This Morning's Walk

When I'm heading out for my exercise walk in the morning, I don't have a whole lot of choice in where I can go, without getting in the car and driving.  We live on a block that is one mile square.  We're on the west side of the square, the house faces west.  Right across the road from us there is a sort of subdivision (5 acre pieces), and it is a mile  in total to walk around that.   So I head either up or down the road, and even when I get to the closest corner, I can only go one way.

There was a little excitement when we first got started.

See the rabbit?

Heading up the 1/4 mile to the first coner

At the corner looking north at Golden Ears mountain.  The road turns east here.

A cute mailbox.  There's another mailbox along that stretch, that has two surveillance cameras pointing out of the ivy on each side of the post.

After 1/2 mile of flat, and 3/4 mile of uphill, we reach the highest point.

I was trying to get the hazy hills in the background, and so ended up with the foreground kind of dark.

The road is running straight east.  We walked down past the end of the pavement you can see, and then around the corner for 1/4 mile.

A lovely view down this part. 

Mt. Baker to the southeast in Washington.

And now we are turned around and heading back up the hill.  Why does the hill never look as steep through the camera?

Mush, dogs, mush!

It was easier to walk up it than bike it though.

Looking north.

Holstein heifers, of the none mailbox variety

These are rows of hazelnuts.  They aren't really being grown for the nuts though, they are creating the ideal environment for truffles.  And not the chocolate ones either.

This farmer used to raise pigs.  

I wonder if he kept a pig or two to dig up his truffles?

A random poppy that has seeded itself along the ditch.

On the way back I did pass Larry walking with his sometimes walking partner and his wife.  Larry walked with me yesterday.  He said I walk twice as fast as them.  

I do like to walk by myself.  That way I can go when I want, and where I want and as fast as I want.

I don't think I'm really a team player

On the last 1/4 mile to home, I met a neighbour walking up the road.  He told me that one of our sheep was down and couldn't get up.  I figured it would be April.  So instead of a nice cool down on the last stretch, I figured I'd better run.  

Yep, there was April, on a side slope, on her side, her back facing down hill, and her legs stuck out at a 45 degree angle.  I heaved her upright, she toddled up the hill, peed, shook herself, and a few minutes later had started to eat.

When Larry got back he said she had been up and eating when he left, so I figured she'd probably been stuck no more than 10 minutes.  No harm done.

April, now 15 1/4, is actually moving around better than she was a month ago.  She not quite ready to kick the bucket yet.

And for the dogs and I , another 4 miles done.

Update:  Calli is doing quite a bit better.  I have made a chiropractor's appointment for all the dogs though. It will be interesting to see if she finds anything 'different' in Calli's back.

Maypole Dancing Gone Wrong

We had two farmers markets this weekend.  So of course in the previous two weeks I had spent a lot of time making jam and doing the sewing that didn't seem to get done over the summer.

Yeah right!

It always seems that on the Friday before a market, I am trying to get all the things done that I had thought I was going to get done in the previous week, or two, since the last market we were at.  I also seem to have this inflated idea of how much I can actually accomplish on that one day.

I started out well, we were back inside from our farm type chores and the walk around the bush at a decent time.  So, I was just going to have a cup of coffee and a few minutes on the computer before I got started on some jam.  I just happened to start looking at condos, for that, um, family member that needs a little help to fly the coop again.  Of course a few minutes turned into an hour or so.  

I finally got my act in gear,  and got three kinds of jam made before I stopped for some lunch.  All the while I was looking out of the kitchen window at the beautiful sunny day, watching Larry going back and forth, doing this and that, and it was so nice out there he had shed his jacket and was down to a t-shirt.

And then I threw down the towel, or the ladle, or wooden spoon, or whatever, and said to hell with it, I'm going outside.  

We gathered all three dogs, who really didn't need much gathering, since once they realized a walk was in the works, they were all over us.  Into the car we piled and off we went.  This time we were going to the Hogan Family Nature Reserve, which is only 10 minutes away but in the 24 years we have lived here, we have never been to.  Actually, I lie.  We have been to it, just never through it.   Years back when we used to go out on Citizen's Patrol we drove down there one night to check that no undesirable types were hanging around.  (Not quite sure what we would have done if there had been any undesirables)  It is down at the end of a narrow little road, that is more like a lane.  Basically it is probably 5 acres of bush and a creek with a rough trail through it. Since it was a nature reserve, we thought we should keep the dogs on leashes.  By this point they were beside themselves with excitement, oh wow, a new place, and there seemed to be some really hot scents.

Now I can walk the three dogs on extending leashes by myself down the road without much trouble.  Calli and Luna's leashes in my left hand and Jake's in my right.  After we have been going a few minutes, Calli is usually near me or a bit behind, Luna is towing leading me down the road, and Jake is out in the middle of the lane to my right.  No matter if you walk with the traffic or against it, he always wants to walk out on the road.  Good thing our road is relatively quiet, but he does know what 'car' means, and will move over onto the shoulder if a car is coming.  Most of the time it is like a well coordinated dance.  I can press the button to stop one dog from veering off course and under another dogs leash, which is usually Jake dashing over to pee where one of the other dogs just went.  I picture it as like a maypole dance, which both David and Meredith did in elementary school as kids, and we watched for many years as part of the Mayday celebration.

