Farewell September!

October is here! My most favourite month of the whole year! I celebrated the last day of September by donning jeans, a sweater and my hiking boots and heading for the woods.

Truly. I always feel myself relax when I am hiking. It soothes the soul.

Indy was happy because he got to play in the ocean. He's got his water Kong in his mouth in this photo. You can't really tell, but the rope is badly frayed. It's almost time to retire it for a new one. He goes through two a year, which if you saw how hard he plays with them, you'd know they stand up to alot of abuse. Sometimes he has two or three dogs playing tug with it. The rope is really meant so that the humans can wind up and lob it waaaay out into the water. It's really not meant as a tug toy. Someone forgot to mention this to Indy.

I came across these really cool sculptures. This one is an Eagle. There are eagles in the area, but we didn't see any yesterday.

We did see a Blue Heron, though. (A real one.) There was one sitting out on a piling near the dog beach. It always amazes me how such large birds are so graceful in flight. There's a place near Stanley Park where they nest in large colonies. The nests are pretty impressive. I've tried photographing them there, but alas, I need a zoom lense to do it properly. They are too high up to get good photos with the lense I have.

On our way back to our car, we crossed a set of train tracks. They are very active ones and I just happened to look down and notice that there were a bunch of small metal disks scattered around one of the tracks. I knew instantly what they were and bent down to pick them all up. Someone had left coins on the tracks to be flattened. There were 5 and they came home with me. I can't believe no one else noticed them!

It was good getting out with my camera yesterday. I am looking forward to my most favourite holiday, Thanksgiving which is coming up this weekend. It always seems to sneak up on us! But first, I have to get through a busy week. I have a City Council Advisory meeting tomorrow night and then an orientation for the UBC Health Mentor's Program on Wednesday night. I am excited to meet my students! I'll share more about that, soon. It's an amazing opportunity!