I was actually lying on the ground in our hayfield yesterday, shortly before noon, when I snapped this photo of our Jonas.
Since coming to our home from the Panhandle Animal Shelter in late summer, Jonas has converted the barn from a barrage of leaping, thumb-your-nose rodents to an occasional mouse sighting, always in corpse form.
Jonas loves the horses and accompanies me up and down the lane each morning, waiting patiently for his ride back to the barn (on my shoulders, of course).
Jonas has also gotten to know the lay of the land. I'm never surprised where I see him these days.
Yesterday I looked across the hayfield while taking crazy horse pictures and saw Jonas coming my way.
It was dry enough in the field for me to lie down on my side and snap a few photos of Jonas on his level.
It was also fun seeing our newest member of the menagerie, looking pretty "outstanding" in the beautiful fall field.
A while later, Bill came home from church. A drizzle had started, and it was COLD outside.
I asked him his plans for the afternoon: geocaching.
We had two choices, one of which included a trip back up to Rapid Lightning Road and beyond the lovely Aspen grove.
Janice Schoonover had told him about a geocache called "Boulder" on a gorgeous vista.
Only 4-wheelers and walkers could get to it.
Ever since hearing about it, I'd wanted to go see the spot.
Well, yesterday was hardly the day to go looking for beautiful vistas, as the clouds closed in, dropped lower and dropped more and more rain.
We dressed warmly and figured we could deal with the wet.
We parked at a spot where forest owners had blocked the rest of the road.
The 4-wheelers had found their way around the road blocks.
Just feet away from the car, we walked through the first snow of the season, and as we proceeded further up the trail, the white stuff was substantial enough for us to see that someone else (probably two someone elses) had walked the trail and had returned before our visit.
We figured they must be geocachers. We would know once we found the cache.
Yesterday's 4.2 mile round trip hike offered no breath-taking views, but we still saw a lot of color along the mountainsides.
If low hanging clouds could be pretty, our location was a good spot to appreciate them.
Occasionally, they opened up a little, giving us the desire to come back to this spot again.
The boulder is huge. One can stand and look forever, I'm betting, when the sun is out on a clear day.
We could hear Rapid Lightning Creek rushing down its course in the valley below.
And, I found the cache.
Bill had looked in the same spot but had overlooked the exact location where the film cannister and its rolled-up geocaching log were hidden.
"I've got a nose for geocaches," I told him.
"Geocaching takes teamwork," he added.
We also learned that those two sets of tracks had not come for the cache, as the last folks to sign live at "WP Ranch," and their entry was a few weeks ago.
This cache will be a definite "must do" on the list when our daughter Annie's home sometime next fall. We'll all go---on a sunny day---and I'm sure we'll have some drop-dead gorgeous photos to show for it.
By the time we reached the car just before 5 p.m., the rain was intense and my arms and legs were wet. Still, I didn't mind the temporary chills from wet clothes.
As I said to Bill, it sure beat sitting in the house all afternoon.
On this dryer Monday at the Lovestead, I'll wish all a Happy Halloween.
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