The path to work

Yesterday I decided to start walking to work whenever possible. The weather that we have been having has been so incredible. A little on the cool side, but with the sun shining down on your face it feels like mid-spring. My days rotate now between our two stores and I live mid-way between them, so it seemed like a good way to get to both places. The differences in the walks though were measurable. When I leave my house to head to Flower Tree I can immediately get onto the TCID ditch, (for those that live out of our fair town that is the Truckee Carson Irrigation Ditch, which you might have read about during the big flood of last January in Fernley). I continue on that for about a mile of the way to the nursery. It's a dirt packed easement road, with a cement lined ditch alongside it, which is empty of water this time of year. The path starts about 100 yards or so from my back yard, and on the south side is a huge 80 acre parcel that hasn't been developed yet. Monstrous 100 year old cottonwood trees fill the rolling mounds of sage, tumbleweeds and rabbit brush. This morning I found a group of horses grazing on what little grass they could find. My first signs of an early spring arrived on the next corner when I noticed not only the bud swells on the cottonwoods, but the incredible amounts of yellow buds poking their way out on the forsythia branches. The quails scattered as I walked by the sage they were hiding in and the birds were chirping in symphony from every tree I passed. The sage still released it's wonderful aroma from the dew that morning. I live in what would be called a rural area in most parts of the country. Horses and chickens are still allowed in some areas, and most of the houses sit on an acre or more. It's one of the big things I like about Fallon, the openness. I cross the ditch at one point, on the huge steel and wood structure that they use to control the water flow, and then it is onto the busy busy Reno Highway for the last 3/4 of a mile till I get to the nursery gate.

Today I walked from the house to Red Zinnia. Located inside the city limits, in the direct opposite direction as yesterday, our store sits on a nice city lot pretty much right in the middle of town. Our house is about 1/4 mile away from the city limits so I hit the sidewalks pretty soon and proceeded to weave my way through the streets enjoying the early morning goings on. I noticed bulbs popping up through leaves and I visited with a fellow gardener that I ran into. He was pruning back his Bradford pear tree so I stopped and talked with him a little about "forcing" some of the branches in the house for his wife to enjoy. I watched the kids on the playground playing dodgeball, why is there always one child that stands off by him/her self just wishing that someone would ask them to play - talked to many a dog as they greeted me at their fence and arrived at my door just as it was time to open.

I realized that I saw so much more of both of my "neighborhoods" walking than I ever do during the summer when I am on my bike. It was, and will be a great way to both start and end my day. If I see you on the path tomorrow, give me a wave. I'll be the one in the red windbreaker.

See ya soon, Susan