Black and Gold

I love getting the pup, or in the past- pups, out in the winter for a hike.  The spring is kinda sloppy and the summer can get a bit buggy.  But fall......no doubt my favorite time of year and as always, it goes by too quickly.  It's like the first sounds of a crow or blue jay call in August, the first color of leaves start in some swamp and that spicy smell is in the air, and soon the trees are bare and more than a nice chill is in the air.  Fall is over, the gun season here and after that marches in winter and snow...not that that is a bad thing either.

But for right now, for a few brief weeks, it is autumn and I try to spend every minute I can out there doing something.  I've always said fall should be twice as long to get everything done- hunting, mountain biking, photography, Harley rides, fishing and sometimes, just out hiking with the pup.  The "pup" in this case is Molly, who has made a few appearances in this blog.  This is the first "real" fall to enjoy with me.  Last year she was recovering from a broken pelvis and eye surgery and missed any good kind of lab-in-the outdoors time.  Hopefully she'll do well in her first hunting season.

Black and Gold

For starters anyway, we ventured out into the county forest on some game trails, it was early morning, sun just hitting the tops of the trees and the camera was in hand.  I tried to make some photos along the way and it can be a lesson in frustration, because what you see with the eyes and what you smell don't show up on the sensor.  Fall can be hard to make good pictures, and we think it should be easy.  As I looked thru them, it started to be clear that on this day I was most interested not in shooting color (I thought I was) but rather Molly in the color, smelling only dog smells, running here and there and returning to heal along side me.  These images made me happy and I enjoyed them again and thought I'd share.  Maybe as the peak of color slides into place this week, some real fall photographs will find their way into my camera, but for now, I'll take these.

Molly on Old Fiber Optic Line