I had a great urge to go out walking this weekend, but no one to go with. Finally decided to go over to the Frick Art and History Center to see a new exhibit: Steel, by Craig McPherson. Lovely work, but not enough walking. I continued on into the park. It was OK, Mary. Lots of people were there.

I like walking alone, even though Mary doesn’t want me to do it. I can stop and take pictures as often as I want, and I can maintain a lively internal dialog. Most of the time it was about what was going on in the park and looking for signs of spring. There were lots of early spring flowers in the neatly manicured part of the park, but it was much more difficult to see green in the natural part of the park. I could see evidence of more caretaking than is obvious when all the leaves have come out.
A number of trees had been newly felled. They had either fallen on the trail or were menacing it.

The cut or fallen logs are left near the trail making fascinating designs on the fallen leaves. The cut surfaces are wonderful, also.
You can see a little bit of green to the left of the tree stump.

I didn’t see any spring flowers, but there was much more green as I got to the bottom of the hill.

One of the more unpleasant aspects of walking in spring is the clear view you get of this huge house that looms over the park. It’s big enough to be a hotel, but I’m told only two people live there. Pittsburgh obviously needs better zoning laws.
It’s not as noticeable in summer. I tried to find more info about the place, but without some basic data I can’t find anything. Alice does your friend know anything about this one?

After I left the park I was startled to see this tree with tiny red flowers all over it.
Again, my lack of horticultural knowledge comes to the fore. I have no idea what this is. I tried to get a closeup of the flower, but I didn’t focus properly. One of the drawbacks of an autofocus camera and being too blind to do it myself.

Here is the iron fence surrounding the area I live in. Supposedly, Heinz installed it as a wedding gift for his new bride. How would you feel about an iron fence as a wedding gift?
This fence runs all along Penn Avenue. It’s actually the first time I’ve walked down the entire block. I usually just cross Penn Ave and go on to my own street. Too much traffic on Penn to make it a pleasant walk.

Circumnavigating the entire huge block is more than a half mile. The east west streets have this stone wall
along them, and my street has stone pillars. All of the stones look like they might have been there for a century, but I have no way to know what is original.

This wonderful bronze emblem is embedded in the sidewalk just as you enter my street. It may also be very old, proudly set into the cement by the paving company.