Lot of Sniffing

February 5, 2010.  Friday.

Situtation:  Work tonight, plus have to leave a little earlier to do some extra work, so take Mway out about 1:30.  She stands in the hallway outside my bedroom door, looking at me as I put on my walking clothes.  Huffs, squeals.   Bends forward on her front legs, to yawn and stretch her muscles.

State of the Path:  She goes up past the lilac bushes by the car to pee, dashes to the chicken coop, sniffs around the walled garden, then scoots down the path to the creek, even as I’m taking the side path along the old orchard – usually she would back track and accompany me along the side path.  I had seen some cardinals outside the kitchen window this morning, and now I hear and see birds (gray ones) in the trees along the back hedge row.  As I come down past the wigwams, I can see Mway investigating around the log jam.  When I start walking along the creek, she’s even on the other side, sniffing, then heading down the ice a little and sniffing along the banks.   I take the side path along the skating pond, and Mway goes up to prowl among the sumacs on the far ridge.  At one point she has her head in a hole, I believe, and snaps her mouth, though nothing comes of it.  As we’re going through bug land, she even goes up to snoop around on top of the ridge around bug land.

State of the Creek:  Though some of the ice is receding, I can still see traces of the weird, bicycle-tire-like trail, and it extends farther than I realized before, going all the way from the central oaks to just beyond the drainage area from bug land.

The Fetch:  Though I pass her while she’s on top of the ridge sniffing around, she comes down when she sees me and beats me to the clearing.  Gives me one extra fetch today, for a total of four.