Bless this daily walk

Oct. 26, 2009

On one of her visits to Davis a few years ago, my friend Judi and I biked from our house to my office across the nearby UC Davis fields. We crossed a dirt field road to Olive Tree Lane, lined with the olive trees that were planted for beauty but are now the source of gourmet olive oils sold by the university. Judi’s absolute delight in the scenery was a sweet reminder to me of the beauty of my daily commute.

Lately my post-UCD work life has included a walk (or sometimes even two) through the fields and Olive Tree Lane with Taj. Some days I treasure each smell and sight, others I am simply glad to have a peaceful place to walk. And occasionally, I am bored by the quiet.

Today yielded one of my favorite seasonal phenomena : the sticky trailing silk released by a variety of balloon spider. Taj and I found the long threads trailing across Olive Tree Lane – so perfect for October and Halloween. The spiders weave the silk that emerges from their abdomens, spin it out and catch an updraft of wind to travel. After they land they release the thread, which drifts away. Many a time I have biked smack-dab into trailing threads, which cling and stick to my face hands and clothing like chewing gum or paper charged with static electricity.

We walked through a field near my former office; a young walnut orchard again took me back years to Sutter County and Dad, the farm, and walnut harvest. Dozens, no hundreds of squirrels chippered at each other and ran from hole to hole in the orchard floor. Taj quivered with excitement, but knew he probably couldn’t catch them and settled for sticking his nose into the squirrel and gopher holes that dot the fields. A few months ago he actually did catch one, but I think it was injured or ill before he got to it. Today a few hawks drifted above, but aggressive crows, emboldened by their number, heckled the larger hawks, which flew to other fields.

It startles me how much more I am seeing of the roads and fields I walked or rode almost every day for the 14 years my office was in the west campus fields.

[I really will figure out how to place/caption images. In the meantime, from the top images are: Taj walking down the lane as a jogger comes toward us, a young walnut orchard, close-up of the sticky spider threads, and threads streaming off the campus airport fence. Ciao.]