Farewell to October

We had a pretty boring week last week, and with a busy day Sunday followed by Halloween, I'm running behind in posting the blog.  My work week was busy and stressful, but I did try to get the girls out for some good walks most evenings so we could enjoy the end of the Fall colors..

Monday night we headed to Fenner Nature Center.  The girls were so happy to be in the woods and the deer were out, so they were crazy!  

It was a beautiful evening to be out with them, although they dragged me all over and made our walk less than pleasant.   We did have a nice conversation with a young couple who hope to get a GSP someday, and the girls were happy to get the extra attention. 

Tuesday i was able to leave for a lunchtime walk at Hartrick Park.  I was happy for the chance to get into the woods and away from the stress of my day for a bit.   

 

It was a gorgeous Fall day with everything glowing yellow.  Of course the girls enjoyed the adventure too.

Wednesday was a rainy day. but the girls spent time outside when they could throughout the day as I worked.   There were plenty of games of chase and wrestling, but no adventures for the day.

Luckily the rain held off for my volunteer time at the shelter Wednesday night.  I got to walk Easton.   He's a sweet older guy and we enjoyed our walk.

Friday arrived, and it was a beautiful sunny day.  It was the perfect day to participate in the annual Howloween trick-or-treating for dogs in Old Town.  After my busy work week, I was really looking forward to this fun event.  

I got the girls into their costumes and we headed to Old Town.  And boy did we have a great time!  I love this event every year, and this year's event was no different.  Mina and Peaches loved meeting new friends, both two- and four-legged.  I think Mina is going to learn to love this event every year too.

Saturday we visited with our our friends Barb and Tom.  I was excited to get the girls together with Sherman and Ruby for some fun.

While our attempts at getting good pictures weren't very successful,  the dogs had a great time playing together. There were plenty of games of chase and Mina dragged out all of the balls and played lots of games of fetch. 

It is crazy that my now 6 month old puppy is basically the same size as Ruby!

On Sunday, we had plans for a nice hike on the North Country Trail with Vanessa.   The majority of our walk was road walk along dirt roads.  

It was a fairly uneventful walk with the exception of missing a turn and ending up having to back track and adding over 1 1/2 miles to our hike.  We also had one small incident with a dog...and we got charged by a bunch of cows.  Thankfully they were behind a fence.  After 9 1/2 miles of hiking, we stopped for lunch at the Saucy Dog BBQ in Jonesville. 

After our lunch, we headed back out to finish a shorter section of the trail through Fireman's Park in Litchfield.  This section is a nice wooded section of trail.  We hiked  and geocached our way through that final 2 1/4 miles.  At the end of the day we had hiked 11 3/4 miles, 10 1/4 of them on the NCT.  We're also getting really close to completing all of the miles in Hillsdale County.  I think that is pretty exciting. 

Our Halloween festivities included pumpkin carving and dressing the girls up for our trick-or-treaters.  

Mina enjoyed her first taste of pumpkin guts and watching for the ghouls and goblins..

The girls were so well-behaved and we had a great Halloween night. 

And while I didn't get to see Fiona on Halloween, I did get this adorable picture of her dressed for the occasion.   Crazy to think she's 28 weeks old now.  She's really starting to show a lot of personality.  

We've now officially reached November.  Most of the leaves have fallen, and we're about to enter the long, cold, dark months of the year.  I'm not looking forward to the end of daylight savings time this weekend and 5:30pm sunsets.

The weather this week is looking pretty good, though.   The Halloween decoration are down, and with the mild weather, I'm going to get the Fall yard clean-up done and  the Christmas lights up before the week is over.   We'll also get outside to enjoy it!