Walking is such great exercise.  It is also kind to your body.  Walking is easy on your joints, and it helps you lose weight.  After the birth of my third child, I lost all of my pregnancy weight and more walking one hour a day on the treadmill.

Walking on a treadmill has its advantages.  You can pace yourself with ease.  My treadmill has a timer and an odometer.  You can also adjust the incline to make the walk easier or more difficult.  The weather also does not affect your exercise program with the exception of a power outage.

I used to really enjoy walking on my treadmill, but now when I try to take an hour long walk, I find myself staring at the clock.  I am waiting for the time to be over.  The scenery is the same and never changing.  I am not having a good time.

My remedy was to begin walking outdoors.  I drove off the mileage with our vehicle through pastures, dirt roads, and woods.  I decided to walk 3 miles a day instead of walking an hour.  It takes me almost an hour to walk these trails.  I have two trails that I choose from each day.  Having the choice makes each day a little different than the last.

I intend on making more paths with more options as time passes, but right now two choices are enough for me.  The paths go up and down hills, across the dams of ponds, and along fence lines.  Either path are truly cross-country trails.  I find that my muscles enjoy the change in terrain that my treadmill cannot offer.  My lungs enjoy the fresh air.  My eyes really enjoy the change in scenery.

I am enjoying nature and exercising at the same time.  Our family dog joins me most days to keep me company.  Sometimes Jake will ride alongside me on his bicycle.  He is getting a great thigh workout on this cross-country trail.  My husband has even joined me one evening.

As I am walking, I see horses and cows.  I hear and watch many different kinds of birds flying about or sitting on branches.  Squirrels scurry up trees.  Frogs jump into the ponds as I approach.  Sometimes fish jump, too.

The most unnerving creature I have come across on my walks has been a wolf.  Now before I continue most people would argue that there are no wolves in my area.  I beg to differ.  We have lots of coyotes, which sing and howl at night.  Occasionally they come out into the open and make an appearance.  I know what coyotes look like, and what I saw was no coyote.

In the past, I have seen a wolf/coyote cross.  It is much taller and bigger than the average coyote.  It also has the white chest of a wolf with the mottled hair of a coyote.  The one I saw was much more brazen than his coyote counterparts.  Typically coyotes are more scared of you than you are of them.  This particular animal came walking right past my chicken yard in broad daylight while the other coyotes hung back in the distance.  My point is that wolves and coyotes are different.  They look different and act a little different.

As I was walking down a large hill on my path just before dusk, movement across the meadow caught my eye.  I continued pushing down the hill, but my eyes were struck by the sight of a wolf trotting up the hill about 240 feet away.

Even though I was taken aback by its presence, I continued walking as if I did not see him.  I watched him stop and stare at me.  Then he trotted off into the woods.  No harm done, but every time I travel past that spot my eyes search for him.

Two days later I saw him again.  Actually he saw me first this time.  He came running out of a patch of woods across the road from where I was.  When he saw me, he stopped dead in his tracks.  It was at this time that I realized I was looking at the wolf again.  I got a much better look at him because he was much closer to me.  He is tall, much taller than a coyote.  His hair is not the mottled red, brown, and orange of a coyote.  Instead he looked just like the pictures of wolves you have seen.  His body was gray.  He had white hair above his withers.  His chest was white.  He turned and ran back from where he came.

I don’t know exactly why, but every time that I see him it is a little unsettling.  I am still walking my three miles a day.  I try to finish my walk before I starts getting dark now.  As much as I like walking outdoors, I did not come across any wolves when I walked on the treadmill.

Tags: coyotes, nature walk, three miles a day, walking, wolf

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 at 4:56 am and is filed under Homesteading, Texas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.