…another gorgeous weekend here.  (But I have to say that this summer has been dry.  Not on the scale of the drought a few years ago, but very dry.  As much as I love the gorgeous weather, we need the rain.)

I rode my bike this past week, to one of my favorite places around here…the bridge over the river.  More dead trees have fallen into it, and as I passed over it (a day earlier in the car), a crane was perched on them.  It flew off just as I stopped.

I saw the bright yellow birds again…I’m pretty sure they are finches.  There was one outside our door perched on a sunflower, singing its song.  Gorgeous.

Along the road, someone is building what looks like a huge barn.  I’m hoping it is not a commercial venture, but perhaps a boarding place for horses.  Time will tell.

As I was leaving home, the black and white dog that bit our dog comes running at me, barking.  I yell at him, and he stops…for now.  A couple of weeks ago, he and the boxer bit another dog.  These young girls were walking their dog past the house, and The Dogs came up and bit their dog, too.  My BIL saw it, and told the girls to go home and tell their Mom what happened and to call the animal control officer because they had bit our dog, too.

The animal control officer came out, and was talking to the owners of The Dogs.  Incredibly, the woman stated that those girls should not have been walking their dog past the house.  Seriously.  She actually said that these two little girls should not have been walking their dog on a leash on a public road….so she could let her dogs run all over the place, intimidating and biting other people/dogs.

And the incredible thing is that these people know they can get away with it because nobody will do anything…until a human being is bit.  The animal control officer told us that if we get bit, we need to take a picture of it.  Seriously.  He is going to wait until these dogs bite a human because biting two other dogs is apparently not enough evidence of their aggression.  And nothing is happening to the owners, either.   They couldn’t care less.  The black and white dog was out running around the next day.

And the cherry on top is that there is another dog owner just like them…and we’re in-between the two houses…so they let their dogs roam in-between houses at will, making us right in the center of it.

I really feel bad for the dogs, because they will probably end up going to the pound because of their idiot owners.  I just don’t understand why these people just don’t put up a fence.  They have plenty of yard to put a fence up so the dogs can run around to their hearts’ content and not bother anybody.  Nor will they get off their arses and take the dogs out on a leash so they can get some exercise….

Frustrating.

Anyway, back to the nice day….

I was admiring the scenic river, but it was time to go, and I hopped back on the bike to peddle home.

I no sooner did that, when I heard…the sound of the plane….

That plane.

That yellow plane that has been spraying chemicals in the air over the corn fields….

I have been buying my eggs from a farmer that believes in free range (not cage-free folks, which isn’t the same thing)…and we just happened on the topic of spraying the fields.  She’s young, and I told her that it had been outlawed in the 70s…so I don’t understand how the ban got lifted and now we have this idiot spraying chemicals (she said it was fungicides) which goes all over the place.

Just as I was leaving her place, I’m zipping down the country road, and just as I approach a corn field, the yellow plane sprays the chemicals clear up to the road….which I pass under just as he sprays. Sh*t.

I got my migraine the next day.

On the day that I was riding my bike, and again was near the stupid plane,  I peddled as fast as my tired legs could take me (not very fast), and tried to get inside.  I could hear the plane make several passes (it’s fairly loud).

All that day and the next, I was tired, achy, nauseated with a headache.  Yep.

But hey, it’s okay, because the chemicals stay right where he sprays them.  /snark

I don’t know how this got started again.

~~~~~~~~~

Today, I went for a nice walk at one of our great state parks.

You know, when I was in New Jersey, my son took me for a drive around Atlantic City.  We traveled through one of their parks, and I just have to say they ain’t got nothin’ on Indiana.  We have the most beautiful, stirring parks.

New Jersey trees were tall…but they were skinny things about ten inches in circumference.  Most of their trees were like that.

Our trees, however, are big and thick…old growth trees with character.  They bend gracefully over the road, giving us a leafy canopy.  The forests here look like forests…not telephone poles with leaves.  (Sorry, New Jersey, not trying to pick on you…but you know….)

I had taken my kids to this park when they were still at home, and I knew that I had taken them to an area with a large pond.  My son and I had been there a couple of times, recently, but I could not find the area I had taken them to previously.

To my delight, I found it today.  Looks a lot different than it did twenty years ago.  The dry summer is showing…pond was nearly dried up.  And there is much, much more growth of bushes than before.

It was mostly water with lilypads on it before, so I was surprised at the growth of the rooted bushes.

The walkway was looking its age, too.  It is leaning a bit and looks like it needs shoring up or replaced.

As I walked along a grass path, toads were leaping in front of me.  Heh.

(It’s getting to be quite a habit now–as I play “frogger” at night when I’m coming home from work–I accidentally hit one the other night, but most nights I can see them in time to avoid them in the roadway.  I also saw a baby deer next to the road–luckily, he/she was good and stayed put, looking at the car, while flipping its tail back and forth.  )

A curious thing at another area of the park–they put up an information sign telling folks that the river had moved 50 feet in the last twenty years, so they were shoring up the bank and putting down landscape materials to keep the erosion down.  And I’m thinking….why don’t they let the river take its own course and work with it, instead of trying to thwart nature?

It was a wonderful summer day.  It even rained a bit–a soft rain–but I didn’t mind at all.  We need the rain…and I’m not going to melt.

And I couldn’t help but think of Climate Change and how all of the beauty and beneficial aspects of nature could be gone in coming years…perhaps even in my lifetime.  Gave me chills….

Hope you all were able to enjoy some beauty somewhere today.