Black, White and Orange

I might make this a recurring thing.

Hiking days are Tuesday, Thursday and maybe Saturday or Sunday.  Other days are "rest" days where we walk 2 miles or more in urbania and go to the dog park.  I much prefer hiking days but I cannot afford to go everyday.  Today was rather warm on the trail but we still logged a little over 3 miles.
Conker saw, for the first time ever, a deer.  It was all "Ooh lookit me just BOUNDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!  I'm so great, I just know it la la la la la, la la."  Conker stared like mad but didn't try to chase.  I could tell he wanted to, he was almost shaking he wanted to that badly, but he didn't. 

My Pictures

They are back.  Wooooo

I think I'm gonna buy some Honest Kitchen.  Just have to actually get myself to do it, since I've got this spiffy $3 off coupon thing I should probably use before it expires in two days.  I really hate ordering stuff online though, especially if it comes with a tracking number since I obsessively check it's progress like I've been doing with my shoes.

Off-Leash Derps

Went hiking today. 

And brought all three dogs with me.

This could easily have gone terribly wrong since I decided to let all of them off their leashes.  Much to my complete surprise, Juneau responded faster than the other two.  Sasha just derped around and Conker was his normal Shiba self who contemplated commands before obeying them.

We only hiked about 3 or so miles on the Outback Loop and Bridges trails.  It was still pretty fun and thankfully we didn't run into any people or the two horses that were on the trails. 
Juneau was a bit scatterbrained when it came to smelling critter trails and shoving her stupid face into the burr grass and getting burrs stuck allover her dumbness, but she was good enough that I never had to permanently put her back on the leash (me holding it).  I think with a bit more training that she could be a good off-leash dog, but for the time being she gets to wear the leash and just drag it around since she is a lot better with it like that.

This picture took more than 10 tries to get.

Dirtyface

In other news...
Conker doesn't really fit into the basket on my Mom's bike but after he refused to trot beside it, he had no choice but to squeeze his butt into the basket and ride home that way.  He was in no manner pleased, at all, but stayed in the basket the whole time.  I hope he won't continue to dislike being around bikes, I really want to do some trail riding at Cathedral Hills sometime soon and it'd be a shame to leave him at home.  (And take Juneau instead...)


In other other news...
Breaking Bad is a good show.  Go watch it if you haven't yet.  Now.

Went hiking again

We went back to Cathedral hills for the third time this week.  I really like that place, it's a lot of fun.  This time we went on the Backside Loop, W Trail and Wild Rose Loop.

It's cooling off really quickly right now.  It was about 86 earlier today then the temp dropped to 83, and in the past two hours it's gone down to 74 and there is a thick bank of clouds rolling in.  There is supposed to be rain in them clouds, and I don't doubt that it'll drop on us.  It's forecast to rain almost all night and day tomorrow, then stop for a bit then start up again.  After that it looks like the temperatures are going to stay in the mid to high 70's for a while.

No Pictures, But I've Got a Video!

I am still trying to figure out what to do over my loss of photos.  The blog is really kinda boring without them.  In the meantime, here is a video I took yesterday while on our hike.

WELL...

I have apparently exceeded my photobucket bandwidth.  Since I'm cheap and will not pay for such services, I guess the blog will be lacking photos for the rest of this month.
Sorry about that.

Edit:  Just figured out why my pictures aren't showing up... I wasn't paying attention while uploading photos and went over by one on my limit.  Oops!   I guess they punish you for doing that by taking away viewing capabilities of your pictures for the rest of the month.

More Cathedral Hills

We went back to Cathedral Hills today.  Hiked about 5 or so miles on the Outback Loop, Manzanita Tunnel (not a tunnel), Timber Ridges, Skycrest and Skycrest Loop trails.  Had lots of fun, only ran into a couple people and Conker behaved around them.

Orange Bandanna

I bought Conker an orange bandanna at the Blondie's dog thing.  I forgot about it the first time I went to Cathedral Hills but stuck it on him today.  Not only is he much cuter with the bandanna (oops) but it serves two purposes:  One is to make him more visible as fall approaches, so no hunter-types will pop out of the bushes say "Oh, I thought your dog was a fox!" Also, since it's still quite warm out (86 today) it doubles as a cooling thing.  Whenever we stopped for water I'd dunk his bandanna in the water then put it back on.  He seemed to like how it kept him cooler and he appeared to have more energy than he did last time.

Dumbass

Somewhere in the middle of the hike we found a pick-nick table. Conker got up there and posed like a dumbass with his ears all super upright and aimed out.

We saw some more neat scenery. (This time I remembered that the leaf rustling was squirrels and they didn't freak me out when I heard them)

The Skycrest Loop was my favorite part of the hike.  It's a short loop (duh) that is more like high desert than Northwest forest.  Being a desert person I highly enjoyed the exposed, sun-drenched and hot hillsides a lot more than Conker who quickly ducked from shady patch to shady patch.  This is where his wet bandanna came in handy.


