Incidental Randomness

Several mornings ago, I left the house early for work in order to take my car to be worked on. Since the auto repair facility was less than a mile away from my workplace and the weather was pleasant, I decided to walk from where I left the car to work. The sidewalk and pavement spoke of concrete jungle and many of the houses are older and not all well maintained. Even the following picture reveals that the neighborhood is not well taken care of. But oh, how God through His creation makes pretty what is not so otherwise.

Bachelor Buttons are a simple "weed" with a handsome, tidy little bloom. They obviously are able to bloom where they grow, being quite drought resistant.

The next day I drove my wife to a Cosmetology Training Center in order to get her hair cut. Her Beautician-in-Training is a friend of ours from church. I wasn't about to hang around for the whole event, so I brought my bike along and rode over to my son's house. I had a few minutes of talk to him and my granddaughter before I had to head back.

 

The Training Center sits on top of a fair-sized hill with a steep approach. When I returned, they were just finishing up. One girl who observed ask my wife if she dyes her hair this color. We had a good laugh. As a matter of fact, she comes by it naturally through time and experience.

That night I set a live trap for a groundhog that was nesting on the spare tire under my truck. My neighbor had first seen him crawl up into the truck and told me. He looked it up on the internet and informed me that people say they sometimes chew on wires and things. Well, that's not good. He then offered to let me borrow his trap. I set it out with a slice of apple that night. Next morning there was no critter. I went back inside to get ready to leave. When I returned an hour or so later, here is what I found. He was a young one. I took him out along a country road and released him in a wooded area. I could not believe how fast he ran out of that cage. They may have short legs, but they can use them efficiently.

The next day was centered chores, but I am prevented from doing several projects I want to accomplish by a lack of good topsoil. So, I loaded up water jugs for my truck, whose radiator has a small leak, and made two stops for my wife along the way to a bottomland and really good topsoil at a reasonable price.

Now we come to the most random siting of the four days of variety, yet. During lunch I decided to take a walk as I often do. One of the neighborhood roads crosses a little creek. Being a boulevard, there is a little concrete bridge over the creek in the median. I don't usually use it, walking or running on the asphalt instead. I decided to watch the minnows scurry but caught sight of the following mystery. The size and shape is definitely a rat but without skin. But look closer at what is below it in the picture. It must be the skin. The tail covering is enough larger to contain the muscled tail. Did a cat do this or a human or some other critter? It is so perfectly skinned, and some of you are wondering why I am going on about it or even why I took a picture or shared it, but it is interesting.

Not wanting to end on that note, I share a picture of two of my grandsons from last weekend. It is a random moment, too, since I had no idea that when I went to visit them that we would be walking around on an excavation site. Boys and big machinery are like magnets.

Random enough for you?