I had a lot of fun today. I took a ride over to Hathaway Nature Preserve, hiked back through, (Hurrah! that's been the first long hike since I hurt my back). I wanted to see the meadow in the back that was planted in hardwoods and pines. The pines have grown higher than my head and the hardwoods are three ft. tall now. I'm still wondering who paid for all those trees.  You can't tell  the sheer size of the planting from the photo, but it must be several football fields worth. Quite a  refreshing change from the usual use of inherited real estate. I was whupped after I got back to the bike and decided to ride over to Wabash for an iced coffee. Whenever in Wabash, I have to stop at the Reading Room. I found a couple of cool old books, a flower gardening book  by  Harriet L Keeler. published in 1910, and a Modern Library version of Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett.  For a few  years I've been looking for an antique store that I've finally discovered doesn't exist anymore. It was in Silver City, a two story building, immaculate with the expensive small items in class cases on the second floor. I don't know what it is about antique stores, but they just send me. I love imagining the person who held the  item I covet in their hands. I  enjoy hiking at Kokiwanee for the same reason. You can see the outlines of the old homesteads from  the perennials the women planted around their homes. Years later the daffodils, mint, and irises are still displaying the loving green thumbs of all those women.  Anyway, I think the store was closed and to add insult to injury the building bulldozed. They're going to put a Subway there (poor sap...if you've read Fast Food Nation, you know what I'm talking about). I took some pictures and I just want to say to the Hathaway family, "You have done a marvelous thing, something that I hope other families will emulate. The best I can do is leave a garden, and my sons of course, who I hope will also leave gardens.