Walking the dogs

No one loves The Land like the dogs.







Their sense of smell brings them more pleasure than I can even imagine.

When I open the car door they jump right in.

They know what's coming.

As soon as we get to The Land they are ready for action.

Leaping out, they rush down the deer path.

They run around like kids at Christmas jumping from one toy to the next.

But their toys are the smells and sounds and rabbits and deer.










And of course they love to mark territory...

Marshall bounds through the prairie - a streak of pure muscle.

Koda, chases through the blackberry patches, sure that there's a bunny in there that wants to play.



But I have work to do.

We've planted seedling trees all around the prairie.
And Tom has a tendency to mow them down when he's cutting our paths.

So I have to mark the little trees with bright pink flagging tape to give them a chance of surviving Tom's enthusiastic mowing.

And we have an invasion of black locust trees - aggressive trees with nasty thorns.

You can't control them with burning.

As Kent says, fire just makes them mad.

So we work at cutting them back by cutting and spraying.

And we have a lot of them.

By the time I am done with the locusts, the puppies are tired....

I would like to stay at The Land -

...read a book

....listen to the birds.

But by now, the dogs were waiting by the car - ready to go home....









.....for a well-deserved nap.