Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

  This beautiful piece of art fell from one of the pine trees early this morning when the winds blew in as forecasted. I am mesmerized by the craftsmanship.

Today is Murphy's birthday. He is all of two years old. For the past two years I've had more than my fair share of laughs, all because of this little bundle of energy. I am a very lucky dog mom. To start our day, we trekked to Mello-Creme donuts to get Murphy a birthday donut for breakfast. He enjoyed an apple fritter and a plain old-fashioned donut. Of the two, the plain old-fashioned was his favorite, and I know this because he would take a bite of the apple fritter then put it down. He would then give me that look of "you're trying to give me something with fruit in it." After a few long seconds, he would turn and walk away. As soon as I offered a bite of the plain old-fashioned, he was right there and made no hesitation whatsoever. The entire donut disappeared in seconds. Most of the apple fritter is still in his food bowl. This afternoon we went for a hike along the creek and found the pond we spotted a couple of days ago on our hike across the bare soybean f