30/30 Challenge - Day 30

Whew, well here it is the last day of the challenge. I decided to go a visit a park I had totally forgotten existed. This is Minoru Park in the center of Richmond. The south end consists of tracks and fields for sporting events. It is surrounded by a large rec center, a shopping mall, apartment buildings and the local hospital. It is the most manicured of the parks I visited and yet surprisingly had the most wildlife of them all.

 I parked in the free parking behind the rec center and came out to a small kids park with the track in the background.

I turned right and followed this path to the north end of the park where the lakes and gardens are.

If you ever need pinecones for a craft project, there are tons of them here!

Lots of lovely old large trees, that if I was more nimble, I would have loved to climb!

Crossed this little bridge to the lakes

Lots of squirrels everywhere.

Love these giant plants

Pretty vistas to soothe the eyes

Lawn bowling green in the park

Love a good willow tree!

There is the cutest little chapel ever, I am sure it must get used a lot for weddings! Its in the west corner of the park, just behind the hospital.

 

Love these two gorgeous trees beside the chapel

 

and who doesn't love a cute rabbit!



Considering that this park is right in the middle of the city with main arteries bordering all sides, it was remarkably quiet. With the exception of the occasional ambulance siren there wasn't a lot of street noise to be heard. There were tons of songbirds, ducks, rabbits and squirrels all over the park, none of whom seemed to mind the human interlopers. A great oasis to get away from the bustle of the city without going anywhere and lots of places for various forms of exercise. A great use of city space and two thumbs up from me!

I am glad I did this challenge. I ended walking over 65 km this month, lost 6 pounds and posted almost 600 photos (575) . I probably spent four times as long processing photos and writing blog posts about my walks than I did actually going on the walks! That part got tedious as it was taking up a huge part of my day and my eyes are not happy with me at all.

I loved exploring all the parks and finding all the green spaces around me. I will definitely keep going for walks but without the pressure to document every step. I hope you enjoyed seeing my world through my eyes. I encourage you to get out and explore your local parks and trails.  Don't forget to stop and smell the roses along the way!

I kind of like the idea of 30 day challenges so I am starting a new one for June. This months challenge is to spend 30 minutes a day for 30 days studying something I have always wanted to learn. I have decided to study Tarot Cards. There is a lot of memorizing involved, so by breaking it up into small manageable chunks, I think it will make it easier.

 Don't worry , I wont be blogging about it, but I encourage you to pick something you have always wanted to learn and spend 30 minutes a day working on it. I would love to hear your stories!





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30/30 Challenge - Day 29

I lived a few blocks away from Richmond's Nature Park for many years and for who knows what reason, never went there once to check it out. Maybe it was the signs advertising the yearly slug festival. Not sure what that is but it didn't inspire me to go take a look. As Richmond doesn't have a ton of green spaces and I was running out of parks, I decided to go take a look.

There is a building with a few exhibits of the kind of creatures that would live there. The park is a bog land which probably most of Richmond was before all the development, so there was snakes, frogs and a variety of stuffed woodland animals like raccoon, coyote, small deer, and skunk. There were a few sculptures around the entrance like this one.

Behind the building were a variety of bird feeders.

 

 

 There were also a variety of bird, bat and butterfly houses.

 Bird feeders with no birds in sight.

Paths leading into the bog

There was something strangely familiar about the vegetation here, cant remember where I may have been in this kind of environment. The trees were a thin dark scrubby pine with what looked like blueberry bushes underneath. It seemed quite different from the vegetation I normally see around BC, more like Ontario maybe.

 

Lots of little birch trees as well.

There is a small pond, more like a large puddle with turtles( not sure if they are native to the area or left over pets)

 

 

 

 

This happy bird caught himself a mouthful of dragonfly


I love these flowers, so very Dr. Seuss looking!

The trails were quite nice. I didn't have a lot of time, so only did the shorter trails. There were other trails that went deeper into the bog but they had signs saying they would be muddy and boots were recommended. The traffic noise was quite loud in the park which always deters from the experience for me, but at least I can say I finally made it to this park.




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30/30 Challenge - Day 28

Today was a busy day at work and I managed to get out just as the sun was setting. I raced over to Garry Point Park to watch the sunset from Scotch Pond.

I tried to get a place for my home here beside this shed. Its too bad that this place didn't work out but looking back on it, I probably wouldn't have been comfortable with all the people constantly walking by and looking at us. There would have been no privacy at all.

I'm so lucky to have such a nice park just blocks from work. I often come here if I have a break. It also has the best air in town, being right on the ocean and away from all the traffic.




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