Ah, look at that beautiful grass. All of those green leaves. I love summer. Please come back summer. I miss you already.

This morning I was being curious and investigatory while roaming around in the files stored on my hard drive. “What is in this folder?” I asked myself since the folder’s name was ambiguous: ’9.24 Photos.’ That’s a less than helpful title.

Because it’s Friday, I’ll share with you the folder’s photos. They are a, let’s say, random grouping, but I’ll try to narrate. If I can put the randomness into an order. I’ll try in earnest.

Photo 1 (above): This was from our time house sitting for friends who live on 10 acres of beautiful land. Ah, green. I probably took the photo knowing I would need it for the winter. I was right.

Photo 2: Then we are shown what comes only during winter – snow. Look at those adorable deer though. These were juveniles and this photo was also taken at our friend’s property. These cute face were captured by my husband’s photography skills.

Photo 3: He also took this photo. I remember not wanting to brave the cold, or chill, or falling wet snow, or leave the comfort of a warm blanket. But I appreciate that he did because this cardinal photo is great!

Thanks, love. Thanks for understanding that I’m from Florida and nearly cry when it gets this cold.

Photo 4: I did manage to get out in the snow for this photo. It was a requirement for me to leave the warm home because our cars were trapped in the garage; we needed to shovel ourselves out. At least the scenery made it tolerable. Okay, maybe more than tolerable.

It’s a bit like a fairy tale don’t you think?

Photo 5: This was the next photo in the folder. This was not on our friend’s property, but rather at my friend’s house from the zoo. She had ‘bear watch’ duty for the evening so she asked if we’d like to see the black bear cubs. Come to think of it, it might have also been for reinforcements.

Baby bears are cute, but they are notoriously the most high energy, rambunctious baby animals you could imagine caring for – that’s of any animal in the world – they have a reputation. That night, in all fairness, they did what comes naturally for them to do: climb, run, bite, climb, chew, explore, ram, climb, claw, and then pull down all of the books from the bookshelf along with the phone books and tear them to shreds all in a matter of one minute.

I don’t joke about this, it’s true. And she was taking care of two! Now I understand why Mama bears are so tough and tired looking. After this night, I had a new respect. And a few puncture wounds in my hand. Their energy was impressive. I’ll leave this job for the professionals and for bears. It leaves me exhausted just remembering it all.

I was attempting to feed the one above. It looks a bit precarious because it was. To calm them down, it helps to place your hand over their eyes so they can focus on drinking the milk. It was quite the feat, but all was well in the end.

My husband was a jungle gym that night. They would attempt to climb his legs, but he wasn’t keen on their claws piercing his skin. Then he would try to encourage them down, then they might think he was playing and proceed to bite and scratch. Then they would hop back on his legs for more playtime. Then he said, “when does this end” after it went on for five minutes. Then they climbed the side of the sofa and paraded across his lap to attempt to climb on a table to try and knock over a lamp.

That’s why I leave it to my friends, the professionals, to take on such tasks. Just keep inviting me over for an hour to take photos okay? Great, thanks!