Solstice

It's Solstice Night tonight. The moon is nearly full and only covered by a thin veil of clouds. We may even get frost tonight, if the cloud cover stays thin.

I walked the girls near the Columbia River in the late afternoon. It was a beautiful solstice, and we still had some light after 4:30pm. Likely this wasn't the shortest-feeling day of the year this time!

Sleek was feeling young tonight (I know it was today, but we were in twilight, so tonight feels right). She dug after a few moles or mice and trotted along quite happily. I was the first one to see the deer, and I grabbed Sleek's collar about the same time she saw them. She whined, and yowled, and barked because they were so close and she felt young and strong enough to catch one, surely. When I felt the deer were far enough away to be less interesting, I let go of Sleek's collar. Darned if she didn't take off after them, as deaf to my calls as ever when faced with that valuable a resource. She ran straight toward barbed wire, much to my cringing horror. But Sleek still has it. Just like in her younger days, she managed to slide between the wires unscathed. She is amazing.

Fluff did well today, too. She had a grand time splashing in puddles and kindly refrained from actually lying down in any of them. She bounced at the deer when she saw them but is far too smart to actually want to go near them.

In addition to the deer, I saw a raptor of some kind. I used to always see a pair of bald eagles in that area during Christmas week, but I've not seen them for several years. I miss them.

I'm really bad at coming up with a concluding paragraph or sentence to tie my thoughts together. I was bad at that in those high school 5-paragraph essays, too. I always wrote the body paragraphs first, then tried to come up with an interesting introduction and conclusion. Now I just write something closer to stream of consciousness and end when I want to leave. Sometimes I want to come back later, but I never seem to get around to that.