Sometimes, life stinks.

So, a couple friends of mine and I went for a walk last night with "the girls." The two Viscla/Weimerainer pups belonging to Jerod and his parents. We're walking along the dirt dike surrounded by fields at sunset time. It was SO beautiful! It's the best time of day no matter what season here in North Dakota because it lasts SO long and the colors of the sky will often times change the full spectrum of the rainbow and really does take about an hour at least and the sky continues to change and move and swirl colors for up to an hour after the earth has swallowed the sun and EVERYthing around changes colors along with the sky. All the grasses transform into kelly branches to golden stems to emerald stalks and then eventually into forests of hunter and jungle greens. Pretty incredible.

Well, the clouds decided to go the WrOnG way last night and we didn't get to enjoy much of the sun's going down in quite the way the three of us had anticipated. But! The walk along the dike and through the grasses was quite lovely, even in the drizzle coming down. We just chatted and walked and the girls ran freely through the fields and came back to check on us periodically. We chewed on grains we picked, hid in the sunflowers and checked on how the soy beans were doing all the while comparing in contest the dirt clods gathering on our shoes.

We made quite a circle and as we were about 100 yards from the truck to head back for an evening of leisure, the girls found something. They are hunting dogs that love the country and explore every carcass and smell they find, no matter how disgusting. We saw Abbee, Jerod's dog of course, not the parents', start running after something. Teka came back but Abbee insisted on going on ahead with her instincts instead of listening to the heated call of her owner. Suddenly, she bolted up and over the hill toward us where she immediately hit her back and started thrashing violently. And with that, the smell hit us! AH! She found a skunk, very alive, very well, and very potent. The girls have found where a skunk has sprayed before and rolled around in it, and become quite stinky, but this topped all of those times. Exponentially. So, Jerod being Jerod, try to calm down his little girl and Teka, being her sister, got all kinds of too close.

The walk ended with Jessica driving home the truck, her all of about 5'4" frame behind the wheel of a four door Chevy Silverado with spunky, curly haired me sitting next to her laughing and singing all the way home with a 6'3" man in the back of the truck, holding onto two skunked dogs in the rain.