Accidentally short hike

Conker and I hopped over to Cathedral Hills today with the intention of spending several hours there doing a long-loop, but instead we hiked less than 3 miles on accident.

Conker felt inclined to mark every few feet. He always does on the first mile or so of the hike. I don't wait for him, he always catches up before I get too far ahead.

This bridge is relatively new. Conker has a problem with bridges, he doesn't like to cross them for the first time. I have never really paid attention until now, but since this bridge has been put in, he has not crossed it yet. He's always gone around it. So today, I had him cross with me a couple times to show it was safe.
(Unlike the log at the creek, this bridge is built to support horses. It did not fall while we walked across it.)

We hiked along the Outback trail for a while then ducked onto a short and easy loop called Ponderosa. We haven't been on it in a while. During that stretch of the hike, we heard and saw many golfers (Cathedral Hills is bordered on one side by the local country club) and a couple of them were tromping through the woods, looking for their balls, I suppose.

This is where things got messed up. I "missed" the left-turn off Ponderosa back onto Outback and instead headed right back towards the t5railhead. I didn't notice until we were already halfway back. I would have turned around and just added an extra 1/2 mile to the hike, but I realized that I'd also forgotten the collapsible water bowl. Conker will drink out of my hand, but it's difficult, since he will only take a few laps at a time and can take up to five minutes to drink enough water at any given water-break.
We might go back tomorrow to make up for the messup today, even though I generally don't like to hike on Friday because of how many other people are on the trails.

On another note...
We saw a horse rider in the parking lot and as I was leaving, he flagged me down. He asked if Conker was a Shiba Inu, then said that he'd seen us before and that he'd done some research on the breed. I thought that was cool, and we chatted for a bit before heading back home.

Neckbones

Dogs all got some necks to munch today.

Turkey necks, eggs, ground lamb liver and pork fat... That sort of nonsense. It was greatly enjoyed by all.

Off-leash video

This is the same hike as this one. Conker loves to play this game, where he runs around me like mad. At the end, he runs up the hill and does not come right away. This is very typical after one of these games, and proves that while Conker is pretty reliable off-leash, he is not perfect. Which is why I always have to pay attention to our surroundings and why I practice recalls all the time.
Also, listen to the bell. Even in the video, you can still hear it when he almost goes out of sight.

Basking in the summer heat

Today was a mildly hot, very relaxing day. It got to about 103 degrees which is "hot" for Southern Oregon, perfect basking temperatures for me. I did plenty of that, along with a glass of icy Conner Fields Land Lover Ale and a couple library books. Very nice for a good warm day.

The crappy cellular phone pictures have returned...

The dogs did a lot of in-house loafing as I basked either out in the trailer (which got to, at the hottest, 101 degrees) or under the awning. It was truly a fabulous day with a few clouds here and there, a light summery breeze, and plenty of ambient warmth. Oh how I have missed this kind of weather.

Mother Nature can be a bitch at times, or, Why it's a good idea to wear long-sleeves when foraging in the Pacific Northwest

The first two are from last night, of my left arm in various places.

 

 

These two are from tonight, left arm in various places again.

This is my right arm, last night.

Don't have any others of the right arm since they are all craptastic, and it's actually getting better now.

Anywho, can you guess what caused this?
The lovely little plant called... Toxicodendron diversilobum.

That's right! I have urushiol rashes again. Last year I rashes right after the other in, September I believe. It's not as bad as it was on either of those occasions, but it's in very inconvenient places. I can't comfortably rest my arms on anything (especially when driving and sleeping) and ARGH ANTS ON MY KEYBOARD!!!

Well, it's obnoxious,  but not anywhere as painful or itchy as the last year. Probably because the rashes aren't as expansive as they were then.

 I think I got it when I first foraged for blackberries along the creek with Conker about a week ago (undocumented on the blog) since the "timing" for the rash's development fits that scenario. If not, then I can't explain where I got it, since it's not on my legs, just my arms, which were groping around in bushes for tasty little fruits rubbing up against who knows what sort of plants.

Did you know that ants have a distinct smell when you smash them?

So how do I cope with this? Last year, I dabbed rubbing alcohol on the rashes every few hours. Sounds harsh, but it really helped cut down on the burning and itching and shortened the general length of the rash. This time however, I haven't done anything, because I am partly curious as to how it "naturally" progresses since I augmented it last time and, you could say, ruined the experience.

Every now and then I get annoyed with the dried popped blister ooze (which, I think, is a very beautiful deep golden orange color in full sunlight) and pick it off. More fresh ooze appears and sometimes I dab it off, or I'll let it dry, which can take a while. There are some unpopped blisters still.

Other people get, I could say, disturbed, when they see the rash. They must think it looks terrible. I don't, but that's because I've had a terrible urushiol rash before, and this certainly does not stand up to it.

I plan on doing some more foraging soon, my 2 pounds of blackberries that I gathered recently lasted half a day. This time, I think I'll be wearing a long-sleeved shirt. Just in case.


Edit: 3 days later...

Cruddy cellular phone picture

 It's a bit angrier now.

A couple days ago we went on a relatively short hike at Cathedral Hills. Conker didn't want to do a long hike, so we didn't. It took a while though, since he kept refusing to come when I called so I'd walk the other way to get him to follow. We did that many times, as well as examined a lot of stuff on the side of the trail.

Gobble gobble!

We started the hike by lounging in the front yard for 20 minutes, waiting for my little sister to return with my Jeep.  Man, look at that turkey neck. Conker's got a lot of extra skin that frequently bunches up into one or two rolls.

