Spike's Happy Place

The weather was perfect this morning. The hole in my leg is healing and no longer hurts (although daily dressing changes will still be required for quite awhile), my knee is so pain free that I begin to question the need for a knee replacement, but I've seen the x-rays. We decided to test all systems and take Spike up the hill to his meadow where he can run around to his heart's content. 

The systems all held up and all three of us returned feeling that we had actually accomplished something, including steering Spike around the resident flock of turkeys that chose the moment of our approach to cross the fire road onto the rocky hillside beyond.* It might be entertaining to see what they made of each other should we have let them meet, but we decided not to take the risk.

The poison oak is turning bright red and more and more trees are beginning to show tinges of color. The days are getting shorter and there is a nip in the air in the mornings. Autumn is definitely here. I had good conversations with our friends who moved rather precipitously from Oregon to Southern California and with Matthew, who seems to be home for the next month or so. Claire is enjoying her job with Pace galleries and Julia, in her last year of her Master's degree in educational counseling is working at a school in Manhattan and another one in Brooklyn. 

We are caught on the horns of a dilemma between wanting to visit and not wanting to fly anywhere or even to drive further than the next county.
We'll just have to keep mulling it over....

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