At first I wasn't sure what the brownish colored objects were as they bobbed slowly in the middle of a stubbled cornfield. Feeding deer? Tiny ostriches? Then I heard a strange, cackling cry echoing across the muddy, furrowed earth and I knew; the sandhill cranes had returned. One of the surest signs of impending spring.
It was a sun filled, wind-still day as I entered the fifth mile of an eventual six mile "wun" (combination of walking and running these days), and the old hips/thigh muscles don't always work as well as they once did. Rounding a corner into the last stetch of deserted country road, I came across another sure sign of winter's end; styrofoam coffee cups, thin plastic shopping bags, and a seemingly inexhaustible amount of trash left behind in the roadside ditches by thoughtless people.
Usually, because I am already tired and sweaty, I will try and find someone's discarded white Walmart sack fluttering from a bush and do my small part in cleaning up the environment. As I stuff my container full on debris I wonder: Were the people drunk? Was it a carload of kids who just don't care? Why don't fast food restaurants serve take-out food in nothing but cardboard containers? At least those would biodegrade eventually.
The rest of this day would be filled with small treasures; a late afternoon cook out and camp fire with my wife, the air filled with the smell of wood smoke and the sound of crows calling out to each other from the tops of nearby pine trees; an evening of insanely exciting sporting events on t.v.. Go State!!!
On my next journey through the countryside, I will undoubtedly observe even more of nature's exciting happenings and this time, I'll already have a trash bag stuffed in my pocket. On an almost perfect day, it's just as likely a jogger will find more empty cigarette packages than he will sandhill cranes.
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