Rock mounds

Two days after walking Maya in the misty woods—we got about six inches of snow—there's no snow left. Such a brief taste of winter. I don't mind, but I don't mind winter either.

Today we bushwhacked a bit today, or I should say I did since Maya does so as a matter of course. We followed the rim of a small valley to where the land fanned out on the skirt of the mountain. We went through an old gate opening in a beautiful stone wall and then toward a secondary hill where I found some trees with rocks around their bases. Either someone mounded the rocks and planted the trees in the mounds—maybe to give them something to latch onto—or they put rocks around them afterward. I think the former but I'm speculating.

Maya in misty woods

Maya's training

This is where Maya goes for training. It's a great dog training program. http://www.selfhelpdogtraining.com/

We go to classes on Saturdays since it is only about 20 minutes from here. There's nothing like hands-on training, of course, but the web site augments the classes and it gives great information about this proprietary training system.

Wading Maya

Maya enjoyed wading in a stream in the wilderness during a 4.6-mile walk. It tuckered her out. Despite her wandering through the water, she still managed to get so dirty I had to clean her up with baby wipes, a brisk rub down with a towel and a good brushing. We finished up about 2:30 or 3 and she's been sacked out since, getting up only long enough to eat and to go out once.

With the weather in the 40s, it was a perfect day for a good long hike.

Spirited year

Maya on one of our walks on the mountain the last week of December 2012. She turned one-year-old on Dec. 18. No party, except for my nephew, who has the same birthday.

I love these woods. Few people go there and Maya and I usually have the place to ourselves. She runs freely and to her heart's content. We're constantly discovering new things about it. It is easy to imagine as farm land by the way the land rolls and the stone walls and obvious tacks of old access road. It has such a spirit about it. But the trails lead down to the reservoir and the valley that would have also been farmland once. Like I say, it has spirit. It's like it wants to tell its story.