Many years ago I had a friend who was particularly fond of pornography. For reasons of discretion I won't be mentioning who it was, and would prefer that the few of you who might have ever known this person refrain from guessing. In any case, once, while discussing this interesting proclivity we came to the topic of growing bored with the same old thing. . . in his case printed magazines he had bought that had once been quite stimulating for him, but over time became rather dull. He observed that all he had to do to refresh his own interest in an image was to rotate it 90 or 180 degrees and it was as if it was a whole new picture. I always thought this was strange, but I believe I have found a corollary in the dog world.

Abner and I went to Biltmore a few days ago on a day that was warm and sunny. Generally, now that the temperature and humidity are up, I try to keep him on walks that are early, shady, or at high enough altitude that there is a decided temperature reduction. On this particular day, we decided to park at the Outdoor Center and walk one of the routes through what is known as the Westover trails. This is a network of trails that follow hills behind the Inn. They are densely wooded and have lots of rise and fall, so we can get good exercise and stay in the shade. There are several places we usually stop so Abner can have some water, and we rarely see others there. The trails seem to be primarily used by mountain bikers who are almost never there when we are.

So off we set, heading up a dirt road that skirts some of the areas in which the Angus heard (400 cattle at last count) graze and usually pay little attention to Abner. The beginning of this walk is pretty exposed, so I usually don't want to dawdle a lot since I want to keep him in the shade as much as possible. Consequently we made pretty good time going up the first hill and turned to head east toward the forest and the building I posted a while back where the egg layers used to be. Abner knows this route very well because we have done it so many times, but there is a very narrow trail that heads off to the right about 150 yards before you get to the hen building, that he has sniffed and shown interest in on previous walks.

Well, on this particular day, he was more than just interested and, for whatever reason, pulled me to that path. I figured, from its orientation, that it probably just headed back toward the Outdoor Center, but I also figured that we could take some alternative trail somewhere along the way, so I humored him and we started up this new unexplored route.

The undergrowth in this area was very dense and the canopy of trees fully leafed out, so it was dark and cool and rather exotic looking. Rabbits scurried across the trail a couple times which certainly amped up Abner's interest. As it turned out, the trail takes several hairpin turns as it ascends the hill and, in fact, took us back to the Westover trails that I knew but at a completely different location than the way we normally approach. We followed the trails through the whole loop we normally do, but in the reverse direction from the customary one and, for Abner, it was just like my old friend's porn experience. Coming from the opposite direction, the trails were fascinating new ground for him. After awhile, I think he figured out what had happened because he would smell shrubs on which he has peed hundreds of times and clearly could recognize his own scent. It was, however, kind of fun watching him get so excited about a "new" route.

The week was a fairly quiet one. It rained a couple times and we had some really sensational thunderstorms that lasted maybe 20 minutes at most. I attended numerous meetings continuing "due diligence" for this condominium project I may get involved in. Thursday night I actually cooked dinner for Eric and Regie Wahlberg (Spencer's parents) and Amy Musser and Matt Vande (Bear's parents). It is kind of pathetic how infrequently I do this. It isn't like I have no time. I guess part of my problem is that it seems like most of the people I know here are either vegetarians or have some other exotic restriction on what they are willing to eat. I have a somewhat limited repertoire in this department so I have mostly been inviting the few people I know who have a wider range of diet.

My new neighbors' house made a little progress this week. A grader came and removed every tree and shrub that wasn't right on the property line, and has largely leveled the lot. Doesn't bode well for a sensitively designed house, but I am still holding out hope. They have pushed dirt onto my side of the property line but thus far the infraction isn't so egregious as to cause a confrontation. If it gets worse I will have to go have a chat with them.

And now I seem to have picked up some crappy cold. I felt pretty crummy yesterday and had to attend three separate meetings about the project, and today I am just exhausted and am blowing my nose almost constantly. I don't think it is flu or anything that heavy duty but it is bad enough to make me feel lousy. Anyway, I think I am going to cut this post short. I am, however, once again, going to attempt to post photos. If one of you uses this blog host I would love some input into why this process fails 95% of the time.