deed for someone by returning their dog who had gotten loose and had put his keys on top of his car and had not been able to find them. He was so happy to have them returned.
I find change all the time. I have a jar I put the change into and when it is full, I will take a European vacation. Ha.
I have seen gloves, socks and yes, even underwear on my walks. I have picked up trash along the road. This weekend David and I are going to go pick up a chair someone lost off a truck last fall and it’s been along our highway all winter. We will break it up and put it in the trash.
I have been chased by dogs, asked by a couple of men if I wanted a ride, (I didn’t, of course) and have screamed as my dog tossed dead moles at me she has found along the roadside. One time I was walking with one of my grandsons and Belle found a huge mole and began to sling it at us. We tried getting her away from it, but she kept throwing it up in the air and we were screaming and laughing so hard some man stopped his car beside us and asked if everything was okay.
I have watched Belle fight a baby raccoon. I have seen a skunk, a fox and a deer on my walks. Yes, I have had some interesting walks. One of my favorite walks is when a particular road is closed because it is flooded and the bridge is out about a mile from our house. It’s about a two mile walk to the bridge and there is no traffic because the road is gated. Belle can be let loose and she loves running everywhere sniffing everything and getting in the water. It may be flooded this weekend with all the snow melt and rain we have had. I will have to walk there to see.
Today I found a large, blue rubber ball that had probably blown out of someone’s yard because of the winds we had last night. I found it in a woods.
Take a walk today. You never know who or what you might find. Bye.
