October is here!

It's the first day of October, my favorite month, and, as I told my husband last night, the countdown begins...

This morning, during our early walk in a very chilly 35 degrees, Lizzy and I had an unexpected encounter that completely baffled her and delighted me. If you look real hard at the very bad photograph (it was taken with my cellphone because, as usual, I was unprepared and didn't have my camera with me), you can see a dark shape right over Lizzy's head. That was a huge, black steer, with a white patch on its forehead, that meandered to the bottom of its munching hill and unintentionally met up with us at the edge of the path that we traverse almost every morning.

Lizzy didn't know what to do with herself. She barked low a few times, excitedly, and sat on her hunches to stare at the huge animal with ears perked up, and then barked a little more and suddenly took off running in the opposite direction, heading back home, as fast as she could, dragging me, who always must keep her leash firmly in hand, behind her. It's surprising how much strength this 26-pound dog has when she sets her mind to it. I've always known there is much power in smallness, but Lizzy is a constant reminder that her size and her self-esteem are not comparable.

The steer was completely uninterested and unimpressed with either one of us and continued his munching largely undisturbed, while Lizzy seemed to want to rush home immediately to tell my parents and my husband all about the humongous creature she had so valiantly barked at (and then very quickly run away from!).

If you look real hard at the first not-so-good picture again you might also perceive the frost that covered the path and almost all the vegetation around us this morning. That same frost, the first one so early in the fall, threatened to kill the arugula sprouts that are trying their best to survive in my huerto because I planted them too late (almost literally on the last day of the summer). I covered them last night with a warm blanket and they are still hanging on to dear life and looking quite spiffy this afternoon, especially in comparison to everything else that got touched by the frost. Here's to hoping for a fall harvest.

Meanwhile, Lizzy has been acting totally insane, running in circles at incredible speeds in the back yard, definitely showing a need for more stimulation. This reminds me that I need to arrange a play date with another dog or dogs because all of us here agree that we can understand how lesser souls, who didn't want to or couldn't put up with Lizzy's boundless energy, her obvious attention deficit disorder and her too-well-honed ability to ignore you when she doesn't want to obey, lead to her being given up for adoption!