The Walk After the Storm

Elka and I didn't get out yesterday, but this morning we revisited the park, and I thought it might be neat to have some "after" photos.  Reading about all of the damage and hardship that Irene caused, I really have to say, I feel thankful and lucky at the same time, that my particular town wasn't much hit at all. I never lost power (or Internet!), we live uphill, so no risk of flooding, and there was no damage at all to our property.

At the park, there were some limbs down, but I didn't spot any trees that I thought were freshly downed. Elka is particularly fond of pine, for some reason, so when we happened upon a large pine bough, I let her investigate it for as long as she wanted.

In the photo below, she was startled and intrigued that the bough moved when she nosed it.  She in fact nose poked it several more times for good measure, I suppose just to see if it would happen each time.  I regret not getting a shot of the look she finally gave me, a wide eyed sort of "did you see that?" wonderment, the way she sometimes looks when she watches birds.

There are a number of areas where, water permitting, there are little creeks and waterfalls. This waterfall, formed of tree roots and washed up dirt, dried up at the end of July, and I despaired of getting a picture of it before the spring, but that was one upside to the storm, I guess.

Another couple pictures of the now-identified Sycamore tree (thanks Aunt Marian!)  The tree is more or less unscathed as well, some few branches down, but it's structure still strong.

The leaves off of this tree are absolutely huge; the green seedpod there is slightly smaller than a golf ball, to give you a sense of scale.  If you ever needed to Garden of Eden it up, I'd suggest sycamore leaves as being more cover than the old fashioned fig leaf.

I've realized I'm going to teach Elka a cue that means, "no, for serious, we're going to run next to each other for a little while now, no funny business".  Every time we start to run, we play her game, which is very fun, but results in little actual running.  I suppose it could be considered "cardio", if I had to swear to it!  It makes for a tired Doberman, which also tends to make a "happy" and "not getting into mischief" Doberman.