(a)musings

What a gorgeous fall day. Last week I was sure the nor'easter blew all the leaves away, but today we went out hiking and there sure is enough green still out there, with yellows and reds still on trees, to make me feel that winter hasn't got us in her grasp just yet.

Plus, it was in the upper 60s today, which is just purdy if you ask me. The sky was overcast, so it wasn't a vibrant and bright kind of fall day, but a beautiful one no matter what. We did a geocache today, skipping church in order to get out there in the world and experience the fresh air and the stewardship of nature. I feel God doesn't mind if you aren't in church -- as long as you are making good use of the time. And our being out there enjoying the bounty of His blessing was sure a way of celebrating.

Unless you turn the interpretation of us getting 1.5 million ticks on us as a scourge of God, a chastisement for skipping His worship time. I'm going to ignore that as some sort of message from Him. The ticks are just PART of His perfect world. Just a little something for us to deal with in order to enjoy the bounty of blessings He gives us.

Seriously -- we went to Harold Parker state forest today. We were there a few weeks ago. We were CERTAIN that the ticks would all be fast asleep from the 20 degree temps we'd had night after night after night for the past few weeks...

Well, a little upper 60s woke their little bodies RIGHT up and they were in full hunt for a host mode.

Poor Jack. Poor Kinger.

We re-frontlined them when we got home from our otherwise very wonderful and fulfilling excursion into nature. We all got undressed out on the porch. I'm still finding the stray tick walking across the hardwood floor or linoleum of the kitchen -- but it beats them being ON my body. I'm not going back to Harold Parker again. We did the two caches that are out there, and even if someone puts a third cache out there I'm not going back.

Doug thinks that the reason the park itself is so incredibly ticky is because of its popularity -- lots of horses, dogs, humans... the river, the location. We went weeks and weeks this summer without getting a single tick. Today -- we got a summer's worth. Fucking little blood sucking bastards! Hate them.

Anyway -- we all worked up a good sweat, and seeing as tomorrow as a holiday it should be kind of lame weatherwise, we figured a walk out today would be better than no walk out at all. And ticks not withstanding, it sure was.

We saw a ton of horseback riders in their wonderful clothes with glowing bright horses, doing dressage and trail rides. It made me envious for a minute. They were just damn lovely. I took a couple pictures and really loved looking at how beautiful they all were.

Geoff made a comment to Doug while we were hiking that knocked us all on our asses. Essentially, he noticed after a mountain biker went by that mountain bikes don't poop on the trail. Doug told me this when we got home and I laughed for about 10 minutes.

As nice as horses are, Schwinns don't crap in public.

All told, it was a great day.

Tomorrow, we're going to go down to Cape Cod to see my grandmother and take her to lunch. If the weather allows, we'll do a geocache or two. I love Cape Cod in the winter and late fall. No one is there, and it is still just plain beautiful.