Walking

Sunrise was beautiful this morning: we had clouds, but the sky turned all sorts of pastel colors in the east, while the mountains to the west looked as if a giant pink spotlight was shining on them. It's cold enough at night for everything to re-freeze, so the sun and temperatures in the 50s cause snow to melt during the day, but then it turns to very slippery ice overnight. I was trying to decide how to walk across a large patch of ice this morning, when I realized that in the 5 years I have lived in Colorado, I have developed 5 types of walk strides: I have a normal walk; a hiking walk that I can maintain for 8 hours; a snow shuffle walk; a penguin on ice walk; and a snow-shoe waddle. I guess that if I skied much (and it would be cross country skiing, not down-hill), I'd also have a gliding walk. Of course, I used the penguin on ice walk to cross the ice this morning... I don't remember having developed so many types of a walk when I lived in Florida. Lovey has been absolutely delighted with our warmer weather - even though snow still covers two-thirds of the yard, she can dig in real dirt. She has made this plain by leaving, as usual, her muddy paw prints all over my shirt and the desk, and whatever I'm working on for the past two days. Banichi goes out, but he cleans his feet before he comes back inside.

I took the red kids on a westward walk yesterday, as the ice and snow was in less abundance on the east-west roads. I really had to laugh - we walked north on 19th, west on Sumac, then down around Wonderland Lake, south on Broadway, then east on Quince, walking through Lucky's Market parking lot. Two cars stopped on Sumac to comment about how gorgeous Rosie and Remy were; two separate couples stopped and wanted to pet the Rs at Lucky's; and, on the way back on Quince, three vehicles stopped while the driver exclaimed over the Irish Setters. I made certain that Nancy and Joel knew about it when I returned. On Saturday, when Joel and Nancy were walking the Rs, one of the ladies who walks her Bichon Frieses in the neighborhood, ran into them and exclaimed,"Oh! Are you walking Betty's dogs? Has she taken a vacation?" Nancy and Joel tried to explain that Rosie and Remy are their dogs, and that I walk them weekdays, but the lady (it was either Mary or Sarah, as they both have Bichons), kept insisting that Rosie and Remy "looked just like Betty's dogs." Boy, was I embarrassed! If people want to talk about the Rs, I'm always willing to, but I always preface it by saying I'm just the dog-walker, not the owner. Apparently my disclaimer has not sunk into some peoples' consciousness. Finally, I had to laugh when I read of the call to the Darmstadt police this past weekend: a group of four men decided to go walking in an open park at night, in that city south of Frankfurt. They were suddenly surrounded by a group of wild boars, and several of the males threatened the men with their tusks. The men jumped into a trash dumpster for protection, and then called for police help in getting out and returning to their home safely. Wildlife is wild life, wherever it may be!