Solstice

The shortest day of the year. You ain’t a-kiddin’. It’s like it flew by. Of course, I slept in until 9 (that’s really odd for me), but by the time we picked up Saber at 2:30 in the afternoon, the light was sinking fast. I mean really, really fast!

And the day moved at a lightning speed…even though I woke up late!

It started out with my own walk with Gretchen. A short one, for sure, as we hiked through the neighborhood and then back home. I was left with my brunch while Gretchen picked up an excited Rosie and Tyson. We were all excited today. Gretchen says it’s the changing weather and the wind. It could be because the wind kicked up and brought with it some mighty chilly temperatures. These two didn’t seem to mind, though!

They went for a nice walk down to the Coleman Park Pea Patch though the weather was so cold there aren’t many peas left in the patch. The temperature dropped a good 10 degrees between the time I woke up this Solstice morning to the time Gretchen got back from her walk with Rosie and Tyson. Gretchen said she could feel the temperature change as she tried to get another photo of the siblings at the boulder on the hill. They weren’t having any of it, apparently, but luckily, a really nice woman came by and offered to take everyone’s photo! A nice woman indeed!

Between the time Gretchen left our house, walked the dogs, and came back home, the temperature had dropped at least 10 degrees. On top of that, the wind chill made it mighty cold, but that just made everyone of us really frisky! Gemma most of all!

That’s right, Gemma was next for our Monday adventures and as Gretchen says, she was full of beans today. We went for a nice long walk first, and then picked up Oshi, Perrito, and Ann and headed to the tennis courts. Along the way, we ran into Cecilia who was out walking Lulu. Five dogs, three humans, and a tennis court! What fun is that?

At first, Gemma and Lulu hit it off, but the more Gemma kept poking Lulu (something she LOVES to do) the more agitated they both became. Eventually, Gemma was put back on a leash so Lulu could be free of Gemma’s nose in her bottom! Oshi hung out near Ann while Perrito raced around after anyone he could find!

Eventually Lulu had to go home, which meant that Gemma got to be unleashed. The first thing that little rascal did, though, was run straight to the fence and antagonize Lulu only Lulu thought it was the best game ever. Run along the outside of the fence without Gemma being able to poke her with her nose. We all got into the act racing back and forth along the fence pretending there was no fence there…even Perrito!

Eventually, everyone got tired out. Lulu laid down, Perrito stole my ball and then laid down, I stalked Perrito because I wanted my ball back, and Oshi gave Ann some big sad eyes so he could find the warm spot inside her coat.

We all headed back to our warm house after that chilly adventure, but Saber was still on the docket for this dwindling light kind of day. On Mondays, Saber is usually pretty high energy so we headed straight over to the tennis courts to see if he could release some of his beans.

We went for a walk up to Dog Mania after our romp and I think, though I’m not so sure, that someone (is it me?) got a grooming appointment. Hmmmmm?

We stopped at the boulder to take this photo and the one at the top of this blog…

…but when we came down from the hill, Saber started to do what Gretchen calls FRAPping (Frequent Random Acts of Play). Here we thought he was tired, but he was raring to go, so back to the tennis courts we went until eventually Saber was worn out enough that he flopped down on the ground in exhaustion.

By then, the sun was just a bump on the gray horizon and the temperature had probably dropped another 5 degrees. Brrrrrrrrr.

While today is fun, I’m looking forward to tomorrow when hopefully the temperature remains stable and the light shines just a bit longer than today!

Until tomorrow,

Rubin