Frosty Friday

It is one of those beautiful winter days in Oregon when the temperature turns frigid and freezing fog moves in over night.  When one arises in the morning and looks out the window, it is a world frosted with white.  If I could shed my coat on days like this, I might say that it is my favorite kind of weather.  While I prefer the warmth of summer, this kind of weather isn't half bad.

Sue and I met for a walk, as we usually do on Friday mornings.  When the weather is nice, we like to walk out where I live.  We always start with a breakfast of oatmeal at the South Store Cafe, where there is something special about the oatmeal.

I doubt they make it any differently than I do at home, but for some reason, their's tastes better.  Maybe it's just because I'm enjoying it with Sue.  After that, we went on our longest walk.  Here's the route we take.  I'm calling this route the Lower McCormick Hill Road Loop.  I'm sure there is a way to measure distance in Google Earth, but I can't figure it out.

It's a long walk, in any case.  I've been averaging around 4,500 steps since joining Curves.  Today I have walked 12,419 steps, and the day isn't even half over.

We had to be careful because the shady areas were slick.  We passed a woman about our age (in other words, old) walking with her two dogs.  She said she was worried about falling and breaking a hip.  I said I didn't remember worrying about breaking a hip when I was in my 20's, or my 30's, or even my 40's, for that matter.  We all had a good laugh.  Now that I'm pushing 60, I worry quite a bit about breaking a bone.  Definitely don't have that on the agenda for the rest of my life.

In any case, it was beautiful, as it always is.  We saw this barn.

I was supplying the voices for these geese, who honked loudly, "Get out of here!  We don't like strangers in these parts!  Hey, go away!  Don't come any closer!  That's close enough!"  We were still several hundred yards away from them at this point.

Then as we got closer, "Hey, Loosy Goosey.  They're still coming.  Don't make a sound.  Stand like statues."

When we continued to come and standing like statues didn't work, they started honking again, "Hey, that's close enough!  I'm warning you!  I can bite!  Really!  Be scared!"

Then, when all that honking didn't work, they approached the fence.  "Hey, got any Cheetoh's?  Doritos?  Anything?  Even Fritos are okay.  C'mon!"

They were pretty funny with all the ruckus they made.  It was an eclectic collection of birds, for sure.

I have always loved the way rows look in a field.  It reminds me of when I was growing up.  We were a military family and we spent a fair amount of time traveling back and forth across the country.  We passed row after row after perfectly straight row of some sort of crop, especially fields of corn.  I always wondered how the farmers were able to get them so straight.  It was mesmerizing.

If Sue and I hadn't been gabbing so much, I might have taken more pictures, but there you go.  Next time I'll try to keep my flapping lips from getting in the way of looking around more.

Today I'm going to do some fabric cutting.  I'm still sewing machineless at this point.  I was sort of hoping to have my machine back for the weekend.  The possibility still exists, but it's looking slimmer at this point.  If it's going to stay nice like this, it's probably just as well.  I can be outside instead.

All of you folks on the east coast waiting out the storm, stay safe, warm and dry.  You've been in our news, and it sounds like a scary bit of weather coming your way, if it hasn't arrived already.