Day: March 31, 2016

We awoke to warm temperatures and high winds. In the next few days, we will experience every kind of weather there is – warmth, rain, snow and ice, frigid temperatures. Monday and Tuesday, we are heading towards the ocean we just want to see it, it will be cold and snowy but wonderful to see the water. We both miss it sometimes.

We are only going to be gone for a day or two. I loved the image of Maria hauling the hay to the feeder, seeds and bits blowing behind her, her eyes close and her hair swept back in the wind. We both love living a life that calls us to nature, to be outside, to see and feel the elements, to look at open skies and beautiful hills.

The animals ground us, they are the greatest practitioners of radical acceptance, I think, the accept life as it is. They never lament their lives or grouse about their fates or whine about their care.

On the edge of Fate’s meadow is a corn field, cut and manured and ready for planting. Just a few more weeks. Fate loves the open field, she watches out for moles, mice, chipmunks and tears off after them. She is interested in the chase, not the kill, she doesn’t really even try to catch them.

Out in the field I see the beauty of the working dog, the freedom she has out there to run, smell, explore and make decisions about what she will investigate, who she will chase, how fast she will run, what she will explore. Every few minutes, she stops and looks for me or for Maria, she is checking on us, making sure we are there. That is her job also, to not lose us or let us be lost.

If she doesn’t see us right away, she comes rushing back to the road, looks until she sees us, and then tears back out into the field. I worried at first that she might run off, I now know she never will. I am very partial to working dogs, they are among the most remarkable of all animals, and the great partners of human beings throughout time.