Along the Trail...

(Before I begin blogging I want to apologize for the hack/spam email you all got from me today.  I don't know how it happens, I have good, new virus protection, maybe that doesn't prevent a person's emailbox from getting hijacked, and it seems like that email opened a conduit between all of you since I've gotten responses to my "don't open" email with other people's emails tacked on the bottom.  Anyway, I'm sorry.  I'm running all my scans and think I might take the whole caboodle into the fixit guy.  Maybe I'll call him right now...)

It is so nice today I think I'll take my lunch out onto the patio and I might just spend the rest of the day out there reading.  Well, except for my 3 o'clock chiro appointment.

It was cool and windy when Porter and I walked along the river.  We loved it.  She jerked the leash out of my hand when I was trying to keep the poop bag from blowing away while I opened it to pick up her deposit but she only went a few feet and I was smart enough not to run after her.  I sauntered and just stomped on the leash, then I picked it up.  Whew.  I do not want to have to call DS & DIL1 to say that their dog got away from me, I might never get to be alone with their future child if I lose their dog.  Other than that she was pretty good at heeling, but she still needs work on the whole "sitting at my side when we stop" thing.  I thought I'd take pictures of things I see on the trail, like the old power pole with a few glass insulators left on it, the wildflowers, and my left foot and canine companion.  

DIL1 was home making muffins when I took the dog back so I got to visit with her a while.  She's going to get 2 new chickens soon, ones that lay those pastel eggs.  Oh, I forgot to ask what she was going to name them.

July 23--Gustav Klimt, Mada Primavesi.  Nine years old is an excellent age for girls.  They aren't babies anymore but they aren't teenagers either.  Nine years old is a pause, a breath-holding, charmed days of freedom and play heedless of the march of time.  Mada was all gangly arms and knobby knees.  She had dark brown straight hair and fathomless gray eyes.  For one last summer she played without guile, climbing trees and swimming with the other children.  She lay in the shade and read great stacks of books about all kinds of things.  She read mysteries and adventures.  She studied stars and butterflies.  Her best friend, Will, lived two houses down on Elm Street and he taught her how to fish in the river where it slowed and spread out in the shade.  She taught him the constellations.  It took a lot of convincing to get her into that white dress with the embroidered flowers on it so that the old Austrian artist could paint her picture.  You can see how little patience she had for it.

Okay, that's it for me.  I'm off to... to... do something, even if it's wrong.  Sayonara.
--Barbara