Hi all. I am obviously running behind, since this is being posted almost 5 hours later than usual. Yeah, I had 4 meetings this morning. Oh, and that doesn’t include over 200 new emails in my work email’s “Inbox” when I got in. The afternoon is busy and I am still not close to being caught up. Sigh.

So, where is the smile in all of that? Besides, of course, that I am gainfully employed and such….

Perhaps the reason I am so busy is that I had just a little over 4 days off in a row. I was down on Cape Cod, so I enjoyed some of things that I can do down there, like very long walks on the beach. It was very relaxing. Nice.

Hello. In some ways this week’s smile will sound very typical, almost too normal – I went kayaking. Twice. I think a couple of things that make this smile a little less than typical is that it is mid-November and these were very long paddles.

When I had the place on Swan Pond, I used to paddle all year, as long as I didn’t have to break too much ice to hit open water…. Now, not so much. I have to wheel the kayak about a quarter of a mile (a little under a half kilometer) down a winding, narrow road to reach the landing. Getting into and out of the water is much more difficult, particularly at high tide. And then the Bass River is often pretty choppy where I put the kayak in the water.

Hi all! As I write this, I have a little black kitten climbing all over my computer, “helping”. Various keys are pressed, sometimes hundreds of times, and I have to fix things. Hmmm. And it all makes me smile. Why? I’ll tell you!

When we picked up Tiberius (they called him “James” which we changed to James T. Kirk, but use Tiberius, and boy does it fit!) we were told an upper respiratory infection was going through the shelter, but he hadn’t shown any signs. So we took him down to Cape Cod and he got sick. Very sick. Nobody down here wanted to touch him, but our vet in New Hampshire (NH) put in a prescription for a child’s antibiotic and we did a lot of home-remedy things. He got better! He started playing and acting like a kitten.

But he never totally lost the wheeze.

Hi all! Yes, I am on time this week, after missing it and posting on Tuesday last week. Overall, despite being super busy, this was a good week with plenty of smiles.

After a bout of very warm weather, we had a very typical October weekend. It was cool but very sunny. At last I got to see those October Blue Skies I love so much! The color of the sky on a brisk yet sunny October day is a color not seen any other time of the year – I can spend all day just watching it.

There is a field near my house and it seems that every bird of prey in the county stopped by to fly over it this weekend. OK, I saw the eagle near the field, not over it, but several species of hawks were out there, as well as a falcon and, of course, the ever present vultures. The ravens seemed to think they owned the place and there were a few scuffles between them and some of the smaller hawks. At one point a raven sat in a tree above my head and made the cutest cooing noises imaginable. A murder of crows made quick appearances, but seemed to leave the field to the larger birds.

Hi all, sorry I’m a day late. It has been insane busy lately and yesterday was nonstop from the time I got up. Anyway, here I am, a day late and possibly a dollar short, but I guess better late than never ;)

We had a stretch of really warm weather last week. It’s seasonably cool now, but we have some more warm weather coming up. Unfortunately I was very busy last week and didn’t get out as much as I would have wished, but I did some, particularly over the weekend, and it was great!

Besides the typical runs, walks and dog walks, including a very long one through the woods with Fiyero, I want to bring a few things forward.

This has been a pretty good week. I went down to Cape Cod this weekend, but what is new? I did some of the usual, like a super long walk on the sand-flats of Chapin beach, where I I enjoyed some of the sand patterns (see photo below) and a very long paddle on my kayak. But there was something that stood out against those smile worthy things.

This last week has been an odd week. I had a hair cut after letting it grow out for 6 months. I’ve had that as a smile before, but since I didn’t do before and after photos… We had a face-to-face Lions Club meeting, which was great but… I have really gotten back into my music, which is great, but there is little to show for it (yet). I just did a “it’s the small things” post. How about a nice, long walk in the woods without the dogs?

Typically around this time of year I would be doing major hikes, but I haven’t had a good day for it in a long time – there has to be a combination of the right weather and a big blank on my agenda. But I did get out for a long walk, which I stretched out into the local woods. It wasn’t too special and the colors are not here yet, but it was nice, and perhaps the longest walk I’ve had in New Hampshire since early spring, so it was nice. The weather wasn’t great (it had started to drizzle), but I still enjoyed it.