Last week, I made a deal with the puppy. She's four months old now—legal age to cut deals.

"Two walks a day," she said, "each on neutral territory like a state park or mountain trail, one in the morning and another in the evening. And some jumps in the back yard," she continued, suggesting we use a couple of the tree stumps laying around out there. "Some type of slalom course, too, and a ladder to climb up and down." I was all.

You demanding little female daw..

"Awwww, I'm not done!!" She said contemptuously with two exclamation points before I finished my sentence. "A berm shot around the oak tree in the muddy corner like a downhill mountain bike course and a rope swing by the hammock."

For a four month old puppy, your English is remarkable but you don't call the shots here! Our second walk will be around the neighborhood, not a trail or state park, now show me where you want that rope swing.

Then it rained.

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And rained.

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Three days! Then we had an appointment at the vet where I pick up her monthly dose of heart worm / flea / tic on the other side of the mountain so I went like.

Look, I don't care if you don't care it's raining. I'm not going out there. But, if it's not raining tomorrow, we'll find a cool spot after we get your pill.

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That's why they call this area of the Appalachian Mountains The Smoky's. They spell it with a Y like that, too.

With the amount of rainfall here, annually, and drastic temperature changes in the fall and spring where it'll be sub-freezing at night and 75 degrees at noon, as the trees dry out, they smoke.

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The office ladies all came out from behind the counter to adore Atlas for a minute before we took off to a cool spot like I said we would if it isn't raining tomorrow. It's tomorrow now. It's not raining.

State park, not sure what it's called. The one across from Rural King that sells everything from live chickens to ammo and beach towels where a young employee was shot and killed for trying to stop a customer from shoplifting two months ago.

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Nice park. Paved footpaths, a little playground for the kids, picnic area, toilets, trash cans, more park stuff. Grass, too, it's everywhere except for where it isn't. And about that many trees. They're doing the dead look.

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And a lake. Lake Isn'tSupposed2BThere, I've since decided to call it for this article. Pretty sure it was a stream or maybe even a creek last week but it rained for three days. Not rain like don't forget your umbrella, either, rain like kayak to work day.

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I don't have a kayak.

The End

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