I See Fire / Autumn Colors at the Mahala Gate

The hurricane remnants that we thought would be gone by now, weren't. And the afternoon would turn into a great big soggy mess, with lots of rain. I wonder if the PA counties that were in drought or near it are out of it by now. I hope so. It felt like a lot of rain.

I looked at the weather map, and the tail of the hurricane moving down toward us like a finger almost reminded me of a dragon's tail, spinning back around to get us, like that moment where the Balrog's tail comes back around and knocks Gandalf off that bridge. But . . . with dragons instead, you know? Maybe more along the lines of the Desolation of Smaug. Go away, dragon; we're done here.

And so we went out in the morning to do a thing or two, which included my husband dropping me off at the other side of town so I could do the Mahala Street walk. This is one of the gates near the start of my walk. As you can see, this is more of a cow path than anything else; calling it a street gives it far more credit for amenities than it deserves, LOL!

So here is a picture of some of the gentle colors starting at the Mahala gate. From here it is about an hour or a bit more for me to walk home. We estimate it at about a three-miler. It used to impress me back in the day, but that was before I started walking two miles most days. Now it just seems a bit more than usual, not overwhelmingly so; a thing to do when I have time.

I ran into two sets of people with dogs. The first set was three people with dogs, two of them with pit bulls, which are sweet doggies, I know, and great big babies, because people I know have some, and they are dear. But I always step off the path to let people by. People with dogs or horses get an even wider berth.

The second set of people was two of my favorite ones: a couple, man and woman, with a big black lab. I often see them in the Scotia Barrens, also known as gameland 176; we practically live there. Some weeks, we pass each other several times in the Barrens. But no, though we have spoken often in the woods, I don't even know their names!

We let their good doggie off leash to lick and kiss me, and we all stopped and said Hello. They both had on blaze orange, as we all should, as archery season is upon us. Somehow I'd forgotten about it, and so I got a little lecture from the woman. "You just worry, you know?" she said, her eyebrows frowning over my safety. Thank you, friend. I promise I'll do better next time!

Here is a song for the start of the autumn colors. It is still mostly green in the Barrens, with a bunch of gold in the trees, and a bit of orange or red here and there; but there's flame starting in these hills. My soundtrack song is this one: Ed Sheeran, with I See Fire, from the Desolation of Smaug.