Halloween is tough on diets. Those cute little chocolate bars are hard to resist. This year I had a plan. I would only buy the stuff I knew I wouldn’t eat. Good plan! Peanut butter gives me a terrible headache, so I picked up a box of Reese’s Pieces candy and peanut butter cups. Plan A was working. I didn’t even open the box until the trick-or-treater’s showed up. As a matter of fact, I totally ignored the chocolate until the next day. There was about half a box of chocolates left. But I can’t have peanut butter, so its OK right? Wrong. Some fool at the chocolate factory decided to put some little Oh Henry bars in the box with the Reese’s Pieces. Do you think I could keep my hands off of those little yellow packages? Nope. So plan B came into action. Run. Run for a long time and burn all that fat and sugar that came in the little yellow packages. It should give me a boost, make me run faster and better right? Well if nothing else maybe I will find a longer trail to run.

My goal for today’s run was to find the trails we used on our 10 K race a few weeks ago. I knew they started over behind the college, so off I trotted. The trail was well marked, and quiet. None of the usual dog walkers and joggers that pollute my regular trail. The path wound downhill into some nice trees and beside a lake. And by lake, I mean big slough, but around here they call it a lake. The lake had a very thin layer of ice on it. It was beautiful in the morning light. I ran along admiring the beauty of the lake, listening to my ipod, and try not to trip over any roots. Standing on the ice 20 feet into the lake, was a small critter. It was furry and brown and kind of hunched over as if it was looking into the water. How it managed to keep from breaking through the ice was a mystery, but it just stood there. I put my ipod on pause, and took a few minuets to admire creation. Sneaking closer to the edge of the lake white man style ( aka crashing through the bush), I got a closer look at my ice walking friend. It was a small beaver. It was sitting quietly on the thin ice, watching the open water in front of it. In the background on the other side of the lake, there were oodles of Canadian geese. They were flying in and landing as organized as  any busy airport. Amongst the geese were a few swans. Long white necks and black beaks. Even from afar they are an amazing site. The geese kept coming and going in groups and they were all vocalizing their thoughts. As I tried to sneak closer to the little beaver, it became nervous and jumped into the water and disappeared. With one gone, I noticed there was another one just a few yard further down the lake. It too was standing on the ice. This one was looking around as if to say “look at me! I can walk on water!!”. I moved and it jumped into the water, swam in some dizzy circles and then went under the water. Happy with my adventure, I ran off along the trail to see what else I could see.