Greeter, Henne

Today was spent writing in molasses, as in, the cold I percolated over the weekend decided that it would come to stay, and, hobbled by brain fog, it took all of the morning and much of the afternoon to accomplish a simple writing task that should have taken a couple of hours... and left me with a little time to get outside. But the weekly newspaper column finally completed and filed, I hit a local trail in the hope that, maybe, the exercise would send the virus packing. I also hoped that I might spot something especially unusual on an unusually warm afternoon. The natural world, however, was especially quiet, save for a few chickadees... and an odd ringing of a sweet-sounding bell... a ringing that grew steadily louder. Ah, I love the greeting committee, and this high-spirited pup was just perfect for the job of raising spirits, even those battered by an uncommon cold.