Red-Winged Blackbird at Heather Farms 3/08/09

Part1

Because we live in California, the San Francisco bay area to be exact, Pascal, (my bedlington terrier,) and I, have the good fortune of being able to go for long walks almost every morning, unhindered by weather. We usually go either downtown to walk, Pascal loves all of the attention he gets from so many people, or we go to Heather Farms which has acres and acres of park land, is gorgeous any time of year, and from Pascal’s perspective, is olfactory heaven!

Which place we go, is usually determined by my mood on that particular morning. Notice I said “my”-  I constantly have to remind myself that there are two of us experiencing this walk~  sometimes from very different perspectives!

We hadn’t been to Heather Farms in several days and even though it was rather cold, (upper 50′s,) the sun was out and showed promise of creating a beautiful day. I put Pascal’s coat on him. A few days ago I thought perhaps he no longer needed to wear it this winter, but when I started the car I looked over at him,  and his whole body was quivering. It was so sad to see. I turned the car off and ran back into the house for his coat.

When we got to Heather Farms, I hardly knew which way to look first. It seemed like so many things were at their spring peak, in full bloom. The colors were absolutely vibrant, as you can see in the photo above. The meadow, filled with the yellow and green of mustard flowers contrasted beautifully with the little red-winged blackbird perched on a mustard flower stalk. What a picture that would make!

Holding Pascal’s leash and simultaneously trying to capture the beauty surrounding us with my camera, was proving to be a tough challenge. Everytime I was about to click a photo, Pascal would tug the leash and cause my hand to move. That annoyed me and I’d say, “No Pascal!” and tug him back-  only to have the same thing happen all over again. Finally, I gave up taking the picture and focused my attention on Pascal.

His nose was jumping from one clump of mustard flowers to another- No wonder the leash had been  tugging erratically!  Then I realized, his nose was excited to capture the spring experience encapsulating us, in the same way that my eyes were excited and “tugging” me to the viewfinder of my camera lens! So while the picture above reflects my experience of this part of our walk, (I managed to get one good one before he tugged- )  Pascal’s experience of the same part of our walk, would more accurately look like this in the photo on the right! ~  Part 2 will continue our walk-  from 2 perspectives~

From Pascal’s Perspective