Fall Fun

I was going to title this "Autumn Fun" but the word "autumn" conjures up images of piles of crisp leaves waiting to be jumped in, brightly colored deciduous trees nestled amongst the dark evergreens, and the need for jackets as protection from the nip in the air despite the sun.

While we had the brightly colored trees nestled amongst the dark evergreens, the leaves were soggy from the previous week-long rain-fall, the ground was spongy, and although there was only one cloud in the sky, it stretched from horizon to horizon.  Still, it was relatively warm and had ceased to rain and Brad needed a good dose of the out-of-doors.  I made sure he had on his rubber boots and off we went.

He wandered about a bit, following me down the driveway to the mail box, and on our way back up he became interested in a bit of climbing.  Down into the ditch he went and then up the four-foot bank on all fours.  At least he chose a bank with vegetation.

With the command, "Follow me!" thrown over his shoulder at me, he marched around the pasture with me trailing him and keeping a sharp eye out for poison oak.  He found that command rather heady and used it often but, to give him credit, he happily fell in behind me when I tossed it at him.

Our wanderings eventually ended up at an eight-foot cut-bank that was not covered in vegetation and had a lovely shallow ditch nearby containing about three inches of water.  He got about five feet up the bank before sliding down and, amazingly, heeded my suggestion he not try it again.  Instead, he explored the ditch and the water that was in it.

By the time I was able to convince him to go back into the house, he had soaked himself with muddy water from stomping and jumping in the ditch and when I stripped him down on the front walk, I wrung out both his pants and his once-white socks.

What a glorious time Fall is!

I plan to do more blogging in the future on my sorely neglected site.  My biggest challenge so far is a dial-up connection to the internet.  Remember how long it used to take to load a website?

• Type in the URL
• Go make a sandwich
• Check the computer
• Gather and sort all the laundry
• Check the computer
• Start a load of wash
• Finally the website is loaded!

My desktop doesn't take quite that long to load the average website but it's pretty par for uploading pictures.  I usually take my little laptop with me into town and spend some time hooked in to a public wi-fi whenever I need to do anything online that is heavy with graphics.

Mike has unlimited data on his smart phone and just a couple of weeks ago I found an app that turns his phone into a wi-fi hot spot for my little laptop computer.  (I don't even have a smart phone, never mind unlimited data.)  I plan to post a bit more often now that I can connect here at home.