Tasha comes running

Yesterday afternoon the weather was sunny and nearly warm. The sun was low in the sky by 4:30. That's when I took Tasha out for her walk. I was blinded by the light on the way out, toward the west.

There's a point out on the vineyard road, about a kilometer from the house, that Tasha seems to have identified as the natural place to end the walk. At least when she's with me. Maybe that's the limit of what she considers her territory, or her comfort zone.

Yesterday I went beyond that point. Tasha hung back, watching me from a distance. I stopped, stretched out my arms, and she came running. Still, she acted like she didn't want me to grab her and pick her up — didn't want me to take her farther out. She ran a circle around me, turned back toward home, and looked over her shoulder to signal me to follow.

As we walked toward home on the road, I saw a tractor coming toward us, so I took Tasha off to the side, into the rows of vines. The ground is a little less mushy right now, and we hadn't been off the gravel road for a while — too muddy — so that made her happy. The tractor was driven by a man I know who lives not in our hamlet, but in the next one over. I shouted Bonne Année! at him as he passed by.