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Sunday in the Park

It was a drizzly weekend.  Of course, Monday morning was clear blue sky and bright sunshine.  One of the perks of retirement is lousy weekends aren't the disappointment they used to be.

I took my grandson to the nearby park.



It's a nice place but I had this feeling that it was nothing more than a huge gathering of ticks awaiting unsuspecting victims.  Since Lyme Disease, some of the joy of Nature and the outdoors has drained away for me.

My grandson enjoyed the playground.


I enjoyed the crab apple trees in bloom while he played.  They are such a fleeting pleasure.



Later we took his scooter to the skate park and also took a walk on the bike path along the Lake Champlain waterfront before going out for Mexican food at Moe's, where, I am told, they make tacos that are even better than mine.

Tulips in bloom near the ECHO museum, another fleeting pleasure (tulips, not the museum).


Comments

  1. Your experience with Lyme Disease would be enough to keep me indoors forever. Glad you can still manage to go out and enjoy nature.

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  2. Understand your fear of Lyme Disease considering your history. You live in a bad state for the little varmints. We've had a bunch of nymph ticks lately. I found two running up my leg and evidently another one managed to burrow in under my arm. So far, no rash or symptoms. They are so small it is almost impossible to see them. Do take care.

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  3. What a wonderful sounding day. Retirement is going to be a great time. Thank you for the reminder.

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  4. Ticks creep me out. I had early symptoms of Lymes years ago, a week or so after I was in a tick area, (muscle weakness and pains for no explainable reason) and had to brush a few off. I went to the Doctor and he said he didn't think so, but I insisted he give me antibiotics anyway. The symptoms dissapeared.

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  5. I'm sorry that your experience with ticks has robbed you of being able to enjoy nature. Understandable though. It is a menace we apparently don't have here at least in the immediate region.

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  6. I think I read something about Lyme disease recently that said it was going to be bigger and badder. Glad you reminded me to look out for that. I need another disease like a hole in the head.

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  7. I don’t blame you for being cautious and unable to feel free to enjoy nature because of those ticks that cause so much damage. You took some great photos anyway.

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  8. I’ve never encountered ticks at high altitude, though we watch for them if we hike lower. I know that Lyme Disease is very serious and sometimes difficult to diagnose and treat. I never thought about ticks years ago when we had a house in VT. I wonder if it was less prevalent then?

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  9. Indeed crab apple trees are a fleeting pleasure. You get a week of lovely blooms and 52 weeks of an ugly tree. My parents had a flowering crab in the front yard. Mid-summer it would fruit and provide a ton of almost perfectly round missiles that were great for sling shot wars and general mayhem. One of my favorite uses was to go out on the street with a badminton racket and whack the apples almost straight up. The goal was to have them rain down on the aluminum awning in the back of the house and make a wonderful resounding crash. My mother would fly out the back door to see who was throwing rocks at her awning. Ahh the joys of childhood.

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  10. I have been having trouble commenting on blogspot posts. They require me to be a Google member, and I am not. Let's see if this goes through.

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  11. Lyme disease and all sorts of mosquito scares but we cannoy stay indoors. We just need to dress to cover up more skin. Long ago that was really the only defense so I guess we step back and do iy now. Save the sleeveless and shorts for beach areas but even there care is needed. Lovely pics.

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