Stopping By The Ausable On The Way To The Farm

I took another drive up to the farm last weekend. It had been quite a few weeks since the last visit and I was looking forward to the quiet isolation - no phones, no TV, no computer. The weather was comparatively mild and I was able to drive off the road into our favorite little campsite for a rest stop along the way. Seamus was happy about it also:

Wally and Winky were also overjoyed but, being old and short-legged, they lagged far behind the younger dogs. Wally is almost blind and Winky is stubborn, crabby and independent, so I kept turning around and calling them as we progressed slowly into the forest:

The four younger dogs, by contrast, considered it a wonderful place to run and work off some excess energy:

This is winter at its finest - enough snow to make things beautiful, but not too cold and windy. It was just right, and Seamus managed to find the energy to do some trail running:

It became clear to me that Wally's eyesight is getting worse and that he really can't see much of anything. Furthermore, he gets fascinated by his surroundings and sometimes forgets to keep up with us. So I call him and watch him carefully lest he wander off into the forest and get lost. Notice the mountain in the background of this picture. They frame nearly every Adirondack scene:

Clover, Winky, Seamus and Daphne on the trail. The brown leaves clinging to the branches and adding so much beauty to the forest were on the beech trees:

We sometimes left the trail to explore the forest but didn't go too far:

When the trail turned and headed down toward the Ausable River, I instead called the dogs back to me and we retraced our steps back to the car:

Fergus explored the sights, sounds and smells of the Adirondack forest with a friendly mountain in the background keeping watch:

And the "Silly Sister" just loved to run:

Old Winky and Wally took their time and needed much encouragement, but their joy at being outdoors was as great as the youngsters':

But this was, after all, just a rest stop on our journey up to the farm. We made our way back to the car and I counted dogs several times to satisfy my mind that all of them were safely in the car. Then I pointed the car north once again and we continued on our way: