This year’s days of the week and dates line up perfectly with 2009, when I spent part of every day of the year in Saint Louis’ Forest Park, exploring & documenting with photos and a blog. I’d like to share it with you.

Day 174 - Monday, June 22, 2009

Heat wave!

It must be fun to chase egrets; not only do I see the red winged blackbirds chasing egrets (we could call that the tyranny of the small), but I see other egrets chasing egrets! I don’t know how they can stand it on such a hot day (the peak was 98F/ 37C). I was completely soaked by the time I finished one circuit around the Steinberg wild area.

No matter how hot the day, though,  there is always something interesting to see and always someone riding, running, walking or sitting watching the world go by (I recommend option D). This entire week is supposed to be in the nineties (mostly upper nineties), so I’m thinking of just setting myself somewhere and letting the park come to me for a change.

Running, riding and even walking, it would be easy to miss it all. Easy to miss the egret antics, easy to overlook mama duck and her babies following her so assiduously, easy to walk past and not see the herons fishing, turtles basking, spiders lurking, and bees rushing about gathering pollen. It’s hard to imagine missing the noisy birds defending their turf from intruders, but between talking on one’s cell phone (I see that a lot) and turned on ipod blaring (they’re tuned in and dropped out), that and most of the rest of the park experience is surely missed.

Today, the gravel on the path crunched beneath my feet, a breeze blew lightly across my neck, sweat trickled down my back and all around me was the songs of the birds, the sound of running water and rustle of the trees. Let’s see if any of it stuck to the silicon.