{This Moment}: See Beautiful

For See Beautiful Friday, I want to show you the confidence that Shyla has gained over this past year. Her growing confidence is so beautiful to me.

Even for head-strong dogs, learning to do the teeter-totter in agility can be scary. This summer, Shyla grew to love doing the teeter-totter by learning it a tiny bit at a time with my encouragement. Now, when she has her front paws on it, I have trouble preventing her from trotting straight up it because she loves it.

After I give her the okay, she trots up to the fulcrum.

She knows what's going to happen next but she doesn't hesitate. She continues over the fulcrum and the the teeter starts to swing.

Shyla has the confidence to ride it down while continuing to move forward.

To me, this is the essence of beautiful. This is the product of building a bond of trust between Shyla and me. When I started teaching her agility this summer, I didn't expect that she'd learn to walk across at teeter-totter so soon. I thought that it would take a couple of years. However, I thought that the process of learning it would help build Shyla's confidence - so we embarked on the journey, and it took much less time than expected!

Together, day-by-day, we built that confidence one tiny iota at a time, and it's beautiful!

On other fronts, this has been a month of learning to accept that change is inevitable and learning to make the best of it. We had horrific floods, and I doubt that our world will return to "normal" in a year or even two. Yet, people are adapting and making the best of it.

Events like those of the last month truly show me that I want to seize each day - because I have no idea what will happen tomorrow.

As a relatively trivial example, look at this photo in a golden aspen grove that I took yesterday.

Yesterday, I felt like I was "wasting" too much time in that grove. Then, last night, high winds swept through our area with gusts up to 75 mph. This morning, I took Shyla's photo in the same grove.

Yes, a big change happened overnight. I'm so glad that I saw the beauty yesterday, and I took the time to soak it up. I most certainly was not "wasting" time.

Some of our more protected aspen groves still have leaves. This photo is also from this morning. We adapted to the overnight change and visited a different spot. It was beautiful.

And other spots of beauty still glowed if my eyes were open to see them. These are brilliant rose leaves. Notice the one thorn on the stem - a stark contrast to the leaves.

And, today, R's beautiful heart shined through as he stood by some remaining aspen leaves.

Like other things in my life are teaching me (all over again), time marches forward whether we want it to or not. Soon, all the groves will lose their leaves but I'll find a way to See Beautiful even in the starkness of the winter landscape.

I think that our happiness is mostly in our own hands. Seeing Beautiful is a state of mind that helps us to make it through tough changes with a sparkle of happiness still glowing in our eyes.

Autumn waning to winter

'Tis the season when winter starts knocking our door. We've had our first hard frost and our first snow. Today, the air felt like winter, with a chill, a breeze, and a mist hanging over the mountains behind Shyla.

As many of you know, I adore watching our bears via my trail cameras. I've been hanging onto a few photos of Mabel and her cub, hoping that I would "see" them one more time before they go into their den. I'm losing hope on that front so I decided to share them.

As the flooding rains took over our world, the two walked along a familiar bear trail. This is Mabel's cub. I'm not sure if it's a male or female. If it's a female, we'll probably see her grow up over the coming years in this territory. If it's a male, he'll disperse to another area and we may not see him again on my cams.

Mabel and her cub are still together so Mabel ambled along next. You can barely see the cub's rump in the far left of the photo. Sorry about the photo quality - there was a deluge underway at that time.

The camera is pointed at a tree often marked by bears. Moreover, the base of the tree is a spot that mountain lions tend to rub their faces and shoulders to leave their scent.

Then, Mabel departed, walking toward her cub. I do hope that we get to see them once more this year. There's still a chance!

Mabel will den with her cub this winter, and they'll stay together until the start of mating season next year (May or June). Then, Mabel will troll this bear trail, marking trees and looking for a mate. I predict that next year's mating season will be very active because Cinnamom, another local female, will be "on the market" too. The two females may even have some territorial conflict.

The end of "bear observation season" always makes me sad because I love watching them so much. There's still hope that a bear will choose the rock den that I know of this winter. I'll be checking the den for bears after our world is freezing and covered in deep snow. If there is a bear in it, I'll put a trail camera outside the entrance. Those of you who followed this blog a few years ago know that the footage from outside a bear den can be incredibly entertaining, especially in the spring.

