Wednesday!

It has been a nearly snow-free fall here, for which I am thankful. No snow meant the dirt roads and trails stayed open for me to walk. And we have walked. A lot. I suspect I have mentioned I don’t love walking (unless it is with someone, in which case is much more enjoyable)? In the past few weeks we were able to hike a few of the trails, which is more fun for all of us.

This all changed Friday. It snowed! Of course, it rained throughout Thursday night before it was cold enough to snow, making what was under the snow fairly treacherous. I went out for our Friday walk in full armor: shoes with spikes, my brace on and my trekking poles. And still, I slipped. Only once, but the sudden motion tweaked my knee, which made me feel instantly nauseous. This is a normal reaction to injury; in this case it was fortunately just a reaction to the painful memory of injury. As I assessed the damage, all I could think was “seriously, 15 weeks and now I’m going to screw it up?” My knee was a little sore, but it appears I did not do any real damage.

On Saturday, I wisely took snowshoes. Thankfully Alexis is extremely patient, because I am even slower than normal on snowshoes. Which is saying something. But the snowshoes gave me much better traction on our Saturday walk. Lesson learned.

They don’t look like this in the car!

Tomorrow, the flying circus packs up and heads to Denver. As always, the cats and I are looking forward to being in the car together for 5 hours.

We have been dog-sitting Bandit since Thursday. Puck loves Bandit, but he has had to adjust a bit to not being an only dog. He is doing pretty well, all things considered. He does sneak over and steal her half chewed bully stick when she falls asleep. He has built quite a stash in the past 4 days.

Bandit likes to sleep on the bed at night; I don’t mind because it means she will sleep through the night. Puck doesn’t care, especially since he is a big dog now and sleeps with his crate open. The cats, however, are not so hip on Bandit’s sleeping situation. So far no one has pooped on my bed. Maya did manage to puke on pretty much every rug in the house last night. That takes some planning.

I am looking forward to a change of scenery – Denver for a couple weeks and then on to Fraser – but I will miss my community here. As much as I wish I hadn’t blown my knee, it was a catalyst for me to build real friendships with some of the women I have known for years.

It feels good to be part of this special community.

We will be back in January!