A listicle: Dead things encountered on the bike path (plus some meta-blogging)

I'm guessing nobody had marked their calendar and was getting impatient, and I certainly haven't gotten any emails about it, but I'm behind schedule.  Which would be more understandable if I had set myself an ambitious schedule, like something tied to a day of the week.  In fact what I have is "monthly" (meaning "each post should be no more than 30 days after the last"), and I've still blown it.  I have an excuse, though, sort of: I really want to get the promised* theodicy post done, but so far I've found it daunting to even try, and difficult to carry out. That is, I've thought about it a lot, drafted a little, and not gotten all that far.

So in the meantime, some lighter fare...

Dead Things I've Encountered On The Bike Path

1. A fish
I'm pretty sure this was the first, and it might be the weirdest (or it might not. I kind of find #5 weirder).  When it rains enough, the Wissahickon Creek gets excited and rises fast, which means some sections of the bike path flood fairly easily.  One of the first times this happened after I started commuting, I made the mistake of hitting the first flooded section and thinking "well, I can pretty much lift my feet and coast through this."  A few more slightly larger water hazards later, I had gone too far to turn back and ended up pedaling through about 18 inches of muddy water for a quarter mile (and also running off the path at one point because I couldn't remember on which side of a particular tree it went).

That's all for illustration, because I think that time I learned my lesson and took another route the next day.  But after one of the first floods after I started commuting, on the way to work I was surprised to see a small (4- or 5-inch) fish in the middle of the path.

2. Goslings
Not at all surprising, really, since there are a lot of geese that live along the path year round, and in the spring they all get super pissy and aggressive in defense of their nests and then their cute little hatchlings.  Though the normal attitude of a bike commuter to geese is antipathy (due to (a) the aforementioned aggression, (b) during other seasons, the aimless wandering across the path, and (c) all the poop), it's still sad to see dead goslings.  But it happens, I assume from collisions with bikes.  I've seen maybe four total.

3. Mice
I've seen one or two before, and I just saw one the other day.  I feel like I've had more close calls with squirrels and chipmunks, but it's mice that I've actually seen dead on the path.  Maybe other rodents are sturdy enough to survive a hit from a bike, or at least run a ways before succumbing to their injuries.

4. A fox
Not actually on the path, but right next to it.  It was lying curled up in a fairly normal-looking pose, so I don't know whether it was hit by a bike or not.  I assumed not, actually, though I didn't have any good ideas about why it would have chosen that spot to die from something else. 

5. A deer
This was before I had a smartphone, or else I'd have a record of this one.  If I'm remembering right, it was a young buck with the beginnings of some antlers.  In any case, it was definitely a deer, looking like it had gone down face first, with a bit of blood coming from its mouth.  It was right below the regional rail bridge over the beginning of the trail along Lincoln Drive, so my best guess is that it was up on the tracks and either got actually hit by a train or was surprised by one with nowhere to go and ended up falling on its head down the pretty steep cliff.



6. Trees
So many downed trees, in all shapes and sizes.  Usually you have to climb over, occasionally under, and sometimes it's the top that falls across the path so you end up having to pick your way through among the leaves and branches.  Once there was a really big one that fell away from the path but was growing so close to it that it took a bug chunk out of the side of the path, leaving a sheer drop into an 8-foot hole.

7. A Pontiac
Ok, so cars aren't alive.  But it still works to talk about them as dead. Such as when they've been jammed beneath two bridge supports that are at least a foot too narrow.


* Sort of promised here, and actually promised in person to a friend.