Strange Days

For a good giggle head over to my Wee Bonny New Scotland Blog ...

Today we took a break from renovation adventures to head out to the beach again. It is just beautiful here right now with clear sunny skies, temperatures hovering just below 2o degrees and light wind. With a south facing backyard the temperature can seem higher so at about 2:30pm we headed down to the beach because it's always cooler there than here.

The dogs know of course when they get in the truck that we're heading somewhere fun so they act like asses. Leeloo and Archer yowl and wookie at each other for at least half the trip and Halo and Raimi are noses to the wind, lips flapping, ears flying and eyes half shut in concentration. Today though I caught Archer's nose taking in the smells too, he had his paws up on the edge of the window pane and his big ol' ears were flapping away. He looked like he was in heaven. I suppressed mild panic and eeked the window up a scootch. Don't need another Petal or Halo event. It's just adorable though how he tries so hard to copy what the big dogs do not knowing how small he is ... or how big he'll get.

It was an incredibly relaxing walk with gentle waves rolling in, the tide was high but there was still plenty of sand to walk on. I took off my flip flops and walked in the sand for about a kilometre and the dogs meandered along with me, none of us were in a hurry to anything but absorb the sun and silence.

I came across a few empty crab bodies and skirted them quickly - don't need Leeloo ingesting that sort of thing. Also, it's the beach where you can't take anything away with you.

Raimi was doing something fascinating and I'm curious to find out what it was. He'd trot along nose to the ground, suddenly stop and dig like mad for a moment, shove his nose deep into the hole and sniff deeply. After a moment he'd lose interest and trot to the next hole digging frenzy. Once he dug like crazy, stopped, and (I swear) he tilted his head like he was listening to something and then shoved his nose in for an extra good snort. I'll be honest, it freaked me out a little. What the hell is down there? There are little holes all over the beach and I think there are things living down there waiting for the next tide to roll in but I don't know what they are. He never did dig deep enough to find anything except when he unearthed a little tiny shrimp who looked horrified to be so rudely exposed. I let it be. Maybe it's the little shrimp things he can smell and ... hear?

We walked along the beach to where the sand ended and turned into rocks so we explored the rocky shore a little. As we approached where the coast curves I stopped to watch the dogs and enjoy the moment. Halo was way ahead of course lost in the new smells and the other three were picking their way along stopping to sniff interesting crevices. I looked beyond the dogs to the ocean and spied a log in the water with a bird on it about 20 feet off the coastline. I was just making up my mind to go and see what birds they were(highly likely they would be seagulls) when the log walked out of the water.

WTF?

I swear I just about had a heart attack. Three deer, one at a time, walked carefully out of the water and disappeared into the trees at the top of the cliff. Man ... when a person needs a camera. I hastily recalled Halo who was the closest to the deer and we headed back the way we'd come. I'm not sure if the deer were just in the water cooling off or, I know it sounds totally insane, if they swam from Pictou Island which you can see from the shore but come on now ... it's freakin' far to swim. I am 99% sure they were swimming into the shore when I saw them, they weren't drinking, it's salt water, and I am not sure deer use water to cool down, besides which, it wasn't that hot really. It was so weird.

So that was today ... tomorrow looks much the same. How ever will I cope?