Sunday at Lake O' The Pines

Sunday

Zack was feeling better--I think the cooler temperature and the cloud cover was helping. I started out with the plan of taking him for a short walk, returning him to the RV, then continuing with Mollydog. But instead I decided to keep on going and give him a lift on the way back. So that was a good walk for all of us.

For the day's fishing, we tried same spot as before--and the fish weren't there. But then Ed found a few downed trees ( or something) that were covered with fish. We caught at least six small crappie, one decent sized one (maybe 11-1/2"), and a absolutely adorable small sunfish.

We'd been watching the clouds and had just started to pick up to go in to shore, when it started in to rain. Just rain, nothing long with a little rain....

...until a clap of thunder smashed so near that we jumped out of our skins. I never want to experience that again. We headed toward the campsite, but the rain was coming from that direction and blowing in Ed's face so hard he couldn't see to steer. We did an about-face and went to hide under a highway bridge.After we were safely under the bridge--okay, I know that's not safe but at least we weren't the tallest thing on the water anymore--the rain stopped almost immediately. We went in to shore anyway--we were ready.







Back at camp I saw the coolest thing--a female orchard oriole in the small sweet gum tree by the water. I'd seen a male the day before: here he is.

I took Molly for a long walk, all the way around the campgrounds to the boat ramp we've been using. There's one much closer but it's not as close to the places where we want to fish. There was a stick-up out in water, not too far, maybe ten feet?--that she really wanted to check out. The area was deserted except for a truck with trailer and a car--no people anywhere--so I unclipped her leash and told her to go.

She paddled out like a champion, took a sniff, tried to scramble up on the tree but the underwater limbs were too slippery, and paddled back. Great fun and the leash stayed dry in my hands. She came in, and I snapped it back on her harness. After we started walking through the grass, she decided to do a roll and I let her. With the leash on. So it ended up almost as wet as she was.

On the walk back I kept trying to point out deer to her but she never saw them. I guess they were downwind of us. She was distracted by a man going in the bathroom and then the dog barking across the road.

Later, though, we saw a couple more deer. And this time she did smell them. Great excitement in the world of dog!

No stars that night. But one bat!!! Lightning to the east. Goodnight.