It's That Time of Year!

Hooray!  Today the other half of my clocks are right.  Okay, somewhat right.  Close to right.  Standard time.  So many people are happy they can sleep in an hour.  They must not have dogs.  Dogs have an innate sense of time.  Mine let me know it was getting late and they needed to go out.  That was at 6:30 am.  Thanks, girls!

I have been studying for my licensure exam.  The dogs don't agree with this.  If I am sitting on the couch reading a book, they may tolerate it after sitting on the book for awhile.  Same for the computer.  Ask Dad.  When we are Skyping, Ziva usually has to traipse over the keys making error sounds and shrinking the Skype screen as she goes.  My sitting at the dining room table studying, though, is simply intolerable!  How dare I!  There is no room for them to glue themselves to me there.

After listening to their whining yesterday as I attempted to study, I gave up and decided to get rid of their excess whining energy.  I took them for a walk.  We took the Paul Bunyan Trail.  This is so super exciting for a dog!  Oh, the smells!  All the wonderful smells!  They ran and smelled and smelled what the other smelled and sprung forward to smell the next smell.  They crunched loudly through the leaves and put their heads in the grasses and sometimes just stood and let the wind blow in their faces.  It was doggone wonderful!  I was the best doggy mom ever!

Brainerd had good intentions when they built the trail.   Unfortunately, they did not realize their townspeople would need training on such a curiosity.  The Brainerdians see a paved strip and automatically feel it is for them to drive on!  ATVs see a path through the forest and are certain it is for them!  Trucks hauling boats enjoy this shortcut that was surely for their use.  Thus, walkers and bicyclists have to leave the path to make room for the vehicles.  A truck full of duck hunters came within inches of me when I refused to move.  I tried to tell them it was a walking path and the idiot just stared ahead and put on the gas.  Unbelievable.  Is nothing sacred?

At the end of the walk, close to our house, we came upon a cadaver dog, its handler and a police officer.  Apparently a cognitively impaired man was last seen around that area a week ago and they were searching for him.  He was probably run over by an ATV, some duck hunters or boaters.

Anyway, I did finally get some studying in and the dogs were utterly exhausted - but not enough to get them to sleep in this morning!