A Classic Spring Day

We had a rainy weekend, by our standards. It was gray, foggy, misting, and downright raining for the whole weekend except early both mornings. Then, last night we had a freeze (and it was still below freezing for Shyla's and my bike ride this morning). Many wildflowers had frozen water droplets all over them this morning. Fortunately, they are adapted to cope with our wild spring weather.

Shyla had a rough start to our morning bike ride because we ran into some dogs (with their human) who sometimes scare her. They definitely scared her this morning - more than usual. The hard part with Shyla is that, when she's scared, it's hard to get her to move away from the dogs or people that are scaring her. Her fear reaction is to freeze. This morning, she truly froze when the dog owner yelled at his dogs. His voice really put her over threshold.

Her "freeze reaction" makes my job tough, as her guide through the scary stuff in life. My usual technique is to stop, squatting down next to her, waiting for the scary thing to leave. I hope that someday she can just trot on past the scary dogs/people but, alas, that goal may be too high for Shyla.

After they were gone, I tried to build up her confidence with a mini-training session, just doing the tricks that she loves to do. Like this one...

With the fun training and lots of praise/rewards, I eventually built up her confidence enough that we could ride up to Hug Hill. Look at her sleek form. We've declared her diet to be finished! Our vet's requirement is that you can see the back two ribs on an active dog like Shyla, and they are definitely visible now! Yahoo!

While we were on top of Hug Hill, I could see a new layer of snow all over the mountains behind Shyla. The rain at our elevation was clearly snow up there. I think that it may be July before we can hike anyplace very high.

After my ride with Shyla, I headed out for some more riding. It was sunny, after all - a day to be seized! I rode on my favorite ridge, which is at the height of its wildflower glory right now.

While I was there, I tried to photograph some of the individual flowers covering the ground but they were so tightly packed together that many flowers sneaked into the picture.

Then, on my way home from the ridge, I crossed a wet area, and I saw that Shooting Star wildflowers are in bloom. I love these magenta beauties!

Today was Springtime at its finest. A cool start to the day, a fun ride with Shyla, and amazing wildflowers.

Oh yes, and the mountain lion photos on my trail camera... I'll save those for someday soon.