Monday, July 4, 2011

An update from the pond

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything…my life has been filled with tons of doctor appointments and weird occurrences that I’ll write about later…but it’s taken away from my precious time that I could be sitting at my computer…and it’s put me in a bad mood so I figured that any stories that I wrote would be angry rants and not funny or even fun to read.

Fortunately, I have been able to steal away enough time to make fairly regular trips to one of my favorite walking spots (since I still can’t run…booooo). I’ve been heading over to the pond to visit with my animal friends. And guess what!?!?! There’s new animals. It’s like the ducks and geese went to an animal networking dinner and were all like “we’ve got this awesome pond that you should all come visit…and there’s this amazingly awesome girl there that likes to stare at us all creepy-like and follow us around, but that’s ok, we like her anyway.”

Bun Bun the Bunny Rabbit

I’ve actually seen bunnies around before, but I forgot to mention them. So, we’ll just pretend that they’re brand new. I only see them for a split second usually, as they’re running into the bushes. After the positive reviews about me at the animal networking dinner, this little guy decided that I was trustworthy enough to pose all sexy-like for:

Pond

The Snake

A snake appeared out of nowhere one day during an evening walk and became increasingly more aggressive each time I passed. He seems to only appear at sunset, which means I avoid the pond post 7:30 PM. I read about water snakes online and learned that they like to spend time in trees…and the thought of him dropping from a tree onto my head is all the imagery I need to keep me away from the pond. I took this picture the second day I ran into him in the area I now recognize as snake territory:

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Don’t get me wrong, I like snakes just fine…as long as they’re not launching an aerial assault on my face.

On a side note, the appearance of the snake meant that I felt the need to warn others who spend time at the pond. This means that I have now spoken to a fisherman that spends a lot of time there…which means I can’t live in my own little world while I’m at the pond. Since we’ve now spoken I have to acknowledge the fact that he does exist and make small talk as I pass by. This would be fine for most people, but my running/walking time is time that I like to have to myself with no interruptions or acknowledgment of the existence of other people. I’m coping better than I thought I would though.

Blue Heron

I didn’t know blue herons ate ducks.

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Before you get all worried about the thought of this blue heron eating little ducklings as they nap by their mother…I’ll let you in on a little secret…blue herons don’t actually eat ducks! My old pal was acting awfully creepy though. When I took this picture, he was hunched over and slowly approaching a group of ducks. When they realized what was going on they took off running. I wonder if the blue heron gets invited to the animal networking dinners. Now I feel sad at the thought that he doesn’t. That’s ok – I’ll set up some dinners for just the two of us. We can talk about our love of creeping up on the ducks.

Ducks

My biggest supporters at the animal network must be the ducks. They have warmed up to me surprisingly fast. They now run up to me as I approach:

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I didn’t think the pictures really captured the excitement that passes through the ducks’ little heads when they see me so I took a series of videos. Here’s one of those videos:

An ordinary person would argue that the ducks are being fed by people and they assume that I’m going to provide them with food. Seeing as how I have in fact observed this, one would naturally think that’s what would go through my mind. I have decided that they want to be my friends though. My dad tells me that there’s no reason I should believe otherwise.

I’m hoping they invite me to the next animal networking dinner as an honorary guest!