Tag: jackie

Vitamin texture

On my Flickr feed I shared several pictures of the rocky canyon paths that Jackie and I hiked in Utah with the tag “vitamin texture.” Katy Bowman uses the term to talk about how always walking on flat, level paths fails to provide some of the “movement nutrients” our feet, ankles, calves, knees, and other body parts need to be healthy and capable.

There’s not much in the way of rocky terrain here in Central Illinois (although there are some forest paths with enough exposed roots to produce a reasonable degree of ruggedness). There’s also not much in the way of ordinary hills unless you’re willing to drive for at least half an hour, but I do have one reasonably convenient hill: the highest point in the county is just a couple of miles away—a man-made hill in Colbert Park.

Jackie and I walked there a couple of days ago and climbed up and down the hill a couple of times. The image above is the view from the top of the hill, and here’s an image of Jackie walking up:

It’s not like the climbs in the canyons:

Looking up

But it’s steep enough to provide a good calf stretch.

I’ve thought to use the Colbert Park hill for running hill repeats, but it’s just far enough that I’m generally not up for running there, running hill repeats, and then running home. (I think I did that one time, about two years ago.) I could drive to the park, but that just seems too lame. Still, my running is coming along okay this spring, so maybe I’ll be in shape to do hill repeats in the middle of a five-mile run pretty soon.

Two bumblebees

I missed joining Jackie for a volunteer stewardship day at Meadowbrook Park yesterday because I was doing taiji in Morrissey Park instead. She wasn’t quite done when I got there to pick her up, so I used the time to walk in the prairie.

While I was there I got some pictures of bumblebees that turned out pretty well. Click through to embiggen enough to actually see the bumblebees.

Bumblebee on flower:

Bumble bee on flower

Bumblebee in flight:

Bumble bee in flight

 

The penultimate lily

The penultimate lily of summer.

For a couple of weeks we had dozens of lilies each day. For a while Jackie would count them. Then she decided that it would really be more respectful to great each one by name, so she started doing that. (Fortunately, they’re all named Lily, so it was pretty easy.)

We can see one more bud, so we’re expecting one more lily tomorrow or the next day, but then they’ll be done until next summer, I guess.

A short dialog

“I have finished my book,” I said, closing my library book.

“I have finished my book,” Jackie said, closing her library book at the exact same moment I closed mine.

“How syncronisical,” I said.

“Yes,” Jackie said. “Syncronisical is exactly what it was.”

“It’s a good word,” I said.

“Yes,” Jackie agreed. “It doesn’t get used often enough.”