I could not believe the weather over our Christmas trip. Warm, calm, beautiful blue skies.

Not the Decembers I remember in that town.

After the long drive and a night cooped up in the basement guestroom, the heelers were ready for a break on Christmas morning. So my Dad and I took them for a walk along the hiking trail in the fields below their house. Didn't even need a vest, it was that warm.

This is absolutely the last open field left in this part of town. All the horny toad huntin' places I knew as a boy are gone. Apartments, mostly, but some to subdivisions. The main field ended up with a higher use, I guess. Our old field of weeds and abandoned bricks from the coal mine is now a park.

There's a baseball diamond standing where we played baseball.

But they don't use broken bricks for plates, and the hawthornes are gone from the outfield. At least they kept the cottonwoods. We never had tennis courts, and did our wading in the toad ponds down in the drainage ditch, not a fancy pool.

My dad brought along their Boston terrier, which had been furiously trying to attack the heelers at every opportunity since their arrival, as it does on all our visits. But once we were on the trail, and had it all to ourselves, I let the heelers off leash to run and roam.

And the Boston went with them. Shoving her short little nose into the same clumps of grass as they, all four noses pressed together as if they were in the same pack, and had been all their lives.

As we walked, my father pointed out the open slope where he would build a home, if he could. Surrounded by a field of yucca, the rise did have the best view. And as far as you could get from the two busy boulevards to the east and west.

All was well until the masked heeler decided to play a game of tug with her leash. Which brought on a vicious attack by the Boston, who apparently thought the heeler was attacking me (this is the Boston that slept with me when I was down for the funeral).

She bit the heeler in the butt. The masked heeler, on her sacred butt.

I thought she had just signed her death warrant.

But the masked heeler was taken aback, amazed that this little monster had actually done such a thing. Giving us just enough time to leash up the Boston again.

A nice walk, just the same. Went back down later with my brother, almost immediately, to get some shots with the camera. Including some of Zebulon's Mountain:

And saw the paper stapled to a small sign.

A public notice on the edge of our last remaining field. Announcing that the owners intended to build a high school sports complex, with baseball, softball, soccer and football fields. Groomed grass with parking lots and a concession stand.

The mark of death for our last field.

Merry Christmas.