Long Walks On Leafy Streets

5/6/2014 Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, Wells, ME (Thanks to Nicole)
It is a beautiful spring day here in Washington, DC. I am just sitting down to write after finishing my chores for the day. This morning I woke up quite late after having gone to bed very late. I wanted to plant the zucchini and chili pepper seeds that I had bought. But I found to my disappointment that the composted earth that I was planning to use was not well composted. I had put in a pile of leaves in the compost during the fall along with all our food waste but I had not done a good job of watering and turning it over. So much of it was still dry and there was a musty smell that I wasn't sure what it was. It certainly wasn't useful for planting seeds. I may need to get compost from the solid waste facility in Ft. Totten. I decided to do the planting tomorrow and instead cut up the Norway Spruce that we had bought for Christmas and spread it around the Rose and Cranberry bushes as mulch.
Both of them are coming out nicely with lots of buds, and the cranberry has already started blooming. After the yard work I went for a run around Takoma Park. It was great to run outside. Then I cooked lunch for my family and had lunch with my parents.It is so pleasant to be able to spend time on these things now that the teaching work is over. There is still a whole lot of research and other work to do but I am feeling more relaxed now.
On saturday I led a hike for Sierra Club and Nature Lovers' Meetup. Three others joined me, all of them women. It was a strenuous hike, with the highest degree of difficulty in the Club's hike ratings scale. I like to do this about once a year. Most of my hikes are easy or moderate.
We met at the big intersection in front of All Souls Church in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. One of the hikers Suzanne brought her old gray Subaru and picked up the rest of us. Mercedes is from Spain and teaches spanish at a local school and Martha works for a nonprofit in DC. They were all very much into hiking and nature and also very friendly. We drove through historic Leesburg to the intersection of route 7 and VA 601 (Blue Ridge Mountain Rd).
After parking the car we started the hike around 11.20. It was a bit cloudy but turned out to be a rather pleasant day for hiking albeit a bit cooler up in the mountain. We hiked five miles to Buzzard point on the Appalachian trail and back. The Appalachian trail (AT) runs for 2170 miles from Maine to Georgia. Here in the northern part of Virginia it runs through the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the middle of the last century the affluent people of DC built a lot of summer homes and mansions along the ridge, offering them cooler weather, fresh air, great views and refuge from the congestion and dirt of Washington. Because of these houses the trail that normally runs along the ridges goes up and down the sides of these mountains earning the knickname of "roller coaster" for this section of the AT. One of those mansions is Bears Den which has been converted to a hostel and trail center. People who hike the AT use it to stay overnight, get a shower and restock supplies. We met several long distance hikers during the day, one of whom had already hiked over 900 miles from Georgia and was headed all the way to Maine.
The trees were all fully green with leaves and there were a lot of wildflowers, although it is not yet time for the mountain laurels and the wild azaleas. Those are a beautiful sight and I wonder if I should go to these hills again later, perhaps with Nicole. We had hiked here many times and memories of our times in the mountains came to me throughout the day. But Nicole didn't want to do such a strenuous hike. Indeed Suzanne remarked that it was like climbing all the way up the Washington monument and then coming all the way down and then repeating that 12 times. The three ladies were in great shape and I had a bit of a hard time keeping up. I consoled myself by noting that I was carrying a big backpack with lot of water and I was also probably heavier than them. Overall I was happy that I was able to handle this without too much trouble.
Yesterday morning I spent more than an hour removing weeds from both of our yards and also cutting the grass which is now growing fast. It feels good to do hard physical labor in a natural setting, whether it is in your own yard or hiking up a mountain. It is actually invigorating to the mind and the body, and it clears out a lot of the mental chatter and semi-neurotic thinking and worrying that goes on as part of life in a busy place like Washington, DC. The mind becomes very clear and calm and you are only aware of the sunlight, the breeze, the trees, the grass and the flowers.

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