The bad and the good

One comment yesterday summed up how I really feel deep in my heart. My good friend Stella said "I know its right for her, but I always feel sad for K when its time for her to go home and rest her foot. She wants to be with you! No, not R but her!".

I couldn't agree more. However, I fear that K and I are entering a new era of our life. I fear that our days of mountain biking together are over - without us even knowing at the instant when we set out on our last ride. I could be wrong - but I'm mentally preparing myself for that possibility. Part of that mental preparation is figuring out how I can have happy days without K by my side on the trails. It sounds cold-hearted but it's part of what I need to do.

Just after K hurt her paw and stopped joining me on the trails, some Grateful Dead lyrics spiraled and echoed in my mind.

Well the first days are the hardest days
don't you worry any more.
'cause when life looks like easy street,
there is danger at your door.

It's true - tough days seem to hit "when life looks like easy street". It's also true the first days of any huge change are the hardest days. My heart cries for K every single day because she probably has no idea what precipitated this earth-shattering change in our life. Moreover, at the very same time as K was condemned to a cast and complete rest, R started needing intensive attention to deal with his obsessive-compulsive disorder. For R, the only alternatives were drugging him or sending him to live with a behaviorist for a while so that she could work on curbing his dangerously obsessive drinking. I didn't like those options so I embarked on a re-training program with him.

But, the bottom line is that, from K's viewpoint, she's been dumped, and R has taken her place. She has no idea why her rest and his attention both changed at the same time. But, maybe she understands more than I think...

I rarely let my mind go down that entire road of thinking because it's too heartbreaking. I'm trying very hard to find the good in each day and not fall into a black hole of sadness. I do what I can to show K that she's still my special girl, and no one can take her place. We play sedentary games, like me asking K to pick out her octopus toy from the pile of dog toys. And, we snuggle. And, I fill kongs with treats and freeze them for K to work on during the day.

Today, R and I took a short ride together. My bike-riding time with R has been a wonderful gift from the Runner who has been limiting R's running time to make room for my short rides with R. Although I miss K, R can cheer me up. His energy is contagious.

And his training is improving by leaps and bounds. A side note - his excessive water drinking that started after a stressful dog visit last Friday night finally abated yesterday. Whew.

In the photo below, he was ahead of me on the trail, and I asked him to "wait", mainly because I wanted to take a photo. He literally skidded to a halt on the carpet of aspen leaves.

After I left R at home, I went to the land where the wildlife rules. I love riding these isolated trails and exploring for new trails and signs of wildlife.

I passed my favorite tree, an aspen that has been clawed and climbed by black bears for generations. The black claw marks are old ones while the fresh reddish scars are from this year or last.

Then, as I rode up this stupendously gorgeous trail, I happened to look down. Voila, fresh bear scat.

It was the first sign of bear activity that I've seen in my neck of the woods in weeks. The scat was filled with kinnikinnick berries, from a ground-hugging shrub that dominates sections of our forest floor. The berries looked barely digested.

At least some of these berries stay on the shrub for almost a year. My K loves nibbling on them when we hike.

As I finished my ride, I noticed how much red suffuses the leaves of smaller bushes. While the treetops glow with gold, the ground emanates red. This leaf is from a wild geranium plant and will be completely rouge soon!

Yes, I found beautiful and good things in my day but, believe me, I never forgot K resting and healing at home.