Acorns, toadies and bears ... oh my!

Well. Today was a primo fall New Hampshire day. As much as I like to get all Scroogey and Ba Humbug about the damn FACT (yes, that is F A C T) that we live in nine months of winter here and a sprinkling of summer book-ended with a bit of spring and a smattering of fall ... when it is truly a fall day, it can make your heart sing.

Like today. I woke up to a sky beyond words. Well, I do have the words. As I stared out my sliding glass door from my wonderful bed (comfortable and bringing me back to life with consecutive nights of pure sleep) I saw a fog above the tree line meet a patch of blue sky, topped off with a beautiful layer of pink frosting. I was beside myself. Gorgeous.

As I watched, the fog lifted slowly and the tips of colored trees began to come into focus. Honestly, I fought the urge to go back to sleep because I knew that what I was witnessing was truly sensational.

I was in awe. And I knew this day of fall perfection meant I needed to get into the woods. But it was cold out. Brrrrrr.

I made a target time of 10:00 a.m. as the best time to hit the trail and began work on my book. Then my sister called and said she wanted to hike. I said come on down, I'll wait. And what a great decision that was, because when she got here, it was unbelievable. Warm and sunny. Beautiful. Magnificent.

We hit the trail, lunch in our packs, and it was great. We walked in a little over an hour and decided to stop to have lunch at this wooden bridge that spanned a babbling brook. I had my two black labs and my sister had her neurotic golden retriever Ruby. All was well as we chomped on our peanutbutter sandwiches, when suddenly Ruby started barking. And then my two started barking. We were seriously deep in the woods on a trail where I'd never seen other people. I didn't think anyone was coming up the trail. But Ruby was insistent, and my sister decided there must be a bear in the woods.

So she asked me: What would you do if there was a bear in the woods.

My response?

Well, since I would faint, the question is, what would YOU do if there was a bear in the woods and your sister was fainted dead away?

She said we needed to stop enjoying ourselves by the babbling brook and move on. (Away from the bear I suppose.) Which we did. We found a pair of adjoining rocks and sat down to digest our lunch. There were no bears to be seen in the immediate vicinity, though Ruby seemed to be going after something. At first I thought it was her toenails, what exactly WAS she doing?

Suddenly Tomasen screams "No, NO, LEAVE IT, RUBY STOP, LEAVE IT, STOP," and additional words and screaming I forgot to commit to memory because I was horrified and sure that there was a S N A K E involved in this horror show and I screamed "What is it? What is it? What is it?" over and over while she kept screaming, and finally I heard the word.

Toad.

Toad?

Ick. Ruby was eating a toad. I somehow had left my perch on my rock and had jumped several feet away from the whole scenario, and Tomasen was screaming that the toad was now demented and unable to move and ... would I LOOK AT IT?

No.

What type of dog eats a toad and why?

My dogs have their own forms of freakazoid-ism. Luna shakes and quivers because she hates to stop and only wants to hike and hike and hike and hike ... until she dies.

Lucy, on the other hand, only wants to retrieve. Anything. A stick. A rock, an imaginary anything. But please, just throw it so I can retrieve it because my genetic code insists upon it and if you don't I might EXPLODE.

Hiking with dogs and their inherent personalities is so ... relaxing. N O T!

So after the all the bear and toad hype, we turned around and I said that once we got back to the wide trail, I wanted to collect acorns. You know. Because yesterday my friend Liz collected acorns on the trail (another trail) and I was sure this was better acorn-fetching ground.

It was so wonderful. We went off-trail and searched for them, and between the two of us collected a large zip-lock baggies worth. I would never have done this, but Liz made me think it would be fun. And it was. I enjoyed every second of it.

Then Tomasen started to find pieces of birch bark that she envisioned to be wonderful, and as we trekked down the trail we created quite an impressive piece of art, adding colored leaves, greenery and even ferns to the intended centerpiece. I also jammed all the birch tree sticks she found into her backpack, which kept cracking me up because she looked like an indian wearing a headdress on her back or something. Hard to explain.

It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon; not only hiking in the woods, but reveling in what the woods has to offer.

And while my backpack was overloaded with acorns, it did not carry a camera. I won't make that mistake again. Today was a day to record.

Next time.

Acorns, toadies and bears ... oh my!