A Walk in the Park

Good Morning Citizens:
Many days I take my Chesapeake Bay Dog Mollie for a walk at the local nature park.  The 450 acre park is a reclaimed borrow pit and trash area with three small lakes interspersed with extensive wetlands and forested tracts.  This is as close as Mollie and I get to hunting most of the year.  I toss a few sticks in the water and Mollie never fails to swim out and retrieve them.
It was cold and misty yesterday when Mollie persuaded me to take her to the park   At the edge of the wetlands across from Whispering Pines Trail I let her off lead and threw a retrieval bumper into a pond.  It  lodged under the surface in silt and Mollie undeterred repeatedly waded  back into the pond searching for the bumper.  After much splashing about by the frustrated retriever the bumper surfaced and she fetched her prize up to where I stood.
"Bully, bully for her!," A voice shouted out from behind, "She kept after it until she found it.  Well done!"
I turned to see a large man an inch or two shorter than me eyeing us from the trail head.  A large golden Chesapeake Bay Dog sat at attention next to him.  I walked up the bank and shook his hand.
"Call me Colonel and walk with me," He commanded through a big toothy grin.  "Let me explain any number of things to you.  Bracing, this weather, is it not?"  And he strode off.
Like a good soldier and somewhat in shock, I replied, "Yes, sir." And then hurried up the trail to catch him.
More tommorrow.
Be well.
A Journeyman Citizen