For the third week in a row, I’ve just returned from the woods. And for the third Saturday, I skipped the dance floor at the Rose, saving my energy for the dogs instead. While a night at the Rose usually leaves me Sunday-wrecked—not from the drinks, but from hours of high-energy movement—this month has been about a different kind of exertion. (I still get my fix on Thursdays, of course, but the weekends have belonged to the pines.)
Up there, Jess and Ridge shift into a higher gear. It’s obvious that this time in the mountains is a gift to them; they’ve spent the week coiled like springs, waiting for this specific freedom. Ridge is a blur of motion. When I call him over for a quick scratch behind the ears, he humors me for a heartbeat—a tactical check-in—before vanishing back into the firs. He has miles to cover and a deep-seated fear of missing whatever Jess has discovered.
This trip, I pushed into a new area and stumbled onto a rocky outcropping overlooking a thirty-year-old burn. The view forced a sudden, quiet halt. Where a dense, suffocating forest once stood, the land had opened its lungs. Now, it’s a sprawling sea of grassland and elk forage.
Standing on that rocky edge, I felt a familiar pull. On Thursday nights at the Rose, I’m surrounded by the effortless grace of the women I dance with—a beauty that’s refined and rhythmic. But here, in the middle of this old burn, there’s a different kind of allure. It’s the raw, unpolished beauty of a landscape reclaiming itself, transforming scar tissue into a sea of green. Both have a way of making you catch your breath. I’ll definitely be back.
#bordercollie #Colorado #yolo #ponderosapine #mystoryedited
I always take photos when the dogs and I are out on our adventures. At the time, they just feel like ordinary moments. Later, when the dogs are gone, those photos become priceless.
I’ve been fortunate to share my life with several border collies. Each one gave me loyalty, intelligence, humor, and unwavering love right up to the very end. Beau, in the pic below, was with me from 2014 to 2025.
I don’t take it lightly that, at this stage of my life, I still have the privilege of sharing my days with two more border collies. They aren’t replacements. They are their own bright, generous souls, and I am grateful for every walk, every adventure, and every photo we still get to take.
(click on photos below for larger image . . . - Esc or clicking outside of image will close it)
I am an old man, and I had come to believe my days of romance were long in the past. The sort of man who measures time in winters survived rather than summers ahead.
I loved deeply once. Only once. It was the kind of love that rearranges the furniture of your soul and never quite puts it back. When she told me she was leaving, she gave me months—merciful, terrible months—to try and mend what had worn thin. I did what men do when they are afraid: I promised, I softened, I remembered too late how to listen. But her heart had already stepped beyond the gate.
So I opened it.
I got out of the way.
The wilderness received me without questions. My border collies ran ahead on the trails as if joy were their birthright. Spruce and fir stood indifferent and ancient. Streams cut their patient lines through stone. In the high country, wind moved across my face like a hand that asked for nothing. Given enough miles and enough silence, the ache in my chest thinned into something I could carry.
Solitude, though, is a sharp companion if you never set it down. So I returned to the country dance hall—the same scuffed floorboards, the same yellow lights, the same songs we once moved through without speaking. We had known each other’s timing by touch alone. I had never danced with anyone else.
The first time I asked another woman to dance, my voice nearly failed me. My hand hesitated at her waist, as if memory might object. It was awkward. Clumsy. Human. But the music did what music does. It carried us. Some nights, in those early days, I would dance one dance and go home, and consider that a success. I had gotten out there and done it. I kept going back.
I am an old man now. That much is true. But when a woman smiles and says yes, and we find a shared rhythm in the turn of a waltz or the quick step of a two-step, something in me answers back. Not the wildfire of youth. Something steadier. Kinder.
Romance, I have learned, is not always possession. Sometimes it is simply presence. The warmth of a hand in yours. The agreement to move together, if only for the length of a song.
#bordercollies #wilderness #romance #dance #mystoryedited