Beyond Your Backyard: Savoring the Season

If you’ve ever had the honor of being a dog’s person, you know they are always ready for adventure. Wherever you’re headed, whatever you’re doing, they’re excited to go with you. As the summer comes to an end I’ve been thinking more and more about my 15.5-year-old coonhound-lab mix, Savannah, and all the adventures we’ve had together.

Fall is my favorite time to adventure. Maybe it’s something about how her black-bronze coat, now feathered with so much gray, blends with the golden and rich, deep purple of prairie grasses illuminated by the sun on these increasingly shorter days. You know the days I mean, where the bright blue of the Minnesota sky seems to go on forever, broken only where it meets the hazy edges of the gently waving grasses below it. As the nights cool off and the air gets crisper with the spicy smell of leaves ready to change, I am grateful for the days where summer is able to stretch her long arms into fall to warm the daylight hours.

This season of change is for savoring. Savoring the warmth in the moments we spend outside before the calm, cold cloak of winter surrounds us.

In Minnesota we have over 1,300 miles of state-managed trails and over 12 million acres of state, federal and county managed lands all in your public ownership. That’s roughly 2.14 acres a person. Get out there and explore them. You just might see me and Savannah enjoying this last bit of joy together, her long hound ears flapping in the wind, legs trotting faithfully forward, heart racing, blazing a trail past the golden- and blue-tipped grasses, enjoying her piece of public land all made possible because someone like you understood the value of having space to savor the season.

#exploremn #discovertheprairie #publiclands #publiclandowner