I love to be outdoors, and I get out there as often as I can. Even as a child, I so much preferred playing with my male friends than my girlfriends because the boys played outside more often. We would roller skate, ride our bikes like kamikazes over the curbs, rustle and tumble and ice skate at the park rink behind our homes. My girlfriends would find it fun to sit indoors for hours on end playing with their Barbie’s and Little Kiddles.Don’t get me wrong. I had Barbie dolls and lots of Kiddles, but playing with them was always second choice to doing something out of doors. As an adult, one of the ways I express that continuing drive is to try to do my workouts outside.
For the past 21 years, I have lived in the country, about 10 miles from work. I love it! We have a neighbor only on one side. Our 1870s farmhouse sits on 8 acres of land, with diverse flora and fauna. We’ve turned some of the land into our private disc golf course and arboretum. In the winters, I create my own cross-country ski course. My cattle dog, Ozzie, will follow right behind me, somehow he manages to neither step on my skis nor get rammed by my poles.
We also walk the property perimeter frequently, often at dusk. Just recently my husband, Terry, and I were out with our two dogs (the other is a Westie terrier named Laddie) as dusk fell. Laddie flushed a huge buck with an impressive head of antlers out of the tall grass, and gave chase. Ozzy raced to join in! All of this took place about 60 feet in front of us. It was hilarious to see the little dog trying to run down a big deer, and impressive to see Ozzy outrun it, until the buck leapt into the chest high brush.
I’ve mapped out routes of varying distances along the maze of country roads surrounding us. During my triathlon training days, I ventured further out than I do now. But I have a few nice routes of three to six miles. On run days I take Ozzie. On walk days I take both dogs. Most of the time I take them out before coming into work; I get to watch the world wake up.
One early, misty morning Ozzy and I were approaching a field with about 50 cattle still lying in the grass. The cows sensed us and one by one slowly got to their feet and walked through the mist to the fence by the road. We quietly watched this bovine parade. They lined up side by side along the fence and we respectfully watched each other and said our good mornings. As we were getting ready to move along, we were then treated to the “plop, plop, plop” of each cow letting go of its night holdings, one at a time, in approximately the same sequence in which they had arrived at the fence. Where was the clown with the clean-up shovel at this parade?
I so often see at least one unusual animal or bird on my adventures that Terry now asks every time I get home, “Did you see any wildlife?” I have seen (in addition to the usual critters like squirrels, rabbits, common birds) deer (sometimes in herds of 20 or more), coyote (very fleeting; they are rather shy), wild turkeys, pheasant, sand hill cranes, great blue herons, egrets, hawks, raccoon, opossum, skunk, muskrat, weasel, snakes, various turtle species, and fox. One year I must have rescued 15 turtles from sure death on the road. That’s when I learned just how far back and around a large snapping turtle can reach with its alligator-like mouth. They can also flip themselves off of the ground. Scary.
I have noticed that you really sense things in a very different way when you are not in a car. Once, back in my triathlon days, as I was finishing up a long road bike ride, it occurred to me how much more my olfactory senses were being exercised than if I had been in my car. I created this poem while finishing that ride:
Along country roads I bike along
And in my head I sing a song
Of fresh ploughed fields,
Earth’s musty aroma,
Of barnyard animals
Whose manure smell puts me in a coma.
As if car fumes weren’t enough
And just when I’ve had my fill
In comes a whiff of really bad stuff . . .
Ewww, three day old road kill!
When you are walking the world comes at you in an even deeper way than if you are on a bicycle. For example, I was walking with my friend and Ozzy, recently, on one of the dirt roads around my house. We passed an older farmhouse with a large rectangular rock by the road with a piece of round metal embedded in it. This was used to tie up horses’ reins, back when they were used for transportation more than cars. We probably would have noticed that on bicycles, much less in a car. We certainly could not have stood around and examined it, kicking off a long conversation about the good old days, had we been driving by in a car.
I find it easier to get warm than to cool down. So I don’t mind going out for exercise when it’s in the teens. The first few minutes are a little chilly, but after than I find it quite enjoyable.
My message to you is: Get outside! Do it several times a week. Breathing fresh air is good for you, especially in the winter when you are inside more and exposed to germs. Getting some sun exposure in the winter is also important (wear sun screen). If you start now while the weather is still somewhat mild, you’ll adapt pretty quickly to the falling temperatures as we move into winter.
Writer and futurist William Gibson notes that humans have become that species whose individuals’ experiences are nearly completely “mediated” by technology. Unmediated experiences are, in fact, rare. I think that makes them even more valuable. It’s a big, beautiful world out there, outdoors – go grab an outdoor experience!
