Face off with a Nutria

Ran along Fern Ridge trail for a change of scenery and made it to Bailey Hill before turning around. Got rained on going out, but had a nice return trip. Saw 5 musk rats? (as big as a large cat with a rat tail) 4 on the way out and one on the return which Buddy unfortunately saw first, jumped off the trail, taking me with him and landed on top of the poor animal. I screamed "No Buddy" just as a bicyclist came up and slowed down but didn't talk to me when I said good morning. The rat just laid there with Buddy's mouth on his belly until I pulled him off. The rat right-sided himself and then stared at me like he was going to charge. He must have decided that going up against a human and 2 dogs may not be the best idea, and scurried down into the water. Luckily, Lilly, who's leash I dropped when I was pulled off the trail just sat on the trail until the surprise attack was over.

The funny thing is that when Buddy lunged after this rat, I had been thinking that I needed to take him in for some obedience classes.......

My friend Deb googled musk rat and actually idenitfied the furry animal as a Nutria.

The boys are here

Every two weeks during the school year the boys come to visit and then they live with us for the summer. Because of these visits, my life has another cycle in it. We have created many rituals that fit into the every 2 wk 48 hour time frame and I feel like there is a sort of comfort in this. Rory has always woken up the earliest on Saturday and joins Tim and I for breakfast. Most of the time we find an excuse to go to a local bakery for some sweeties. Tim and Rory head off and come back with surprises. This morning we all headed to the farmer's market: tim and I running and Rory on the bike. Rory was also the good sport carrying the backpack that would bring back the goodies. This morning Rory seemed to have a lot of energy and took off down the street without looking back. This was great for me because after a brief warm up, I was running at a pretty good pace trying to keep up. The farmer's market is in no way a long run, and normally i wouldn't even consider the length a run, but because of the much faster pace, by the time we got to the market both Tim and I had quite a seat going.

First order of bust was of course to find the sweeties. Bee lining it to the closest bakery stand, we each chose yummies and took turns trading the little bags between each other so we could all vote on which was the best. After the sweet stop we were ready to shop for real food. Each weekend one of the boys gets to pick the Saturday night meal. This is a sit down dinner that we are all present for, sitting at the table, no phones, no movies and time to give thanks.

Tonight it's corned beef and cabbage. For a long time, I had a difficult time figuring out this was what Rory wanted. He didn't remember the name of the meat, but remembered the people who he had eaten it with. All of the people he remembered were our Irish friends, so by deductive reasoning, we figured it had to be the food we eat EVERY St, Patrick's day. So now we have St. Pat's food 2x a year.

So at the Farmer's market we rounded out the corned beef with some beautiful yellow potatoes and to make the meal a little more special, found some carrots that were orange, white, red and yellow. Rory was definitely understanding what it means to gather (and carry) your food. His pack was weighted with root veggies.