Today was another rought one - rolled out of Colton at 3 AM, took our
first break at 8 PM, won't get a full 8 hours of sleep until tomorrow
morning. Harri has been very good and very patient, looking forward to a
long dark walk at the Sacramento yard. When we got to the customer we
learned that they our delivery appointment is for 4 AM Thursday, not the
8 PM Wednesday we had been dispatched. So it's down the road to Ripon to
sit for 8 hours and maybe get a bit of a nap.

Since Harri had been so good I decided a kitten walk was in order. I had
parked on the edge of the truck stop adjacent to an open field. Across
the field is an almond orchard. Harri has never been interested in
orchards before, but tonight was different. Tonight the orchard was magic!

Harri wanted to go as deep into the orchard as she could. Her mean Paw,
though, wouldn't let her go more than 4 rows deep. Even with a good
flashlight I'm not confident that I can see hazards before Harri gets to
them. And I don't know what kind of chemicals they might spray. ANd on
my own account, I'm afraid of walking into spider webs. I'm not overly
fond of arachnids and have had a couple really unpleasant experiences
walking into large webs.

What really made tonight special is that Harri learned that she can
CLIMB! As she walks past a tree she'll check it out to see if the bark
is just the right consistency. If it is she'll walk a few feet past it,
turn, zoom towards it, and climb as high as her little kitten paws will
take her. She generally makes it 5 to 7 feet - about as high as I'm
willing to let her go. The trees are only 8 or 10 feet tall, so she
can't go high enough to be dangerous.

Seeing her trot between the trees, tail held high and waving back and
forth, zooming at trees and pouncing on invisible bugs - night walks
just don't get much better than that. I can't find words that fully
describe just how happy Harri makes me, and what a delight it is to see
her enjoy her little kitten self.

Dan