It was a quiet, sunny morning with a blue sky full of lazily drifting cupcake clouds that called to me to come outside. I’ve been waiting for this feeling. This not having to grin and bear it when I take Jack for a walk. Today was a day when I would have gone for a walk even if I didn’t have a dog. To celebrate, I made a thermos of coffee for me and some ice-water for Jack and took us down to the river to see if we could find us some beavers.

We’ve been avoiding the river area because of flooding, but it’s been a month or so since we were there and I was hoping things had improved. Well, not only hadn’t they improved, but they’ve worsened. We didn’t get far past the entrance when the whole path went underwater. Jack thought this was great fun and didn’t let it slow him down, but I wasn’t quite as willing to snorkel my way around. I let Jack frolic for a while and he was a gentleman today and dried himself off in the grass when he was done. Then, we trundled off to our usual forest for a nice, dry walk in the woods.