All this and Robot Dogs too!

I  should change the way I wake DH. "OK, Let's go!" as I flip on the light may not be the most gracious morning greeting. I  am talking to myself as well, but I have no choice - I have to live with me.

The cool of the morning hints at the fall weather to come and we walked - the first walk in days.

We headed out and discussed the plans for the day - laundry, recycling, and a little cleaning up. We are both still worn from our work week and don't care if we accomplish much or little.

At the top of the steep hill we find a grey tabby. [He is in the grass at a house that once boasted of a good dozen mousers. They lounged on the cars and hid in the grass. And, on particularly damp days, we could smell them (don't ask). It has been a few years now that we have watched the cat population decrease to the point that we rarely see a cat when we walk by. It was nice to see this big grey with markings like our Hobbes.]

We marched into the park like we owned it. At first it seemed we were alone, but soon we watched a shadow moving from right to left, from the pecan trees near the creek, to the streetlight at the roadside, and finally, to the woods. The photos will disclose its identity. [I have not downloaded them yet because this computer does not let me edit. I will zoom in on another computer and I will find - a fox.]

OK, OK. I have looked very carefully in all of my photos - whatever it was is fully in the shadows. We say FOX.

We had not planned to "hunt,"  but once we saw the fox, we knew the time was right to see more animals.

We headed down the dirt road and were surprised at the height of the scrub. The grasses and weeds were well over our heads at the mouth of the trail. The grass reached shoulder height in the first meadow. And the far meadow too was rough and ragged. We all stopped to gaze across the grass. Nothing moved. The dogs were still. It was a disappointment. Where were the deer?

But then I spied what appeared to be a head - with two big ears - rising just above the sea of grass. It was frozen as if observing us from across the field. I pointed and exclaimed, "Look!"

At first we saw nothing - a field full of dry grass.

DH looked across the meadow and shook his head ("Crazy woman!" the shake expressed). But I kept pointing and insisted, "There!" And then they began to run. It was hard to get a good count, but I counted at least four deer.

<Squint>  See the deer in the middle of the photo?

At least one other was running in the woods as we retraced our steps back down the road and out of the park. We rarely hear them so clearly. We usually hear a rustle that indicates a large animal moving through the brush. But this noise had the clear cadence of a running deer crunching through the dry grass.

We were only a few blocks from the house when a silver truck approached from a side street with two yellow labs barking and hanging out of the windows. We exclaimed and waived and smiled as the truck turned and headed towards the park. "ROBOT DOGS!"

Here they were at last, the older couple and an extremely well behaved pair of Labrador retrievers who train almost tirelessly in our park. [We likely have never seen THESE Labbys before as these folks are TRAINERS and they have a new pair  - or more - of pups every year.]

But this is the first time we have seen them (Sissy and Dwayne or Dewayne)  in almost a year. Where have they been? How have they been?

We won't find out today as we were through with our walk and they were wasting no time. We will catch up another day.

NOTE: And DH found a $5 bill on the edge of the road! Ice cream for everyone!

I guess I will have to continue to "seed" the walk to keep DH interested.*

Something about the rows of stones in the retaining wall, the rows of columns in the railing, and the rows of supports for the bridge made me so happy.

* Back in the day when DH was actively involved in scouting, the local troop adopted two miles of highway near our town. They were responsible to pick up trash and generally keep those two miles clean. One of the other adult leaders would "seed" the roadway with dollar bills and ONE five. On one occasion, before they knew how this worked, another adult found the five. DH joked that the doctor (the lucky "finder") surprisingly beat the lawyer (another adult participating) to the cash. Thereafter, the adults let the kids find the money.