A walk in Beacon Hill Park

By Dianne and Hannah McGillis 

It was just our usual daily morning walk, meandering through our favorite spots in the park ~ past the Duck Ponds with their varieties of teeming life, dragonflies buzzing by like tiny helicopters, and teams of baby ducks dutifully following worried mothers on the swim. Then we saw, cowering in the tall grass, one little duckling lost from the flock and peeping away for its Mommy. Carefully we approached it and, covering it with a large maple leaf, deposited it near a group of baby ducks. It seemed to join them happily, until the mother duck coming upon it began to peck it away. Not her baby obviously! So once again we collected this poor lost little orphan ~ this time bringing it up to a pond to join another little team of ducklings. Off they streamed with their mother, only to see our little lost one head off swimming in the opposite direction! Ah well, enough human interference for now. We were NOT going into that water for another futile rescue. This little duck was now on its own! And good luck to it!

Wandering a bit further, we noticed smoke billowing from under a big Sequoia tree near the Bandstand. Stepping in for a closer look, there was a man with belongings in a shopping cart, sitting around his little campfire made of treebits, maybe cooking a wiener or something? We tactfully suggested that his fire might be dangerous in that spot, and that, besides, shouldn’t he have been out of his camp at 7.30 this morning? To which he replied in a slightly menacing tone, "Shouldn’t you be out of here now!?" Off we went smartly, on with our merry stroll, leaving the guy to mull things over. His life more difficult than our own ... Then up the path beside the petting zoo (by Donation only, but one has to pass by the 'guilty' donation box first in order to gain entry ...) ~ to the highest point at the Flagpole. There, the glorious sight over waving ocean to those far off Olympic Mountains, now so early devoid of much snow. Sitting there so peacefully in the long grass at the top we were then surprised by two very alert deer shod proudly in their new springtime horns, wide-eyed and cautious of our presence as they tiptoed delicately past but a few feet away. A magical moment, then gone as though they had never been, the pair tripped into nearby tree cover.

We sat gazing at the beautiful vistas while munching on our morning apples, thanking the stars and moon for the opportunity to be here at all. Deep breaths to absorb it all before up and descending back to our other more pressing realities. Another morning begun. 

Another slow walk through Beacon Hill Park completed .