I arrived early Saturday morning at Mimi’s to get more of her property under control. Mimi’ yard, which is probably a couple of acres, collects sticks from her trees and others, like squirrels collect acorns. I raked and picked and hauled many loads of them off the grass and back into the woods, but like trying to relocate naughty black bears in the Adirondacks, I’m pretty sure they’ll grow legs and return to the yard this week. Once they were removed, I spread fertilizer on the front and back yard. For the second week in a row, I picked up the smell of a dead animal as I worked, which I again mentioned to Mimi.
“Are you sure it’s not me? You mention it every time I get close,” she said.
“I’m sure it’s not you. I mention it when you’re close because I want to know if you smell it, too,” I said.
She didn’t. Later, as I was finishing up and returning my work gloves to the potting vase on the work bench, I noticed some brown fur in amongst the gloves. It was a dead chipmunk. I called Mimi out, showed her the body and solved the mystery – kind of.
I was driving to the park for a hike afterwards and continued to notice the smell. I held my hand to my nose and had the true answer. It had curled up next to my gloves, which I’d worn all over the property for the past two weeks and so carried the smell wherever I went, but now I was just a little grossed out and knew I needed to wash my hands before hiking, which I did at Performance Bike, a stop I had planned to make before beginning.
“Where can I wash my hands?” I asked Justin, the sales clerk, as I walked in the store. “I have dead animal smell on my hands and it’s kind of gross.”
He didn’t question me further, but pointed to the back of the bike repair area. I picked up what I needed and left with no one offering to shake my hand.
After a 4-mile hike, I attended my brother-in-law’s surprise 60th birthday party where I limited myself to Paleo-type food rather effectively, though maybe too much quantity. It brought back memories of my own, three years earlier, and much discussion of ‘where did the time go?’ with my brother, sister, and brother-in-law.
Where does it go? How well am I using it? Will I be happy with my choices ten years from now? Well…it is anyone’s guess, but I doubt for one minute that I will look back and wish I’d spent any extra time on the job. Retirement – please hurry up.
Hike: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 70 - 80 bpm.
Calories Burned: 350.
Bonus: 25,000 steps.
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