Bright leaves

Being outside today was splendid: warm, sunny, and with brilliant fall colors. I am very glad I was toting my camera on my walks. This year's leaves are especially magnificent.

After work, I took Wish for a long walk around our new neighborhood (during which I spotted another Keeshond out for a stroll!!) and then sat on our porch and finished reading Looking for Alaska. I love this season.

Big sky

Tonight Wish and I went for one of our beloved sunset walks. En route to the best spot in our neighborhood to see a big sky, we saw so many people sitting on their front porches, playing in their yards and taking strolls and bike rides. It was a beautiful summer night and our neighbors were reveling in it.

We ambled over to peek at the sky just after the sun dipped below the horizon. The clouds tonight reminded me of Boundary Waters skies, which I visited two years ago this month and will not soon forget.

And then just one dog silhouette photo, okay?

I'm off to finish reading The Circle and maybe catch a bit of tonight's late Twins game.

A walk with Wish

How has it already been two full days since the All-Star Game?

We are returning to our regular routines, and I think the dog is pleased. Yesterday was R&R at home - I'm taking some vacation this week - and today I took Wish for a morning walk around Como Lake. I love walking him there: besides the pup loving the change in scenery, it's great for training because it's always busy (so he can practice and be rewarded for good behavior) but not too crowded.

We usually go in the afternoons, so it was neat to see the lake in the morning.

Wish was zigzagging all over the path at the start - I think he was trying to smell both sides of the trail at once - but settled into a more even and moderate trot soon enough. Near the end of our loop, we sat down for a little break. It seemed like a good time for a picture.

I got up and watched the lake and wildflowers for a minute. Then I looked down and saw that my dog was hamming it up in hopes of getting a treat.

I love the little adventures with this goofball.

Pausing at a bench in the shade

Happy first day of summer!

Spring afternoon

The start of spring

Today is back to blustery and gray skies, and I wore my down jacket on my evening walk with Wish. But yesterday! Yesterday: 50 degrees and warm sun. Josh and I went for a walk around the neighborhood after work and got to see the sun set. It was the first day of spring, and I'm looking forward to more walks with warm sunlight in the season ahead.

Very tall

This is the only instance in which Wish and I might be mistaken for very tall.

Also, the shadow above him looks like a gigantic squirrel ready to pounce.

Happy Saturday to you, Reader!

Sunset walk

Today the high temperature was 23 degrees and the sun was shining, and it was good. (I saw more than one person wearing shorts.)

After work, Wish and I ambled around the neighborhood for two miles, which seems about 1.8 miles longer than his average walk this winter. (I think it's a three-way tie for most ready for spring in our household.) I took my gloves off, I felt cozy and warm in my light fleece jacket, and he scampered around the snowbanks and hopped puddles.

And the sun set during our walk, which is always an added bonus.

Soon the snow will melt and the leaves will pop and it'll be full-blast spring. But these little whispers of a new season are really fun.

In like a lion

Okay! I had to go there. I think a snowstorm on March 4-5 still counts in the "in like a lion" category.

It added up gradually this winter, a few inches at a time, but all of a sudden, it seems like St. Paul has an absolutely mammoth amount of snow - especially on my walk tonight, when many of the sidewalks had been cleared and their snow was piled up where grass will sometime eventually grow again. It has been a much snowier winter than last year's, and the last couple of days delivered around eight inches of more snow.

One fun part of that has been watching winter through Wish's perspective for the first time. He loves to trundle through the snow. The only downside is that sometimes when he tromps through loose snow, he thinks it's the exact perfect play time to bite his leash and yank it around. This was pretty funny the first time it happened (and because he obviously won't be reading this, I can admit that I still have to fight to not laugh because he gets this glint in his eye) - but we have to discourage it because he actually can make his leash, uh, less structurally sound. He doesn't do it in any other circumstances, so I have no idea what about the snow brings this out.

Something we don't have to discourage? His love for shoving his face into snowbanks to investigate. Today he finished the walk with his face covered in snow.

When there's this much snow, the scenery on our walks is totally different - that's part of why I love Minnesota's seasons. Today one stretch of run-of-the-mill sidewalk had turned into a stretch of fluffy little meringues.

A better look, minus the dog ears:

Of course, a big snow brings challenges, too, especially when there is basically a scary layer of ice under the snow like there is now. Fortunately, any mishaps we had were minor. My little car got stuck and it took Josh and a Good Samaritan to push me out. In a separate incident, I slipped and fell into a snowbank before work. (Oops.) Finally, Josh slipped and fell on our walk (he is okay) and Wish jumped on him in alarm and started licking his face.

But one definite upside of a March snowstorm: there's less chance of a serious cold snap afterward. It might be 43 by the weekend! It's funny to remember that spring is close - and Opening Day is less than a month away!

Substitution

Last night I went to sleep thinking this morning would include a couple of hours of running. This morning I woke up and thought that the day might instead hold a 75-minute yoga session and some relaxing and possibly a small but much-needed shopping trip. I decided to go with my instinct and be bold and roll with it. (Such is one distinct upside of not training for a spring marathon!)

