Groundhog's Day Round 2

 Still muddy!  But we have at least two colors of mud here on the DLALLCO.  The lighter more alkali soil found in the dog park and then your normal, run of the mill mud from the road. And, in case anyone cares, I still LOVE my Bogs.  Best boots I have ever owned. My feet are no longer cold and they used to be cold all the time.

 Frog pond minus the usual overabundance of cattails and other marshy weeds.

 Mud and all, the dogs and I ventured out for a walk.  We traipsed through the dog park, then headed down the road.  I haven't been on  a walk in a long time due to darkness and weather conditions.  We made it to the culvert and then hit this.  I decided not to wade through it.

 Instead I looked up and found this.

 Then I looked down and saw this.

 Of course, what would a post be lately without these?

Just so you can experience the noise, a shaky video.

 Still coming!

 More and more.

 Then just as suddenly, they all took off! I wondered if they had finally noticed the large woman in the black hoodie holding the camera.  Maybe it was her troublesome dogs.  Nope, it turns out, the air brakes on a semi will send a whole flock a flying.
And on a side note: My Jasmin whose sole purpose in life seems to be chasing things, especially birds, doesn't give the geese a second look.  She goes crazy after crows, magpies and turkeys, but not the geese.

 What's this rotten fence post got to do with anything you ask?  Well, it was my lifeline people!  You don't know the sacrifice and effort I endured to get the shots of the geese.   I had to lumber up the side of the steep railroad grade and shoot between the rows of barbed wire.   (I just noticed I called you all "people".  That is what I used to call my students, man, I do miss it.)
And I must really miss the classroom, because I was creating a story problem out of the situation of getting the shot in focus.  I had my 1:3.6 lens on the camera, which means to focus I had to be more than three feet away from the object.  I tried leaning back and started to wonder what angle I was at, that got me thinking about triangles, then I wondered how far back a pole (insert really tall girl)  could get from the fence post and get the shot in focus before she fell down the hill and broke something important.   These are the kinds of things I would present to my class to solve.  I remember during the era of remodeling the Willard house, I would always present problems of figuring  how much tile, fencing, baseboard, paint I needed to buy at Home Depot to my students.   One day this boy raised his hand and said, "You know Miss Wilkins, if you would just get married you wouldn't have to solve these problems any more." That kid missed the point on so many levels.

Not that you can tell from the photo, but it is a rather steep railroad grade.  It was hard enough going up, but going down was even worse. I kind of did a half standing knee slide.  Having a dog nose nudging me down the hill didn't help any.  Thanks Jasmin!