My work allows me an hour lunch. I try to consume all my needed food (gotta get that protein in) before lunch, if at all possible. That way, I have an entire hour free to mentally decompress. My workplace is about a one minute drive from a beautiful branch of the Ice Age Trail on one hand, and, across the street, the Janesville Optimist Community Park. The Ice Age Trail is a paved, slowly-winding path through prairie (with restored prairie grasses) and wood (with deer that are so tame, they don't spook until you are very close to them - I've wondered if they might eat out of your hand, but haven't been brave enough to test this yet). The Optimist Community Park has dirt and grass trails that cover 35 square acres.
On my lunch breaks, I like to take a half hour or thereabouts (or even ten minutes, if I have errands to run) and read while I walk. That's how I read the book I most recently finished, Ad Infinitum. I'll also occasionally turn on the Derive App and see where it takes me. And sometimes, I just walk in, stand, and listen to the birds (it's a bird-watcher's paradise). Whatever it takes, I go there to reconnect with my inner self during the work day. I'm dreading winter, when temps and conditions will make this walk far less likely. Maybe I'll use some of that time for writing.
Recently, like within the last two weeks, I came across a dead mouse in the Optimist Community Park. I felt sorry for the little guy, laying there with flies buzzing around him. So I gave him a little private funeral. My Latin is not great, so I had to settle for the (probably incorrectly-structured) text: Mus mortuus non respirare. I then gathered a few prairie flowers and laid them by him. The next day, the flowers were still there, but Mr. Mus was gone, likely eaten by crows. Of course, I knew that he (honestly, I have no idea how to check for a mouse's gender, nor do I want to know) was going to be eaten, whether by bird, bug, or bacteria. But I wanted to celebrate his little life, really celebrate life itself, as I am closer to the end than the beginning of my own.
Truth be told, I hike the Ice Age Trail more than the Optimist Community Park trails. So fast forward a couple of days and, lo and behold, I find another mouse dead on the trail, likely stricken by a bicycle. Well, that was odd, I thought. What are the chances that a mouse would be schmucked by a bike while crossing an eight-foot wide paved path?
Apparently VERY high.
Over the course of the last two weeks, I've found five dead mice on my short hikes. And I just happened to get there before the scavengers did. Five dead mice in two weeks on the same stretch of tales. This is how conspiracy theories start. It's like the beginning to an X-Files episode.
So, in all, I held five very brief mouse funerals. I admit that I checked the trail both ways before plucking prairie flowers. I know how prairie flower aficionados are. Had I been caught by one of them, I likely would have ended up paralyzed, stuffed into a bearskin to be burned alive. But I was able to dodge the prairie flower inquisitors and gave my little bit of homage to these little guys:
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