We found a strange bulbous fungus thing to the side of the trail. It was about the size of a baseball. I have no idea what it is.

Finally, nobody else was on Wildrose! We were not cut off by any horses or growly retrievers and hiked in peace for a while. We did run into a horse (whom we have met before) on the way back, but we had sufficient time to step off the trail and wait for the horse to pass.

Conker loves to find and play with turkey feathers, and I often get a small collection of them on this trail. There are a lot of turkeys at Cathedral Hills, but they favor the Wildrose Loop. Hmm, maybe I should train Conker to track turkey...

Instead of an obligatory pick-nick table picture, you get a stump picture. We found a hollowed out stump and Conker sat in it for some pictures. In this one, he heard something in the forest behind me and was looking for it. The sound was generated by a trio of deer that we stumbled upon shortly after, who Conker did not chase when I told him to "Leave It!" He wanted to, but he stayed put.

1 = 2

Today, being a Wednesday, deemed it a "creek s'ploring and berry gathering day" so Conker and I headed off to the creek beside the dog park. Which was undergoing some sort of construction, so the fence was all screwed up in several places.

Anywho...
We s'plored the same section of the creek we did the other day. The blackberry bushes were starting to droop with the ripening fruit that we'd gone down there to gather. I took the soft-sided lunch cooler Freshpet sent me back in March to use as a berry container. I stuck a hard plastic thing that came with a different lunch cooler (don't know where it is) that I normally use to store my expensive Copic art markers in so that the soft berries wouldn't be squished all over the inside of the cooler.

We started by harvesting the ripe berries from around the entrance to the tunnel. These bushes were dripping with large black berries, though none are easily visible in the picture.

Conker helped a little by clearing the grass away from a section of bushes. I did not get a picture of him doing this, but it was really cute.

This is the spot where I fell the other day. That chunk of wood jutting out on the left used to be twice as long, but is now lopped in half due to my stupidity. The water below it is about 4 feet deep but only 2 1/2 feet wide. Conker and I went around it this time.

It was about 90 degrees today, which is right around Conker's cut off point where he will not have any fun. Down in the creek it was much cooler, and the water helped with keeping Conker and I comfortable. All the shade the trees hanging over the creek made also helps with lowering the temperature.

Often, while I was foraging for berries, Conker would grow impatient and start to bark at me. He wanted to continue to explore, but I was busy collecting berries. So I'd toss one behind him and he'd run off to go find it.

This is the same vine I took a picture of a couple days ago.  When you compare the two side-by-side, you can see some of the berries are missing, and others are still growing.

This large berry was almost 1 1/2 inches! Not the biggest I harvested today, but a nice large one compared to what we normally get in the stores around here. This berry was particularly delicious.

First thing I did when we got home was wash and weigh the berries. I harvested a total of just over 2 pounds of wild blackberries! Not bad for only 1 hour of indiscriminatory berry picking. The first haul of the summer sure was a delicious one.
And that is how 1 = 2.

Late June and July food journal

Money spent in July

June's writeup is right here.

July I didn't spend too much. I avoided going to the grocery and didn't buy anything from Winco when I went o Meford. I did end up with some more kibble, but that's because they were on sale.
So, here goes the month of July.


July 2012

• Food: $34.50
• Treats/Chews: $5.00

Total: $39.50

A nice cut back compared to last month. 


Food.
I bought a 15 pound bag of Innova Red Meat for $19.50. Innova is having a formula/packaging chance, so the stuff in stock at Petco was on super sale. I bought a 4 pound bag of Halo Lamb kibble for $12 while in Medford. I got some miscellaneous turkey bits for about $3 as well.
I also bought a large bag of Before Grain Chicken for about $39 but that was for the Girls, so it's not included in the official total. 

Treats/Chews.
I bought $5 worth of trachea chews from the farmer's market.

And that's it for the month of July.

Creek 'Splore

Conker and I did some 'splorin today. We were originally going to find a trail that leads up another cellular phone tower (I don't actually know what type of tower), but I could not find where it began, so we instead 'splored the creek.

The creek is "normal" for about 100 feet then goes into a dark tunnel. This is the first time I've ever gone in this direction up the creek since before now, the blackberry bushes have prevented any forward progress. Somebody hacked them to bits recently, allowing access to the Northern part of the creek.
Conker was reluctant to follow me into the tunnel.

After being convinced it was not going to eat him, Conker bounded through the tunnel to the other side.

The creek opened up into a beautiful mini forest of trees and shrubbery overhanging the creek. Conker and I 'splored for about 1/2 mile up the creek.

At one point he tried to climb an almost completely vertical section of the bank. I don't know why he choose this spot instead of any of the other milder banks to climb. 
We were stopped by a large wall of blackberry bushes (no picture) that I did not feel like combating today. We will probably try to fight our way through on some later day, since it looked like it cleared up a bit on the other side of the mass of thorny plants, when I don't have as much stuff with me as I did today.

One good perk to the hostile bushes was their plentiful fruit. The blackberries are ripening a little earlier this year for some reason. There were many that were quite ripe and ready to be eaten. I would have brought some back but I did not have a container to put them in.

About halfway back to the tunnel, I was showing Conker that a log I'd previously used to traverse a deep section of the creek was perfectly stable. He had not used it on the first trip and refused to on the second, but usually will if I show him it's safe.
Well, it wasn't, and snapped as I demonstrated on it, dumping me into about 4 feet of water. The creek is normally only about 1 foot deep, so at least I didn't hit any rocks, but I got thoroughly drenched in the process. As did everything I had with me, including my camera.

Now I know to listen to Conker when he refuses to step on something.