Puppy Therapy!!

You may or may not believe it, but two classes and I am finished with my Environmental Science degree at T.C.U., but along with those two, I have begun the task of following that with a Geology degree also. Which means, I won't graduate now, until May, 2016 or maybe it's that summer. Whichever, is fine. These days when I find myself in a rut, I just walk outside, let the herd run and lay down in the grass with these little guys. Bloodhounds may not be everyone's cup of tea, but they sure fit me well. You'll never find a dog more curious, protective, loving, demonstrative, and with such personality. We adopted Sadie Lee, a retired breeder dog and search and rescue girl, then we fostered them for a while after we lost Sadie to cancer. So, we reached out to the folks that gave us Sadie and asked if there were any of her offspring around...it just so happened a couple of weeks before my email, one of her pups came back, and he quickly fathered a litter. We jumped at the chance to own another female bloodhound and decided that we wanted to keep one of Sadie's line - always. So, we got Bodie (or Big Bones Ichabod Bleu) and this year we had the first of what will be only two litters for Miss Izzabella Lee.

You can't be mad around a bloodhound. There's nothing better in the whole world.

How an education can open your eyes... even old(er) ones.

It wasn't enough to just live in the moment this summer. To walk outdoors and smell the air, feel the rain when it just so happened to rain. It seemed like at every turn I was noticing things that I had not noticed before. When I arrived back home from this summer’s adventures, I perused every photo I had managed to take and realized how changed I was by it all. I have always loved the outdoors, the mountains, and the flowers in the spring. I have always loved a good argument too…especially when convinced I am right. But I looked through the photographs and was overwhelmed by the combination of what I have always known about the outdoors and the life I love in it and the knowledge that has come with my college education. My eyes were only half open and now they are wide and expansive seeing past the beauty of a mountain or the flight of a bee and realizing how intertwined we are, man and nature.

In staring at one of the pictures and remembering the moment I wrote on the back of an envelope:

"And I stood atop a mountain where God impressed upon me with all His might and all of His glory - all of the world that I love in a way that has encouraged me onward in my pursuit of knowledge. To find a way to protect it and preserve it so that one day your children and mine will find it - still there waiting for them as it has been waiting for me. As close to the way that it should be – without permanent intrusion of man, and in it a safe haven to those living creatures that without it would have no place left in the world to roam free and would surely face extinction. I was given a lesson in its beauty, as man encroaches upon nature so wholly that it no longer thrives, he inevitably deprives himself of what it truly means to be free. I wish to imagine that there will never come a time when the quiet of the mountains ceases and the valleys within them alive with inhabitants are no more. I pray that we may come to our senses before the thirst for energy and space is so voracious that we rob ourselves of those few remaining quiet expanses that are still free from the chaos of man. That we realize what is precious and rare before we are left only with proof of their previous existence as historical recollections in memoirs and photographs of visitors past."

Keep it clean people, the water, the land, and your life. Be mindful of what you use, and how much you use. Pick up the trash you see on the street (or roadsides, parks, expansive spaces). Teach your children not to be wasteful. Fix things, donate things, re-use things, recycle things… or better yet, maybe just don’t buy so many… “things”. Every little bit counts.

Here are a few more pictures of our crazy lazy dayz of Summer.