Before time slips away

I'm preparing to go out of town again on Friday. For four days this time instead of just one, but the preparation angst is pretty much the same whether it's one day, four days, or four weeks. That feeling that I have to get everything done before I leave, even though many of those same things would be left undone if I wasn't going to be away. Maybe it's the fear that I'll never return and would be leaving Clay with a dirty house and an unkempt yard, but more likely it's just the fact that I don't want to come home to a house that looks like it was abandoned years ago. 

This summer has gone by faster than any. Time accelerates as you age. It's something we wished for when younger, wanting to be "old enough" — to drive, to vote, to go away to college. Time seemed to move so slowly then but now it races by while we wish we could slow it down, to stretch out the remaining years as far and long as possible. 

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that the past few days have slipped away from me without a blog post and here's some pictures from that period that I don't want to be lost in the rush.

Dragon wing begonia

Paisley in the Garden of the Dogs.

Maya, at a distance, across fresh mown grass.

Jericho

Coleus in the shade garden.

The shade garden getting it's 30 minutes of sun.

Sherlock and Jericho

My water lily is in bloom!

Paisley on an evening walk with Elvis.

Elvis on that same walk.

This young deer was only about 20 yards from us.

This was the Paisley/Elvis evening walk.

Della on the next morning's walk.

Sherlock, Wednesday morning walk.

An overnight trip

Clay and I got away for about 25 hours this weekend. We left late Saturday morning and drove up to northern Virginia, taking in several new-to-us breweries in the afternoon. We saw Mary Chapin Carpenter at Wolf Trap Saturday evening (an almost annual ritual) to celebrate the anniversary of our first date. We spent the night at a motel and after breakfast at Anita's Sunday morning we headed home, arriving just after noon. It was a very short trip, although Maya seems to think we were gone forever. 

Saturday was national dog day and we missed it, but our friends Jan and Paul visited the dogs while we were gone and took some pictures for us. The concert was great and it was good to get away, even briefly. We couldn't do it without someone we know and trust to look after the dogs, so thank you.

I really love this picture of Elvis. He often sits on the steps going upstairs but this portrait really captures the inner Elvis.

This is a wet Jericho with a toy I don't recognize, so they must have brought it to him. He seems to like it.

Della

Candace

Sherlock

Feeding the labs, Joy and Happy

Happy, in a sit. They do know this, but you have to be fast to get a picture of it.

The Bedroom Four, eating breakfast Sunday morning.

From back to front are: Elvis, Maya, Paisley, and Della.

If there is water, Jericho is in it.

An extraordinary ordinary walk

I took Sherlock on the Friday morning walk. I put the gentle leader on him and he accepted it gracefully and we had a nice, ordinary walk. The extraordinary part happened at the very beginning and it didn't even involve Sherlock.

I parked my van, got the gentle leader on Sherlock, and got him out ready to take off when I saw a woman approaching. She asked if I was Brent, so we walked towards her. She introduced herself and told me that she had adopted a lab named Daisy from me about 12 years ago. They had just been out with her in one of the big fields and it looked like they were preparing to leave. Daisy is obviously getting up there in age now but she's still enjoying a romp in the park and I was very happy to hear it.

I didn't remember dog or adopter, I have trouble remembering the names of even my current fosters and anyone adopted even a week ago seems like a distant memory, but when I got home I did a search on my blog and found the dog I believe to be Daisy. She's one I got from my doggie dealer, was said to be lab/bloodhound mix, looking much like a lab with more of a nose and longer ears. It was April, 2012 that I took her in. That was spring time and later blog posts show a lot of pictures of her running the pasture and playing with other dogs. My refreshed memory of her is that she was a wonderful girl and the woman who adopted her told me the same today. 

It was a very nice encounter and it really made my day. It's things like this that keep me going on days that aren't so nice, when there are sick dogs, people problems, or dog problems that I just can't fix. The woman told me that she follows my blog so I hope she'll see this and know how much it meant to me. 

Sherlock on this morning's walk.

These are some of the pictures I had of Daisy back in April-May, 2012. She was a young, happy, playful girl, and apparently she still is.

Camera dump

I take all the pictures off my phone every day and put them in a dated folder on my computer desktop for that day's blog post. There are often a few pictures that don't fit the theme of that day's post, if there is one. Today's post is just a few odds and ends pictures from the last couple of days that I thought were worth sharing.

Happy, living up to her name.

This was the day that I introduced Sherlock to the labs, Happy and Joy.

This was the sunset on my Jericho walk Tuesday evening.

They have put up more than a dozen poles to light the sports fields up there.

They don't do much for the view.

Happy and Joy

Sherlock and a mouthful of Joy.

Jericho after walking with Erica on a gentle leader Wednesday evening.

Della on Thursday morning walk.

Paisley on my Thursday evening two mile walk.

Elvis and Paisley sharing a bed.