I did a workout (as part of Eric's "Marathon Prep Camp") in the huaraches yesterday (despite the fact that I seem to have come down with a head cold, so nose breathing isn't always possible), then I decided to run barefoot on the grass next to the trail again for the last ten minutes (since I wasn't able to run on Wednesday). As I have come to expect, my feet found sand burrs (little round thorny balls of pain that seem to exist purely to torture the unshod-- and that includes cats and dogs) yet again, but *this* time I noticed something. The further away I got from the pond, the more sand burrs I'd impale the soles of my feet on. Nearer the pond, the more I'd have to pay attention to make sure I didn't step in the "gifts" left from the local wildlife, but... there were no sand burrs in that area. That's when it hit me: the birds (mostly geese, with a few ducks) have been eating them. They just don't stray *that* far from the pond. So if I stick to a smaller part of the grassy area along the trail, I can run barefoot without bleeding! And I have a bunch of otherwise ornery geese to thank for that!
Towards the end, my left foot found one stray sandburr, so I told the geese, "Hey, you missed one!" One squacked back at me as if to say, "And your point is, you goofy two-legged? Suck it up!" I suppose he has a point. It's not like sand burrs taste that good, I suspect.
In short, the lesson learned was, "Where the guano ends is where the pain is sure to begin!"
I've now thought about bringing geese here to the farm to eat sand burrs (and hopefully grubs and other bugs), but they're really not nice birds, and I just know they'd terrorize my aging corgi. :P
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