In case you didn't know, I've been going barefoot since the beginning of April (almost six months!).  This trail feels awesome on my feet which don't really like the rough sidewalks we've got here.  I can't wait for my new shoes to get here so I can walk around "barefoot" on the sidewalks and when it gets colder without loosing my nice leathery feet.

Cathedral Hills

I finally got myself over to the Cathedral Hills hiking trail system.  I have no idea why I haven't gone before now but today I decided I was sick (oh so very sick) of walking through neighborhoods on pavement.  I'd rather have a flat, barren, rocky, hot and desolate trial than a nice, cool, shaded neighborhood to walk on, that's how much I hate walking in "civilized" areas.

Anywho, the Cathedral Hills trail system is only 5.6 miles from my house (about 15 minutes away) and is right next to a golf course country club thing and lots of private property.  Here is a map of the trail system:  Clicky

I packed Conker into my Jeep and headed out around 12:40.  We got there shortly before 1 and hit the trails.  I'm not entirely sure where we went exactly, I didn't have a map of the trails on hand, but we were out there for a little under two hours.  I do know that we were on the Backside Loop, Outback, Hogback and a couple side trails in the system and explored about 5 miles of it. 

The scenery changed depending on if you were on top of, on the side of or at the bottom of a hill.  The trails also varied depending on intended use.  The horse trails were wider and often in flatter areas.  The hiking trails were smaller and in rougher areas.  All of them had trees and all types had varying amounts of cover.  Sometimes you were out in the open, other times in the middle of a dense forest.  There were a couple places on some ridges that gave you nice views of the surrounding moutnains.

I've discovered that I'm more paranoid about that's making sounds in the forest than Conker is.  I guess he can tell that what the animal is without having to see it, since I stopped at least two times and stared into the woods for the source of leaf rustling, only to have been duped by a squirrel on both accounts.  It was probably the same squirell...

We did see a couple other things and the most interesting one was this guy.

Wolf spider?

I have never seen one of these before, and he was in quite a hurry to cross the path.  He stopped when Conker and I thundered over him and just sat there.  I wanted him to move into the sun so I could get a better picture but no manner of gentle poking could get him to budge.  He did flare up in that menacing spider pose but still didn't move into the sun, and I decided to leave him alone after that since I am not sure if he was poisonous or not. 

Conker, I have found out, is a lazy ass.  He loves downhill and is fine with flat stuff but once the terrain begins to go up he lags behind and plays the drama card.  Even the smallest incline will get him to do this so I know he's not actually tired or anything, and as soon as the hill is over he perks up and turns back into his old stupid self again.

Conker was kept on-leash for the good majority of the hike.  It's a new area and there were many blind corners, but I did let him off on the wider more open section at the end of the hike.  I think he enjoyed it (except the uphill parts) and I'm going to try to go back there several more times this month.  It is only 15 minutes away and there are over 10 miles of trails to explore.  Still plenty more to do out there.

Whole Life: Freeze Dried Treats

I heard about this company called Whole Life who makes freeze dried treats.  I also heard that they send out free samples, so I plugged in and requested some.  I waited a couple weeks and this little white box arrived on my porch last Friday. I opened it up to see... a piece of paper.  When you remove the paper you get:

10 samples of treats!  Each bag contained at least two treats, some as many as five.  Conker seemed to know that the box was for him since he sat very impatiently beside my bed as I rummaged through the box.

Me being me, I had to take all the samples out of the box and line them up on my bed.  I intentionally didn't get them perfect just to spite myself.  They are color coded according to type of protein.

They are in no particular order:  Beef, turkey, chicken, lamb, venison, salmon, cod, beef liver, chicken liver and lamb liver. They make a couple other things too.

I'm not going to post the guaranteed analysis since there are ten items, and since they all consist of one ingredient.  They are all linked though, if you are curious what the GA is on them.

Conker tried three varieties off the bat.  Beef, turkey and chicken.  He loved all three and was performing sits and downs without me asking.  He only does that for something he really really wants.

Anyways, I was curious about the price of these since I haven't seen them in stores, and since Conker liked them so much I might pick up a bag.  I looked online and the prices were OUTRAGEOUS.  The lowest I found (didn't look very hard) was $10 for a 4 ounce bag of the chicken treats, and the price only went up from there.  Then again, these are freeze dried and you get a TON of treats per ounce so maybe the price isn't that bad.  Still, I have yet to see them in person and I'll be able to get a better idea of just how many are in a 4 ounce bag when that happens.


Edit:  I've had Conker try all the other varieties.  He wasn't so fond of the lamb liver or cod but everything else was good.  I think his favorite type is the turkey.