December17

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On the 17th I finished up my health-care to-do list for the year, with a mammogram and a bone scan.

I tell myself that I should be grateful for people who are willing to hurt me "for my own good," but I find it's a hard thing to be grateful for.  I'd much rather spend my health-care time and dollars on ... a massage! ... than on dentistry or a mammogram.  (The bone scan is quick and painless.  Neutral, rather than painful, but still, I'd rather have a massage!)  But what they were able to learn as a result of hurting me is that all is well, and gratitude for that is something I can easily get behind.

I went to the new part of the University's extensive health system that is across Plymouth Road from the place where I met my better half, many moons ago. 

Behind the health-system buildings is land with fewer human marks on it than most of the land around here.  I saw signs that said "Wetland Conservation Easement" (whatever that may mean).

I liked the different colors of what remains of the plants.

"WHAT colors?" you may ask.  Well, let's make the color more visible, shall we?

If you look back, at the image above, I think it's possible to see these colors.  They are much more subdued, in the original, but they're there...........

It makes me smile, to see the full-blown color.  While I can enjoy the subtlety of the original, I really rejoice in the saturated version below.

I was, by the way, using the phone, rather than the camera.

I was thinking it would be easier to get at than the camera (as getting at a fanny pack under my winter coat is not all that easy, and then zipping the coat back up is annoying too -- I think it's on the verge of needed a new zipper, alas).

So I put the phone in a pocket inside my coat.  That was a lot easier to get at.  Though, as I think of it now, the camera would handily fit into that same pocket.......

Anyway -- all three of these images were taken with the phone.

There is asphalt driveway all around the health-system buildings.  Along the edge next to the "Wetland Conservation Easement", part of the land next to the driveway is muddy, and some of that was under water.

Leaves, in a muddy puddle.

I think there must be deer on this land.  I kept seeing what looked like deer footprints -- pairs of long-ish oval depressions.  I did not see anything that looked like series of tracks, just one here and two there.  This is one of the clearest of the pairs of marks -- I am pretty sure this is a deer footprint.  It was about 3" long.

I didn't notice all the gravel in the shot above until I saw it on the big screen.  I'm always surprised at how many different sorts of rock one sees in any random assortment.  Look at all the different colors here.....



It wasn't really a very nice day.  Gray, as you could see above.  Cold, and windy.  I walked around the outside edge of the pavement around the health-system buildings, beginning in the back, around to the car, and then all the way around.  Stopping for pictures a couple of times, it took me about half an hour, and I decided that was my walk for the day.

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