Finally Back to the Lake

 

You might remember that at the beginning of May I hurt my leg and was diagnosed with ITBS (iliotibial band syndrome). After stretching brought some relief but didn't result in healing, my GP referred me to PT. I tried to get into the PT practice that helped me after my knee surgery, but they canceled my first appointment 90 minutes before it with the reasoning that they don't accept referrals from my doctor's network anymore. As you can imagine, I was livid! Thankfully my GP referred me to a different PT which had an opening two weeks later and today, I "graduated" from 9 weeks of PT. The leg isn't 100%, but so much better. I will continue doing my home program, confident that it will further help me. 

The wonderful outcome is that I can walk again. So a couple weeks ago I went for a short, 30-minute walk at the lake - finally! 

It felt so good to put on my hiking boots again.

I chose one of my favorite trails. You can see the lake through the trees.

This is my favorite tree, an old crooked oak, overgrown with poison oak at its base.

A bird feather and an acorn on the ground.

Often there are people who fish from the pier at the boat launch.

Then I saw this little American Mink. I had never seen one before, and I first thought it was a baby otter since there are otters in the lake. But no, my research told me it's an American Mink. S/he had just caught a small crayfish.

Since I was there last, the Water Hyacinth has spread considerably. It is a very invasive, non-native plant. Its flowers look beautiful, but I wish it wasn't there.

Blackberry bushes loaded with berries lined the path along the water. These are quite invasive as well.

It had felt so good to be back again. Since then I have taken a few more walks in favorite places that I missed so much over most of the summer. More about that sometime in the future.