Of pups and waterfalls

The current back cover of The Last Coon Hunter taken at the waterfalls shown in the videos.

These pups, Bella and Blaze, are naturally taken to streams.

That’s a good thing for the hills of Painted Post are replete with unnamed streams,
serving as the draw of hungry ringtails in search of frogs and minnows.

In the videos: the waterfalls that serve as the setting for several scenes (and the back cover of Book I) in the Ryland Creek saga and the other video upstream of those falls about a week earlier on an unseasonably warm, late-fall day.

Not shown in the video (I need a camera person to follow us!) are the pups and me scaling those waterfalls.

Climbing those waterfalls higher than I thought he could, Blaze waited patiently for me to lift him up and across the final gap so he could reach the top. That’s very good--he’s learning and already expecting me to be his woods partner. In a very short time, he won’t need assistance (and will have to wait for me) to overcome such obstacles.

That’s okay, a natural progression of things.

For her part, Bella reached nearly as high as her brother up those slippery rocks, giving me the c’mon-old-man-let’s-get-this-over-with-and-don’t-expect this-to-become-a-habit look as I hoisted her across that same gap.

Ah Bella, my wild child.

And that’s okay, too.

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