Hope

If you look carefully at the photo below, you'll see that we had a dog ghost sprint through our bird feeding area this morning. She was visiting to go for a run with R and the Runner. She moved so fast that she was transparent!

K and I headed out, much more slowly, for our short walk this morning. K wasn't quite awake yet.

K found a very small rock to step up onto (before I knew what she was doing) so I photographed her. She seemed incredibly pleased with herself!

Aside from our short walks, I've been playing games with K, teaching her the names of toys. So far, she's quite confident that she can pick octopus out of a line-up. Here, she's waiting for me to tell her which toy to identify.

I said "octopus", and she sniffed and then picked up her purple octopus. Smart girl!

I've been playing similar games with R, and he's hysterically funny while we play. Each time I give him a verbal instruction, he inserts a loud vocalization, either a bark or a high pitched trill, while complying. I spend our entire training time trying suppress my giggles. I'll have to video it for you sometime soon - it's too funny to be missed and he might stop doing it someday!

After I took care of K this morning, I headed out for a bike ride on my own. I started on my favorite trail that wends along a canyon wall, facing either west or north for its entire course. The sun hadn't touched the trail itself yet but the tops of a few aspens were afire with sunlight in the midst of the dark forest.

At the other end of the trail, I hit a more heavily used route, noticing some serious ruts left by what appeared to have been a brigade of skinny-tired bikes (cyclocross bikes?) going fast and wide around the turns. I contemplated how to deal with the damage... and, as I pondered, I noticed a brown-eyed Susan still blooming. What a treat!

Soon, the echoes of nearby helicopters caught my attention. They didn't appear to be firefighting helicopters but they kept dropping down to a reservoir, racing west out of my sight, and then returning to the reservoir. That was not a welcome sight. I decided to pedal up higher to try to see what was going on. In that time, the commotion stopped. I still don't know what they were doing but thank goodness that no big fires erupted. This fall has been the most stressful fire season that I remember.

It was another Indian Summer day, a day to be celebrated and a day to enjoy the sun on my skin. Yellow cottonwood trees glowed against the bluebird sky.

During my ride, a vision kept glimmering at the edge of my consciousness - K running along side me. Maybe it will happen again. I'm not giving up hope. Thanks to all my friends for their words of encouragement.