Walking with Kai

The autumn colors have been spectacular this year. The walk at the tree farm not far from the house has been beautiful, although the colors are fading fast now that the leaves are on the ground.

So here's a tour of the walk Kai and I take most days. Yes, he is off leash because he is a good boy. Pictured above is the base of the little hill that heads into the "loop." We are about a half mile into the woods on the logging trail.

The pictures above and below come as we are turning back, having traversed one side of the loop. The light on this day was dramatic. Between the gorgeous color and the in-and-out sunshine, it was perfect for photographing our boy.

The picture above is down what I have named Mossy Lane. Before the leaves fell, it was completely green from its cover of moss and lichen. For some reason, Kai adores going down this little side path, which is just a couple hundred feet from the end of the loop.

Here he is sniffing at something along the lane. His nose is always going when we are on our walks.

Once we hit the main logging trail, there is a snowmobile access trail from one of the house lots. The end nearest the logging trail is another favorite diversion for Kai. Above is what I have named Tadpole Gulch because when we first went there this summer, the puddles in the road and the pools on either side of the road were full of tadpoles.

Which turned into frogs, of course. Pictured above are two of them staying in the pool on this very cold day. Faith found the second one when we looked at the pictures. You can see the big, brown mushroom; to the right of that in the edge of the water is the top of the most noticeable frog. The second frog is just right of the other frog, mostly hidden by the leaves. You can barely see the top of its head.

What was interesting was that the puddles and the pools never dried up this summer. I supposed the puddles would eventually, but they never did. And every time Kai and I walked down to the Gulch, the frogs would hop into the water as soon as we got too close. Kai never seemed to mind, although at home if he finds a frog in the yard, good luck trying to pull him away.

Above is near the end of our walk. The sun broke through as we made our way back to the greenhouse area where we park.

The "loop" walk takes us about 45 minutes, although on this day with all the little side trips down other paths, it took an hour. Kai knows we are at the end of the walk here by the greenhouse and is delaying as long as he can by sniffing the air and turning back toward the woods.

He, of course, is ready to go back and do it all over again.