As “weeks” of lumbering go, this one was pretty good, coming in at 30.60 miles in 5 days, and sitting at just under 95 miles over 16 hikes the month so far.
Good stuff, but of course, it’s just a weak stream of piss in an ocean of aging adipose tissue and worldly apathy. Still, it beats not doing it. I mean, who would take photos of the forest critters if I didn’t??? Don’t answer that.
The week of lumbering has started off pretty OK.
Monday’s lumber was a slap in the face with a very un-spring-like 27˚ at hike-time. I was less than thrilled to be wearing a winter jacket, gloves, and a bobble hat in freaking late April, but it happens every year, and will surely happen again in the coming weeks.
The week of lumbering was good, I guess. I mean, I was in the woods each day getting some miles in, so that’s always good, but until today, it was like living one rainy 96-hour-long day.
Tuesday’s lumber was delayed by about 35 minutes while I waited for a band of thunderstorms to move out of the area.
Once I did make it to the trails, it was pretty much a carbon copy of Monday’s hike, but with more water on the trails, and some slightly different critters, including a brown thrasher (seen above), which treated me to the sweetest song of any bird I’ve heard in a while.
The weekend was a blur of rain, boredom, self-loathing, existential ennui, beer, and watching Spurs plummet further into the relegation zone, causing just a little bit more of me to die inside.
Fuck, there’s not much left! I figure, seeing the team I’ve supported for 20 years or more be relegated to the Championship should just about suck the last remaining drops of joy from my dark, flaccid soul.
I digress.
After a few days of stewing in my own fecal-scented depressive juices, I finally started to climb out of The Bell Jar sometime on Thursday.
While I know what put me in the mood, I don’t know exactly what got me out of the mood. I had an appointment with the OG Mindbender on Wednesday, and that helped a good deal, but sometimes I think I just need to let a mood take its course until I find the will to push that shit down real deep and forget about it. Like the saying goes, “Time heals all wounds, but it also kills everyone and everything.” Or something like that.
Here’s another pic of a Yellow Bellied Sapsucker taken during Tuesday morning’s 6-mile lumber. As per my usual, it’s not very good, but it’s a pic.
After Thursday’s all-day rain event, which featured thunder and some of the hardest downpours I’ve seen in a long time, I was stoked to be back in the woods early on Friday morning.
After an afternoon and evening of wonderful thunderstorms, the spring-like temperatures of the previous few days left us, the dank, white skies continued , and the air was a chilly 34˚.
With that, I was back to the winter jacket, gloves, and bobble cap for today’s lumber. But there’s no snow, so I will keep my bitching to a minimum.
After a February that saw me lumber only around 70 miles, I went into March being cautiously optimistic. It couldn’t possibly get worse, could it?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: It had its moments.