For the moment, I am trying to focus on the beauty of autumn that still surrounds us.

I love seeing Shyla romp in the golden aspens. It makes me grin, ear-to-ear!

K romped many times in this same aspen grove, and I love that continuity between the two. I feel K's spirit when Shyla and I are in the golden world of this grove. Sometimes I wonder how I was/am so lucky to have two such amazing chocolate labs in a row. I am grateful.

Wordless Wednesday: Glorious Autumn

Life with Dogs

Our world had become connected to the flatlands again, after heroically fast work by our county and state officials to rebuild a road. In that regard, life has become "normal" again. However, regardless of how easy it is to get down to town, my heart is in the mountains.

The past week has brought some unexpected tumult to my life due to an illness in my family. I've been stressed out - more than even I realized. Then, yesterday afternoon, the familiar "light show" started in my visual field (an "ocular migraine"). It's like zig-zagging and flashing lights in the far right of my vision, and it's a sure sign that I won't be feeling well for at least a little while. For a couple of years after these ocular migraines began, I had the light show and then I'd feel normal.

However, these migraines have evolved. Now, my brain seems to get scrambled by them, leaving me feeling like I can't focus on anything. Moreover, I now often get a migraine headache after the light show. Ugh.

So, I went straight to bed yesterday when the light show started, a rare thing for me to do. The good news is that I feel almost normal today, although the stress that triggered it is still here.

This morning, when I realized that I felt okay, Shyla and I headed out to the forest, where I find my peace by pedaling through nature. To my eye, my Shyla is getting more beautiful by the day as our bond grows.

Sometimes, I wonder how I could ever live without dogs. They make me smile and comfort me in times of stress. When I dove under the covers with a migraine yesterday, Shyla lay her head softly on me, watching over me.

A Tale of Determination

Here's a small tale of determination. A little Wallflower tried to bloom late last June but our drought stunted its growth. I ride by this plant regularly, and I saw a few blossoms shrivel up from lack of moisture in late June.

Then, we had an entire year's worth of precipitation in one week, leading to a huge disaster for much of our world. But the little flower had been biding its time, waiting for another chance to shine. On the day before it snowed recently, I noticed the flower trying to bloom, and I felt terrible thinking that it would be killed in the snow.

I was wrong! Today, the snow had melted from it, and it was still blooming!

To make the moment more magical, as I silently knelt on the ground looking at the beautiful little flower, a small herd of elk thundered past me, about 25 yards away. A few minutes later, the bull elk from the group bugled - the most glorious sound in the forest! It was my lucky day to get to hear that elk music.

To make our day even better, not all of our autumn leaves fell down in the snow so Shyla and I enjoyed autumn's beauty this morning.

Shyla reminds me a bit of that beautiful little flower, slowly blossoming into an amazing grown-up dog.

Stop, look, and listen - there is beauty everywhere!

Happy Sunday.

Winter to autumn?

Winter had truly taken hold this morning. It was 24°F with snow all around us.

I had all my winter layers on, plus chemical hand and toe warmers. Where did autumn go?

Shyla and I were out fairly early but we still ran into a neighbor who runs with a pack of 9 off-leash dogs. Shyla still freezes in place when this friendly but loud pack appears, as if she thinks she's invisible if she doesn't move. I literally cannot convince her to move a single muscle until the pack leaves.

As Shyla stays frozen in place, she pins her eyes on me. I go over and put one hand on her to give her reassurance. We stay in this position until the pack moves along. I've never been a "rock" for a dog as much as I am for Shyla. I wish that she didn't get scared but I do love the feeling that I am a source of strength for her.

After we resumed riding, the sun started to warm up and the wind kicked in. I quickly captured a few photos of the aspen leaves and snow, before it all came tumbling down.

I've found that photography has helped me to notice the beautiful details of our world. I am always scanning for the beauty in the world.

Blue sky, golden aspen leaves, and snow...

The other thing that photography has taught me is that a spot of beautiful light is transient. Sometimes, I'll be riding up a steep hill, and I'll see something gorgeous. I note where it is, and I plan to take the photo on my way back downhill in a few minutes. Very often, the spot of special sunlight is gone by then. Nothing is permanent.

Everything around us changes so quickly that it's worth stopping to appreciate the beauty now.

