Ramble with Storm: The why of a meathead & The Bright One

Mulling things on my morning ramble with Storm, the family’s mixed Lab.

Here’s an example why I cover Storm with the general term of meathead.

Just after we started out, on the alley by the bus barn, a rabbit sprinted across toward the patch of evergreens. So the meathead tried to charge, but I pulled him up short.

In his desire to charge the racing rabbit, he completely missed the half-grown rabbit pictured below that was sitting 12 feet away, just outside of the evergreens.

That’s our meathead for you.

Our ramble started out on a bright note. (Remember “The Bright One,” for long-time readers of the Sun-Times.)

My wife’s moon flower has been blooming mornings for the past week. It is a beautiful and sets a bright tone for the morning.

A lone Canada goose, with a bad wing, crossed the road to graze and crap all over the outfield of the ball field. A woodpecker, I could hear but not see, hammered a wood light pole in the outfield.

The extended part of the ramble was uneventful except for the usual plethora of mourning doves. A couple days ago, I did find wild grapes (or should that be feral grapes?) growing by the north old clay pit. They are sour as can be.

A guy in a pickup watched the sun rise over the south pit on a Sunday morning coming down. Sun is rising noticeably later, summer is nearing the end. The kids are back in school this week.

A largemouth bass exploded from the flat water on the east side of the north pit, which reminded me that the kids wanted one last day of fishing at the town pond before school.

A rabbit loped off on the south side of the south pit. Three for the morning, better than yesterday when there were none, but less than the Ramble-record six on Friday.

Back in town, a squirrel ran around the bur oaks a block over and dropped acorns. I always wonder if they do that on purpose or if they are scared or excited and simply loose control of the acorn.

A blue jay squawked down the street.

Back home, a blackish gray squirrel leaped off the rail below the bird feeder on the front porch.

But Storm didn’t charge. He wanted to be back home. That’s our meathead. He’s ours.