Serene Scenery Sunday

Greetings to all!  It's me, Maggie, here with a wonderful Serene Scenery Sunday post for you to enjoy.  This all happened Friday afternoon, but I thought today would be the perfect day to share.

It all started after lunch.  We all had lunch, Dad went downstairs to work and work out, Cammie said a nap was calling her name ... and Mom reached for her glasses.

"Oooh.  GLASSES!!!"

Zimmie taught me many, many things in the time we spent together and one of those is this: Mom only wears her glasses to watch football or drive the car. No football on a Friday afternoon -- so that meant I was going on a ride!!!  I mean ... she wouldn't want to go somewhere without ME, right?!?

She said we were going on a training mission to Tuttle Creek State Park!  Oh, how very exciting!  She wanted to see how I would act around the birdies she likes to photograph and if we could work together as a team.  Are you kidding, Mom!??!  Teamwork is a Siberian Husky's middle name!  Off we went!

We saw all kinds of wonderful things!  Our first stop was a little dock at the River Pond.  Just as we approached, a Great Blue Heron took off!  He landed just up the shoreline a little bit:

Great Blue Heron and American Coots

That's him, silhouetted under the tree branch. The little guys are Coots. Some young Coots, some old Coots, no doubt. Ha roo roo roo.  "Old Coots".

I took a look around and stared silently off to my left:

"Oooh.  More big birdies!"

Mom followed my gaze and saw this other Great Blue Heron:

"Got one!"

He caught a fishie!!!

"GULP!"

And swallowed him whole. Wow. I'm surprised Mom didn't remind him to chew his food, like she tells me and Cammie. Anyway, he was a mighty serene Heron!

"Oh, that was yummy!"

There were two other herons over near, him, too, but they didn't catch any fishies. Mom and I loved sitting on the dock watching them!

"This is great, huh, Mom?"
"You betcha, Mags."

OK. There's a slight chance I was commando-crawling across the dock, trying to snarf something, but don't tell my mom. I'm sure she had NO idea of what I was up to. I don't want to ruin my chances to go again!

After we were there for a while, we drove over to another area of the River Pond. I took a good look around:

"Heeeeeere, birdie, birdie, birdie!"

I was more than willing to go down that steep bank so Mom could get closer to the water, but she was against it for some reason.  There weren't any exciting birdies down there, anyway, so we moved on.

Our next stop was over by the little outdoor chapel. I thought we should go in.

"It's so peaceful in here!"

We thought a lot of serene thoughts while we were in there - and Mom said I was one super-well-behaved puppy. I thought about our buddy Goose a lot - and his MOM, too. Goose has taught me a great deal about reverence and respect. I'm fairly sure he's the one who writes his MOM's sermons for her and I just love it when he shares God's word and important lessons with us!  Anyway - we had great quiet reflection time in the chapel ... then we headed out.

Something caught my eye as soon as we left the chapel.  Mom let me go check it out:

"A huge stick!  God must have known I was thinking about Goose in there!!!"

Seriously.  It's like there was this connection!  I'm in a chapel saying a little prayer for Goose, the most stick-loving, best stick-saving dog on Earth, then BOOM!  There's a stick right in the middle of the road.  It was awesome.  I wanted to mail it to Goose, but Mom said we couldn't fit it in the Celica.   I tagged him in a picture of it on FaceBook (actually Mom tagged Goose's MOM) which I hope was the next best thing.  I also chewed it a little bit for him.

Anyway, what a wonderfully serene time we had!  I hope coming with us via these photos helped you find a little serenity in the day, too.  Thanks for coming with us!

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher