For the love of a Lady: Birthday ruminations on life, a dog's life.

Lady's a mutt. But she's a helluva companion to ramble around with. Even at 12 years old and with a nearly completely white muzzle, she's a looker, nearly identical to the dog pictured for Carolina dog (American or Dixie dingo) by the American Kennel Club. But Lady's a rescued pure mutt.

It's my birthday, give me sentimental leeway. The years pile up, though my next big birthday is a couple years away.

In late April, weeks after we moved to our new (final?) home in Homewood, Lady and I were doing our daily morning ramble around the big preserve a block away when a coyote stared us down from 30 feet. I swear I read the coyote's girl-you-look-good leer. Lady had none of it and we hiked on.

Our morning rambles are where I sort out things in my head, think mental yoga or contemplation, and keep my observation skills in the outdoors sharp.

I love the regular readers who send mushroom, animal, bird or insect/bug photos they observed while doing other outdoors pursuits.

To me, that is the heart of experiencing the outdoors, savoring the many layers of varied encounters.

A perfect example came from Brian Cornelius early last week. He was fishing at Busse Woods when he noticed a surprise, which "stuck out in the middle of the woods. Is this a Venus fly trap?"

I'm far from a mycologist or botanist, but I knew it wasn't a Venus fly trap. The best I deduced was a red russula mushroom, with which Andrew Miller, Ph.D., mycologist and director of the Illinois Natural History Survey's Herbarium/Fungarium at the University of Illinois, agreed.

Similarly, I enjoy fishing with Hall-of-Famer Matt Mullady, because we always catch nice smallmouth bass from the Kankakee River. What sets him apart is that our observations comfortably veer into grosbeaks, robins, ospreys, bald eagles, wild turkeys and deer. He gets the point that the outdoors is many-splendored.

But Lady is my most reliable connection to the outdoors world with our rambles. Late July was a perfect example with notable finds on back-to-back days. First I spotted an American dagger moth caterpillar (like most, I had to look it up) on the sidewalk when we were almost home. The next day, I spotted a velvet spike buck on a preserve trail eyeing us before Lady noticed the deer.

I fear the years catch up to her quicker than to me.