I'm the pole (although not tall and slender, well maybe thirty years ago..) and the dogs are the dancers at the end of the ribbons, and it usually works with relatively few tangles.  When Larry and I walk together, which is most of the time, he walks on my right (you know, very chivalrous to protect me from the traffic) and he has Jake, who is out to the right flirting with traffic.  I have Luna and Calli, and quite often I am to be seen with my left arm stretched back as Calli stops to smell something, and Luna is straining ahead to get to the next smell.  My sweaters all seem to be short in the arms now.  So for the most part the 'Maypole Dance' works pretty well.

Once we headed into the little park with it's rough, narrow trail, it was a disaster.  Two people, three dogs, extending leashes, hot smells, trees and shrubs and branches and logs and.....well we spent the first half of the walk unwinding our selves from leashes, dogs from other dog's leashes, leashes from branches and bushes.   I just had to laugh.  I couldn't imagine what a non-dog person would have thought if they'd seen the mess were in.  The chances of meeting anyone else were next to nil, thank dawg.  We probably wouldn't have even been able to get off the trail to let them by, as we would have been too tangled up.  Anyone that has seen our three 'well behaved' dogs hanging around at our booth at the farmers market would have had their bubble burst if they could have seen us there.  Finally, after 10 minutes or so, the excitement died a bit, and the second half was relatively under control.  Before we knew it, we were at the end of the trail.  One of those 'been there, done that' and it will probably be another 24 years before we go back.

The walk was so short that we continued on to another nature park where it was open field, and the dancing was more under control, and we could unwind a little bit:)

Come For a Walk With Us

Anytime from about mid afternoon on, every time we make a move to head outside, the dogs start going nuts. It's walkies time!  You'd think they were locked in crates all day.  Some days we stick close to home and just go up or down the road, or around the block.  Other times we go down to the dyke or wherever else we can think of that is a bit of a change of pace.  It's always preferable for it to be at least partially off leash.  Abbotsford has three official off leash areas.  I don't want to go somewhere that has a lot of dogs, as Luna isn't particularly great with dogs she doesn't know.  She is kind of snarky, and then if they want to play and start running, she gets into barking/herding mode.

I suggested we head to the east to the off leash area along the Sumas drainage canal, where we hadn't been before.  You take the north parallel road from the Whatcom Rd/Hwy 1 interchange and park just east of Atkinson Rd on the north side of the canal in the parking area.  This part is called the McKay Creek trail.

There are spots were there is fairly easy access to the water, so it would be nicer in warmer weather for the dogs to swim.

That white bridge in the distance was where we had to cross over to the dyke on the south side.

The end of the trail comes out almost in some one's yard, and you walk right past a small paddock with these two guys in it:)  

I told Larry that Pride needed a goat buddy too.

The we crossed over that white bridge and headed down the dyke on the south side, heading east towards Chilliwack.  

Calli kept going down to the steep bank to the water, and then because she doesn't have any push with her back legs, she couldn't always get all the way back up. Sometimes one of us would have to scramble down part way and grab her collar and haul her up, and every time Luna would charge over and it was kind of like she was giving Calli heck!

In one of the corn fields there was quite a large flock of Trumpeter Swans  spread out.  They are huge birds.  

I don't think I've seen them before.

And on the far bank there was a Great Blue Heron

We've definitely seen those before.

You can just barely see the heron along the bank to the right of center.

Before you get to this area there is a rifle range right up against the mountain.  It was a little noisy.   I thought it might bother Jake, but he was okay with it.

Also, the freeway is about half a mile or so away, so there is the constant roar of that.

And here we came across the rare Sumas Monster, kind of like a cross between a crocodile and a rhinoceros 

We didn't actually get any sun, but we could see blue sky in the distance, shining on the mountain peaks, and the view was beautiful

That's Mt. Cheam on the left

We didn't walk all the way to the end of the dyke, but turned around just past this tree with a large nest in it.  An eagle's maybe?

On the way back we spotted this, a cormorant.  Not what I expected to see here, I would think of them being more along the ocean.

And last but not least, a group of mallards snoozing on a log.

We were walking for at least an hour and a half.  We only met two other dogs, but as we were coming back on the south side, we did spot a few other people heading out from the parking lot on the north side.  It was well worth the drive:)

The Setting Sun

I love it when we've had a dull day, and then the clouds break and the sun comes out just before it sets.  It seems to make the the colours so vibrant, and this time of year everything seems to just glow.  About 5 yesterday afternoon we headed over to Douglas Taylor Park to take the dogs for a walk.

When I first looked at this shot in the camera after I had taken it, I thought, ooh, look at that big hawk sitting on the telephone wire.  The joys of needing reading glasses:(, which I actually have, just not with me.

A blueberry field on Mt. Lehman Road

On the trail, where the sun was gone and the light was dim, and I was trying to get the dogs to stay still enough so that they wouldn't be totally out of focus.

Lousy picture or not, a good time was had by all:)