I started the morning with Wish's version of an endurance workout: a long walk with him. We strolled along some streets that were new to him, and the neighborhood was quiet - so quiet that I actually wondered if I had messed up the time and it was really 7 a.m. instead of almost 9:00. I found out later that it was only 20 degrees, but the combination of no breeze and bright March sun (March sun!) made it feel downright warm. I took my hat off! Wish was loving life, except for one time when I caught him giving side eye to a snowman. We also walked over what I think was Wish's first bridge. ("CARS UNDERNEATH US AND CARS NEXT TO US!?! WHAT IS HAPPENING!") Later, he got to enjoy a little trail (read: non-paved path, nothing particularly rugged), which always makes him morph into a wild little dog who seems like he's trying to show me how utterly cool he is with wilderness.

And the shopping trip and yoga class happened, too. But the walk with my goofy dog is what I'll remember most about today.

Morning walk

This morning: a walk with Mom and Wish through the woods. We bundled up and remembered that a bright sun makes a big difference when it's six or seven degrees out. (I wish I were talking Celsius here.) Wish's chin got a little frost beard going.

The sun was coming up and shining pink light over a frozen lake:

I think it was the nicest way possible to start a long travel day.

R&R

Today was the kind of day that included coffee, the Sunday paper, reading on the couch, and possibly more than one nap. (Did I just admit that?)

It also included a long walk with the pup to enjoy the streak of gorgeous summer weather I've been telling you about over and over lately.

Also, we saw a turtle and Wish was fascinated.

Tonight I need to get in gear and assemble a packing list for this week's travels. But first: dinner on the grill!

Happy weekend to you!

Friday stroll

Today I ran in not-warm rain.  I will skip that recap - just think "drenched rat" and that's a pretty good summary - and instead focus on yesterday's walk, which was full of spring.  Actually, today's scenery was full of spring, too.  The trees along the river were so green already and also full of that just-about-to-really-bloom energy. But yesterday was springy in a sunshine-on-a-Friday-afternoon kind of way.  You know.

Spring has introduced a whole new host of items in the Miles and Laurel "things I love" category. Very loyal readers (hi, Mom!) might know that this is my first spring on the blog.  (M&L is turning one next month.) Please be a little patient while I document some of these loves for the first time.

Here are a few.

1. I really, really love tulips. A yard full of them!

2. I also enjoy dandelions.

Oh, they're a weed? I don't care!

3. I love flowering trees of all varieties.

4. I also forgot how wonderful lilac bushes are. Here is an exciting preview of blog content in the future:

5. And finally, I really love sidewalk chalk. There is a real lack of opportunity for drawing on sidewalks during the winter months, so I think kids might try really hard to make up for it in the spring.

Those little lumps on the sidewalk are mashed-up dandelions.

Is that a mad fish and a cranky crab?  Next time I go on a long walk, I might make a whole post of the great sidewalk art around town.

Hey! What do you like best about spring?

Sixty on Saturday!

Forgive me for being redundant and blathering on and on about another gorgeous Saturday in St. Paul!

As soon as I walked into the kitchen this morning, I knew the day was going to be as beautiful as the meteorologists had predicted.  Sun was streaming in through the windows, and there was just this feeling that the sunlight was warm: think September sunlight, not January.

Later in the day, we walked and walked.  Everybody else in St. Paul seemed to have the same idea we did.  The day got warmer, and I took off my gloves.  The day got warmer, and I pushed up my sweatshirt sleeves.  People, this is Nov. 12!

Um, forget that I'm wearing the same outfit as last Saturday. Consistency.

Everyone was loving this weather, with the probable exception of our local Nordic skiers.  (I've been there and feel your pain as you wait for snow, guys.)  I saw two guys in a BMW convertible cruising around Summit Avenue, top down, wearing short-sleeved t-shirts.  The temperature climbed to 63 by the late afternoon, but at that time, it was probably 48 degrees.  "That's classic Minnesota!" I told Josh.

On Grand Avenue, just before we stopped for sandwiches at Bread and Chocolate, I noticed people lugging around boxes of holiday decorations.  They were decorating the streetposts!  Look.  I took a picture of this unsuspecting man, who will probably never know that he found fame at Miles and Laurel:

And the final product!

The Salvation Army bell-ringers were out, too.  I finally got a sense of what it feels like to live in a warmer climate over the holidays with no snow in sight.  It was really strange.

Just after that, we walked by Brasa, a cool restaurant in what I guess would be the closest thing to St. Paul's "bar district." (By that I mean Billy's and the Wild Onion.)  It's a bold move to advertise pork belly over the weekend on that sidewalk sign, given the high traffic that converges on the establishments on that block and the edit that can be made with one swipe of a finger.

Dork bellies.  So sad.  The perpetrator (and no, it was not us) did the same thing on the other side of the sign.

Can you believe that this wasn't even today's best sign sighting?  That's right.  I finally got a photo of a sign I've been wanting to share with you for weeks, Reader.  I wanted to be cool and save it for the day before I had a grand and wonderful post planned, but, well, I love it too much. 

This banner was hung in two parts - the top half with the first sentence went up quite a bit before the second teaser was dropped.

How can one not be curious about what's coming?  The suspense is killing me!

Mull over that on this fine Saturday.  (And go Vols!)