January Fun in the Sun

Yesterday was one of those superlatives and definitely a lovely last day of January.  

The blend of bright, bright sunshine with a generally undisturbed blanket of new fallen snow----it just doesn’t get any prettier around these parts. 

Moods skyrocket and puppies play.  Our Border Collies love the snow.  Each time I took them to the hay field for a romp, I could almost hear their doggie giddiness as they broke trails across the field or simply plopped in the middle of a nice patch of snow. 

Of course, the coffee cans and coffee can parts went along.  The Ponderosa tree also have a nice assortment of limbs which when presented to the human must be flung across the field for the fastest dog to grab and bring back for another turn. 

Some of the dogs continue their mannerly ways when bringing sticks, pine combs, birch bark or coffee can parts for me to throw.  Others simply snatch and race off with the prize, leading the need to find another throw toy for me to fling. 

Anyway, it was a happy day from start to finish.  Besides puppy play, I went for a nice walk and captured the top photo with my phone,  plucked a little banjo, took some garbage to the dump, peeled a few more apples.

In addition, I enjoyed some nice telephone visits with my longtime friend Susie/Sky and my former student KEITH LEE MORRIS.  Look him up.  He's developing quite a literary resume, and he's thrilled that his next book, a novel, will be published by Little, Brown and Company. 

My connection with Keith yesterday was precipitated by a note from another student and good friend, Jeff Bock.  Seems Jeff, who works in the LA film industry, likes Keith's work enough that he and a friend collaborated on a screenplay based on one of the short stories.

Jeff wants to film it in the Sandpoint area, so he wanted to get in touch with Keith. That gave me an excuse to contact Keith and do some catching up with his career as a writer and professor at Clemson. 

I've also read an informative interview with Keith:  http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2011/12/02/and-make-mine-a-double-an-interview-with-keith-lee-morris/

Of course, it's exciting to think that something really neat may come of the combined efforts of these two very talented men who grew up in Sandpoint.  Stay tuned. 

And, my friend Susie----it's not often I feel the need to call someone out of the blue, but when I read her email giving the highlights of her most recent adventure, I had to call.

Susie has been a speech therapist through her career, most recently at an elderly care facility in Colorado. Well, she wrapped up the career in December and decided to celebrate.

The celebration involved packing up her horse, her dog and all the essentials for dogs horses and people and taking off for Arizona.  She spent the month of January, visiting with friends in Prescott and then camping out and riding the desert out of Wickenburg, Ariz. 

And, she had the time of her life with sunshine and temps in the 70s during the day and mid-40s at night.  She had so much fun taking off on desert jaunts and meeting other trail riders that she's gonna do this every January from now on.

I asked if I could come along next year and do some chronicling of her adventures. My old friend said yes.  So, we'll see over the next 11 months if that will work out. 

For now, I'm just smiling as I think about the wonderful adventures these people are pursuing, whether it be a real-life old West tale or a tale written on the computer. 

Pretty neat----the myriad of possibilities in this world, if we just partake!

On that note, I think I'll get started partaking in what this first day of February has to offer. For one thing, we're blessed with more sunshine AND another exciting ZAGS game tonight.  

Nice way to end one month and start another.   Happy Saturday.  GO ZAGS!