August 31, 2012

august 2012 stats

Month 2012-08
Activity Walk
Count 51
Total Distance 101.19 miles
Total Walk Time 30:27:15
Total Calories 11045
Average Distance 1.98 miles
Average Walk Time 35:50
Average Calories 217
Average Pace 18:03 per mile

Total miles per dog: Ondine - 77.39; Pan - 8.01; Fergus - 12.97; Alone - 3.85.

I've been doing most of my walking in my boots, but I'm afraid I'm wearing them down too quickly on our suburban streets and sidewalks. I'd rather keep them for travel and rougher stuff. So today I used a gift card and some birthday money to try something a little different:



They seem a little tight to me but Bren and the shoe dude said that's OK. We'll see. Hoping they'll help my knees.

August 26, 2012

august 2012



lol back in our day the phone was stuck to the wall and we wrote on paper with pens and pencils

ondine in her element


August 25, 2012

cicada


pan's first trip to the river
















Mike and Sandi wanted to take the dogs to the river once more before Mike leaves. This was Pan's first time. He didn't hesitate at all - he followed Ondine right into the water, full speed ahead. Nice weather, overcast and breezy.

orange and purple




August 21, 2012

August 18, 2012

flipper and flowers


red oak acorns



The red oak in our backyard was small enough to live under a trampoline for a year or two when we first moved in. It's 15 years taller now, and these are its first acorns.

pan and ondine, 8-18-12



photobomb and backblast



hummingbird, 8-18-12


viii-xviii-xii


field notes, viii-xviii-xii

I took Pan out for his first solo neighbourhood walk this morning. (We've taken him to a couple of local parks for a few short walks, but this was his first time on streets.) The weather was hot and humid, but overcast, so not too bad. Pan did great. He was a little concerned about cars, and a crowd at a garage sale made him a bit nervous, but he never fought the leash. He seemed a little frazzled, hot and overstimulated, by the time we got home. Might be better to scale him back to a half-mile at a stretch for now (we went about a mile this morning), but he behaved terrifically.

When we got back to the house Ondine was nosing her leash, so I took her out next. We were about a mile and a half from the house when it started raining. We hadn't expected that, but it wasn't coming down too hard and there wasn't any lightning, so we kept on walking. We pulled up once or twice under oaks when the showers turned to downpours, but it really turned out to be the kind of summer rain one dreams of walking in. O took great delight in splashing through the curb-streams and in her post-rainwalk rubdown with a fluffy towel.

[The rain has gotten heavier as I'm writing this, with some lightning and thunder. Glad I got the dogs out early! This is our first significant rainfall since the storm in early July that clobbered our tree.]

August 16, 2012

snippets, 8-16-12

In our dreams--I know it!--we do make the journeys we seem to make; we do see the things we seem to see; the people, the horses, the cats, the dogs, the birds, the whales, are real, not chimeras; they are living spirits, not shadows; and they are immortal and indestructible.


- My Platonic Sweetheart, Mark Twain

August 11, 2012

August 10, 2012