Trips and Rosie

The mountains look hazy this morning, from my window, but the sky is blue with a few puffy clouds.  Yesterday the sky started out a bright blue, with a few clouds (or fog) in the clefts of the mountains, but then it quickly became cloudy and stayed overcast all day.  Autumn is manifesting itself by our temperatures, too - a high today of 78, tomorrow 68, and Sunday 58.  I'll have to pull out my sweater for Sunday, as well as my long nightgown for the weekend.
   One of my favorite sets of clients has decided on a spur-of-the-moment trip, so after I walk Rosie today, I'll be heading to their house with two cats and two dogs for a week.  Then I'll be at Rosie's for five days following that.  This job means I can purchase my new bed at the beginning of October...
   Rosie, the 14+ year old Irish Setter, has good days and bad days, like any older person.  Lately, we've been slowly walking to my sister's house, about one-eighth of a mile away, with Rosie being able to stop and smell and investigate anything that grabs her attention.  Once we arrive at my sister's, I take the leash off Rosie's harness, and she can prowl the acre back yard to her content, or lie down in either sun or shade.  The peach trees in the back yard delivered their huge load of fruit in August.  Apples are now raining down, so we don't sit under any apple tree branches.  Wasps and bees are drunk on the ripe apples that squirrels have gnawed upon - and the whole back yard smells like fresh apple cider.  The deer come at night and eat the apples that haven't been gathered... soon it will be the bears.  (We'll have to be on watch for bears beginning this weekend, as they eat their fill for winter's hibernation.)  And the raspberry bushes are loaded with ripening red fruit - I usually end up eating a cup full off the bushes each day...  After an hour, we slowly wander back to Rosie's house, and stop to greet all the neighbors - Rosie is an extremely social dog, and believes that we need to approach every house we pass that has a sidewalk or an open driveway.   I hate to think about it, but I will miss her greatly when she crosses the Rainbow Bridge.