Closing in on the shortest day

The leafless pecan stands ready for it's winter rest.

Friday morning when the dog and I walked down to the east end of the paved road the weather was very warm for December.  The temperature was around 70 degrees and the humidity was high at 90 percent.  The weather was very unsettled.  The gray clouds were still moving quickly to the north but there was no surface wind to speak of.  The sun made an occasional appearance as a big silver disk hiding behind a thick layer of clouds.

Look closely to see the bashful sun.

 It is funny to me how flat the sun appears when most of it's brilliance is shielded by the clouds.  As we reached the end of the paved road the dog became anxious about heading home.  He has been fearful of this end of the road ever since "the electric fence incident".

Very colorful stinkbug larvae await
their further transformation.

I stopped only for a moment to take a look at the small orange stink bugs hanging out on the young Golden Rods growing at the road side. These seemingly innocent little bugs will eventually metamorphosis into the large leaf footed stink bugs that are the scourge of the spring and summer garden.   With the dog running ahead we started back toward our home.

The sand pear tree says
"hey wait for me"

I saw that a sand pear has made a nice showing of orange leaves this year.  The hard freeze we had a few days ago is bringing out fall leaf colors we are not treated to on a regular basis here in Grand Bay.  This tree makes a very large number of almost inedible pears that nearly pull the tree down in the spring.  The pears laying on the ground attract many different types of animals who mostly come at night to eat them.

Another lucky turtle escapes the
jaws of my dog.

As we continued in the direction of home the dog began to run around on the side of the road indicating he had caught the scent of something.  I looked in his direction and saw a turtle hiding in it's shell which the dog had not yet seen.   I pretended to take a photo of something ,which causes the dog to completely ignore me because he sees me doing it everyday, and walked to where the turtle was.  I while bending and pretending to take a photo of the ground I scooped up the turtle and whisked it to the other side of the road.  The dog never figured out what happened.  He followed the scent trail to the spot where the turtle was sitting and just looked totally confused as though he was thinking to himself " Ok it should be right here so where is it?"   While he went round and round on the other side of the road I snapped a photo of the turtle and tossed it into the bushes.

  Slowly but surely I am learning how the dog reacts to things I do and I am able to manipulate him without his knowledge.   I am almost sure the dog has his own list of manipulations he can impose upon me as well.  Which one of us will win this battle of wits? Only time will tell.  It may make for some interesting future reading.    Thanks for reading my blog today.   I hope you have a good day.  Bye.