By late morning, it was clear that autumn would probably take over again in the coming days. The wind and sun had taken the snow off the aspen leaves but many of them still hung on the trees. I love the thought of a few more warm autumn days in the future.

Autumn Snow

We awakened to the first snow and a feeling of serious melancholy for me. Autumn snow does that to me, together with the inevitable tough stuff that life throws our way.

It is amazing, however, that Shyla's enthusiasm for life almost always rubs off on me.

When we first went out into the snow, she kicked up her heels and zoomed!

Unfortunately, I can't let her have quite the freedom that she usually has during our bike rides. A mountain lion has killed at least one deer near our house, and the deer bones are strewn everywhere. We've learned from tough experience that Labs are not smart about what they swallow, including large bones. (K had to have surgery to remove deer bones from her stomach and intestines on one occasion.) So, Shyla has been confined to a "heel" next to my bike recently.

Or, when I fiddle with my camera, she does a "stay" like in the photo below. In case you're wondering, she's staring into the area where the mountain lion killed the deer. Shyla is a good dog - what a temptation sits out there! The coyotes should finish off the bones soon, making the forest safer for our pups.

When I heard that it was going to snow, I thought that the snow might bring down all the aspen leaves, which are reaching their peak autumn color in a very small elevation range that includes our house. I was wrong.

Ever so briefly, as I pedaled my snowbike, the sun shined through the storm clouds. It was like dawn in mid-morning, as the leaves began to glow in their snowy cloaks.

The sun didn't last for long before the clouds began to close in on us.

And, it started snowing again. Because the aspens have leaves, many trunks were bent all the way to the ground. Believe it or not, this is a trail that is normally clear and wide. Leaning aspens blocked most of it today. Some were uprooted due to the 18" of rain a couple of weeks ago and very wet soil. I love aspens so I was sad to see the uprooted ones.

But my main memory of the day will be the brief sunshine and glorious leaves.

Two Good Things

After a rough day of unexpected tumult, I thought that I'd try to think of "one good thing" from my day, like my friend Barb does. I thought of two beautiful visions from the morning.

Aspen aflame with yellow and red leaves just after sunrise...

My Shyla in the sunrise light next to golden aspens...

If I can keep visions like those in my head, I should be able to sleep tonight while the first snow of the year is falling on our world.

Wordless Wednesday: Autumn's Glory

Sunrise and Elk Mating Season

Yesterday began in our normal way... a mountain bike ride for me and Shyla. At the start of our ride, we found some bright aspens that glowed in the rising sun.

Whenever I capture a photo of Shyla with her beautiful eyes shining and a shadow on her face, it strikes me as so appropriate. Like all of us, she has her beauty and strength but she also has demons to fight. Photos like this one symbolize that dichotomy to me.

After our bike ride yesterday, we decided that, if we wanted to see the elk rut at Rocky Mountain National Park this year, we'd better do it immediately, given the pending government shutdown. We really lucked out yesterday, because the park was open for the last day before the shutdown, and entry was free due to the flood emergency. That was a very nice gesture.

We love watching elk. This was a group of velvet-antlered bull elk that we saw near our house on July 1st.  These are really big elk for a hunted population, like the one that lives near us.

The combination of them and the wildflowers was gorgeous.

Yesterday, we drove to the National Park, where the resident herd was in the midst of mating season. During that season, males claim "harems" of cow elk, and they fight each other to keep their harems intact. The bulls are always trying to lure cow elk away from another male.

The only "fighting" yesterday was very far away from us. I was grateful to my friend who has loaned me a long telephoto lens so I could get a glimpse of them through my camera.

Their antlers never actually touched. The bull on the left backed down before a true battle erupted. The bull on the right had a fairly big harem about 50 yards behind him.

Most of the time, we watched a bull and harem that were well established so there was very little conflict for this bull. Here he is surrounded by his harem.

I'm going to save the rest of the story for later in the week so I can share some fun photos of young bulls trying to "steal" his harem plus some of the funny behavior of this bull.

This day in Rocky Mountain National Park is one of our favorite traditions. Every autumn we go see the elk rut, sitting in the chilly air of the park, watching the animals play out their age-old behaviors. There's always a tinge of sadness for me because I know that it means that the warm days of autumn are truly winding down. However, this day is always a highlight!

Here is the sunset light on the main bull elk who we watched yesterday.

Yes, the sun is starting to set on autumn here.