Robert (gurdonark) wrote,
Robert
gurdonark

singing birds

When I woke up, the rain was gone. My wife, a bit under the weather from a persistent/recurrent Spring cold, slept in. I ate my raisin bran and loaded up to go to Park Hill Prairie. I stopped for bait and accessories in Farmersville, and then headed on to the ponds. The weather was gorgeous at first, then a touch windy, but in general wonderful. I caught fourteen sunfish, standing in solitude, with the park to myself. Only two were large enough to keep and I released all of them in any event. Then I began to hike in the knee-high tallgrass prairie on the trail, where I saw thousands upon thousands of wildflowers--white and pink primrose, yellow/orange Indian paintbrush, white "bells" of a type I don't recognize and broad-faced yellow flowers, admixed with Queen Anne's Lace. I walked in the tall grass, and enjoyed the sounds of meadowlark and other calling birds. On the drive back, down a remote country road, I saw the Arnold Community Center, a rural wedding reception retreat in a tiny old church, and I also had to brake to yield to an energetic tortoise.

I also got a chance to stop by the McKinney Towne Lake Park, where I hiked the nature trail. In contrast to the open grass/flowers and scraggle trees of the prairie park, the Nature Trail in this riparian area featured a deep canopy of honey locust trees, along with sycamores and burr oak. I stopped by the community center about a chess room, but found their price was steeper than I was hoping to pay. The kind man there, though, suggested I try the Holiday Inn, and after reviewing its website, I may do just that.

I took our dog for a walk by our local Glendover Pond. We saw ducks, and an Alaskan husky puppy with those wonderful, alive husky eyes. A friend brought over a wonderful book. My wife watched "Cold Mountain",which I saw intermittently, because although I liked it in many ways, it was just too sad and harsh. But I know they were sad and harsh times, because our own community's Civil War history is similar.

Long ago, I bought the Fritz chess computer program, which will not only play one a game, but also analyze the moves from games one has already played, move by move.
I finally loaded it onto my computer tonight, and made the moves for each of my four games so that it could review them. I found that in one game, I picked its suggested "best move" most of the time, while in the game I lost, I picked pretty much the worst move on the board a time or two.

Tomorrow I get more exercise, and see an old friend.
Subscribe

  • Al Stewart Friday

    Friday night we drove to Dallas to see the Al Stewart concert. We arrived early enough to be able to park in its 8 dollar parking lot. The Grenada…

  • Change of Weather

    After a day or two of record high temperatures, we got some chilly, breezy and wet weather. Tonight after work we go to the Grenada Theater. I hope…

  • Paging Spencer Atwill

    I had a dream in which I was driving on a superhighway in the American South. I stopped when I saw some boxes off the road. They turned out to be…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

  • 3 comments