My morning walk through Turville Park was a little shorter than planned, because the weather was a lot colder and windier than I thought it would be. I checked the temperature after I decided to go and was surprised to learn it was thirty degrees, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the wind had been calm, but it wasn’t. And I wanted to hike the trails out to Turville Point, where the winds off the lake were not slowed down one teensy-tiny little bit by the leafless trees in the park, so when I finally got there, I didn’t linger at all. In fact, by the time I got there I was moving at a pretty good clip just to keep warm, and only stopped maybe twice to get a good look at some trees which had fallen in the water along the shoreline. I paddled my kayak along this shore last summer and it was interesting to see it from this different angle. Interesting, but not engrossing. I finished my morning walk in about thirty minutes.
Because my plans changed from taking a little wander through the park to marching double-time to keep from freezing solid, I didn’t see much else while I was at the park but those fallen trees. I briefly caught sight of a large bird I thought may have been an owl swooping out of the upper branches of an oak tree. It had the impressive wingspan of a small aircraft and a barrel-shaped, thickly-feathered body, but as I got only the briefest glimpse of it as it flew away I can’t be sure what it was. I saw no other wildlife during my hurried visit, not even evidence of wildlife such as the rustling of leaf litter as squirrels hustled by. I didn’t even meet any other people out for an early walk in the chill of the morning. I believe I had the park all to myself.
This Is Drivel 