Happy Thanksgiving

So as you have probably heard me say a million times over the weather has been absolutely terrible this week, even going back to last week. Though we did get out for a walk under threatening  skies Wednesday night. I think if I had to choose a muse I would settle on clouds. Don't misunderstand me, Cadie is beautiful, and sweet, and I love her, but she isn't as ever-changing as a cloud.

These two pictures are of the same piece of sky at the same time, just with a different focus. It's just so funny to see how the sky changes depending on what you are focusing on. But this is a dog blog, so here is the dog ;)

She's looking scruffy, but she was having the time of her life. You might be able to see the desperation in her eyes, that's because she is annoyed with me for wasting valuable ball-throwing time by taking her picture. We did head into the off-leash trail and have a little walk, but it was getting dark so we only went around once. But those fifteen minutes were enough to change the world, and when we came out we were greeted by this sky.

I love this picture, it makes me think of the beautiful cinematography from Gone with the Wind. But more than just a reminder of beautifully stylized movie, this sky was a harbinger, do you remember the rhyme?

Red sky at night

Sailor's delight

yes, this sky indicated that better weather was ahead of us. And the next day the sun came out.

and the sky was so clear and blue all you could see was the trail of burning gas from air planes

And the leaves are really starting to put on a show. I'm now in the habit of taking my camera with me whenever I take Cadie out, so while I'm not a talented photographer, I'm just going to post my photos and let you enjoy some of the highlights that I was able to capture.

The Times They are Becoming Quite Different

I've put off mentioning it, in spite of all my complaining about the humidity I have been reluctant to admit that fall is coming. We're now at the end of August, and on my trip home from my mothers I noticed that the leaves are starting to change colour.

I've also noticed that there are more leaves in the bowls at the park.

And finally I can't help but notice that the humidity is turning into a coolish rain, on a fairly regular basis (all last weekend, and again tonight).

The sky looked so dark after work that I decided to drive Cadie up to the park. We had a good 25 minutes of tennis ball tossing in the baseball bowl, before we headed over to the trail. The plan was to go through the trail 3 or 4 times to make up for missing the walk up and down Mt. Pleasant. We got all the way around once when the rain started.

At first it was good, the leaves made a perfect canopy, and we didn't get wet at all. But then the rain really started and the canopy became saturated. Needless to say we only made it around the trail once before heading for the car.

Thankfully I had put a towel in the car last week. We were soaked! As you can see by the picture of Cadie above (taken after 20 minutes after coming in from the storm) so we sat on the towel and headed for home, where we've been hiding out ever since.

So yes, I'm afraid to say, but it is true, summer is coming to close and soon we will be in the full swing of fall. Let's just hope that it's a good one, and that we aren't getting soaked like this everyday from now until November, when the snow comes.

How Much of a Walk Do You Really Need?

So all that worry and concern was for nothing. Cadie is fine; in fact it was me that ended up in bed early last night. After months of hot humid weather we finally had a good solid couple of days of rain, it started mid day on Saturday, and continued until late last night. The sky is still bleak this morning, but I did see the sun trying to peak out while I was driving in. Yesterday was the day when the whole weather situation finally caught up with me.

I’m prone to migraines and hot, humid and wet weather just does me in. Yesterday I started to feel the pain around about noon, but I’m still new at my job, and I’ve already had to call in once, so I forced myself to stick out the afternoon. I made it. I also managed to maintain verticality until after Cadie’s (truncated) walk, because I knew that she wouldn’t be able to sit still even though I wasn’t feeling well.

The problem with the walk was that it started to drizzle just as we arrived at the park. We were already there, and I knew that Cadie wouldn’t allow herself to be taken home without going to the park at all, so I gave in and took her.

Sherwood Park is shaped like a big bowl, one giant valley after another, (it even has a baseball diamond at the bottom of one of it’s valley’s. I has assumed that it was no longer being used, because the kids in the outfield would be standing on a hill, but if you get to the park about 7 o’clock you’ll see tons of little kids all wearing the same shirt and throwing baseballs back and forth, so I guess they still use it.) Normally, I toss the ball for Cadie down into the first bowl, and across the floor of the valley, then we head over to the baseball bowl where she likes to play catch for a good 20 to 30 minutes (I believe that if Cadie were a child she’d have me at baseball and soccer games every evening). After which we head into the official off-leash area, which is a nice hiking trail. We go through the trail once, about 15 minutes, and then we head up the hill to the first valley. I toss the ball across the valley floor, heading out of the park this time. Then I grab Cadie’s leash and try to pull her to the top of the bowl, where she gets a liver treat for being such a great little dog. It takes 5 to 10 minutes to get Cadie out of the park. Afterwards we head home (about 30 minutes). The whole thing takes a little more than 2 hours.

Last night though, as I said we got there just as it was starting to rain, so I took Cadie into the first bowl, toss the tennis ball and then started the fight to leave the park (it took 15 minutes last night), then we walked home, where I forced myself to stay awake.

Poor Cadie, she doesn’t understand that her mommy doesn’t feel well, so she kept trying to play, and I kept dozing off trying to relieve the pressure between my ears. Anyhow I am keeping a close eye on the weather, if it’s sunny, I might even take Cadie to the beach tonight, we’ll have a lot of pent-up energy to get rid of.

The Grand Tour

I have been fortunate enough to have a benefactor. That’s right a benefactor, I don’t another person who can make that claim, and even if they could, I suspect that my benefactor is much more generous.

This last weekend my benefactor gave me a car. I KNOW! I am super excited to be mobile. I drive to work now, and I am saving myself about 40 minutes a day in the commute, but I am now able to do small things like stop after work for groceries, rather than having to set time aside for it during the week.

As it so happens I didn’t have any food in the house on Monday night. Well, I shouldn’t say that I didn’t have any food, I had turtle food, but Cadie and I were SOL.

So I decided to stop on my way home. What I didn’t know is that my neighborhood pet food store decided to close an hour early this week, so I was getting there just as they were locking the door. Grrr.

Oh well, no problem, Cadie hopped into the passenger seat and headed out. We went to 3 pet food stores before we finally found her food, but then, since we were already out that way we decided to stop in at Sunnybrook Park. Cadie loves a good park, and she although she has only been to Sunnybrook once, it seems to be a favourite. I have no idea why, but there you have it. I made the mistake of taking her leash off and getting her back was a real struggle. She was having so much fun, she refused to come anywhere near me, in case I was intending to make her leave the park (but it's unreasonable, we can't live at the dog park)

So away she went, where she played and played, refusing to come to me when it was time to go. I almost lost her, except that a friend of mine was able to grab her collar. So we hopped back in the car and headed for home, and thanks to Hermione (my car’s name) Cadie was able to have a nice dinner.

Yesterday morning I woke to find that I did not have any breakfast foods at home, so I made the decision to stop and do my groceries on my way home. It was great. I often stop for some groceries on my way home from work, but it was just great to be able to get everything done, in one fell swoop.

Last night we also had to pop over to my brother’s apartment to feed his turtles, they are huge, and were very happy to see us come in. Once the turtles were all provided for we decided to head over to Eglinton Park. Cadie has been there exactly once too, though she doesn’t seem to love it as much as she does Sunnybrook (Go figure, dogs are weird sometimes).

Anyhow, tonight the grand tour of Toronto’s best parks continues, and I am hoping to get her back to Sherwood. Are there any other fab parks we should take in while we’re at it?