Oh, my...

This morning was bright and sunny but below freezing. Great day for the beach! Off we went. It was a glorious walk! No one was on the beach, so I released his leash. He had a marvelous time running wherever he wanted to go! The 20 to 50 feet of frozen ice along the shore is gone. There are only large, dirty chunks of ice piled on the beach about 5 to 10 feet from the water. I walked on the side of them away from the water hoping to keep Guinness away from the lake, but that didn’t work. He went in the lake repeatedly as I screamed, “Come! Come! Guinness, Come! Treats!” He was pretty good about coming on command, so he had free range for the whole length of the beach.

We saw some Longtails in the ship channel and Trumpeter Swans napping in a cove of the lake. A pair of Lesser Scaups were among the Longtails. That is the first time I have seen them up close. Guinness was extraordinarily good to “Wait” while I used my binoculars and took photos.

Since he had icicles all over his tummy, we walked back along the walkway to stay away from the water.

I threw my gloves into the driver’s seat and dried him off a bit before opening the backseat door for him. Before I closed his door, he had my gloves in his mouth. And I thought a good, long walk would slow down the Gingerbread Man? When we arrived home, I took him into the sideyard with a towel to dry him off. He wasted no time in swiping the towel out of my hands and racing around the yard with it. What a character! He keeps me laughing. He had to grab one more thing before going inside: the remains of the decorative cabbage plant which has been under the snow until now. He raced around as if he thought I was going to try to rescue the dead plant.

After running free for most of an hour, he was still full of energy (or was it beans?). He has become a huge male tease. His joy in life is to make me chase him. He pulled my hand towel off the towel rack in my bathroom; as I carried an armload of laundry downstairs, he pulled a towel out of the bottom of the stack. All the while, he is laughing his head off.