Boy, the time has flown past since my last blog. This is not because I was not involved in things. I just haven’t been active with my site. I have been playing quite a bit of music. I played five times in seven days last week. I have been doing some yard work too.
Today, however, I needed to drop the car off for inspection. I loaded up my walking stick (The Tost Stick was mentioned in a previous blog.) and started walking the railroad tracks on the west side of the Allegheny River. The river has been high for weeks now due to snow melt-off and lots of rain.
The walk began walking the railroad tracks. The high water bordered the tracks and plenty of waterfowl were present. I saw lots of geese and mallards. I saw one scaup, some mergansers and some wood ducks.
I didn’t go far when I decided to scale the steep embankment and walk parallel to the river. The steep river hills are always a challenge. To add more of a feat I would have to find passage across several steep hollows where beautiful spring-fed streams rushed over rocks towards their river destination.
I climbed higher upslope when I noticed a rock outcrop extending out from the hill-side. My boyhood mentality overtook my maturity (A-hem) forcing a further climb to stand on those rocks to peer the valley and river. I wondered how many native hunters and /or warriors may have stood at this exact site to view the same area.
Eventually, on this hike, I needed to drop backdown to the railroad tracks. That destination yielded one problem. Those tracks were cut out of the hill so few places were available to descend with ease. I ended-up using the walking stick as a third leg and carefully worked among rocks and trees to the tracks and my trek back towards West Kittanning.
I saw plenty of waterfowl, one fox squirrel and a muskrat. Of course, there were plenty of various usual small birds here and there.
u shouldnt be alone when doing dangerous things, Larry.
Lois, I wasn’t alone… I had squirrels; chipmunks and birds with me!