Tue 4/7/09

A Daily Walk With DietPower

Walking is the best exercise for weight loss. And the things you see!

Egg trees began appearing in my native Pennsylvania around 1960, when I was eleven. As I grew into my teens and twenties, I snickered over this new kind of lawn art. For one thing, the egg tree was not a genuine folk expression, but an artifice perpetrated by the Ladies Home Journal and House Beautiful. For another, the egg tree was favored by people of poor taste. "Trash," my grandmother called them. They usually had a flock of unruly children (like the ones my parents had), and under their egg tree they invariably tied an inflatable lavender rabbit that was quickly blown upside-down by the wind.

Here in Connecticut 50 years later, I see a different kind of egg tree—understated, simpler, and often as affecting as this one. It's on King Street, at a house owned by a couple who maintain a splendid rock garden that I am sure you will see later on this page. I saw them hanging the eggs when I passed this way on Sunday, but something told me not to disturb them. Gray-haired like me, they stood shoulder to shoulder and quietly talked as they placed the eggs. Counting these colorful pendants now—an even dozen, with two of each color but an extra green and a missing lavender—I wonder if each might celebrate a grandchild. Over this I do not snicker, but marvel and pray.

About this page: Precisely at noon each day, I step out of my office for a 3.5-mile walk around my Connecticut neighborhood. I carry a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TX5 pocket camera with a Leica 10x optical zoom lens. My object is to make an interesting photograph of at least one thing that is different that day. I post the results here, hoping they will inspire you and your friends to walk, too.  —Terry Dunkle, DietPower founder and CEO.

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All My Yesterdays

Monday, April 6: I Carry My Lunch

Sunday, April 5: A Tree in Spring

Saturday, April 4: Pigs with Drivers Licenses

Friday, April 3: Forsythia

Thursday, April 2: Skunk Cabbage II

Wednesday, April 1: Mystery of the Hanging Shoes

Tuesday, March 31: Downy Woodpecker

Monday, March 30: 300-Year-Old House

Sunday, March 29: The Broken Fence

Saturday, March 28: "You're Such a Delight"

Friday, March 27: Skunk Cabbage

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