4 wheeling - Red Hills

We joined a local group for 4 wheelers and went on our first trip with them to Red Hills.  It was a short 4 mile dirt road and 7 vehicles went.  I spent a good portion of the trip hiking the trail that they were driving.  

Gray pines grow in this area and the cone above is from a gray pine tree.  

The dogs all needed a bath when they got home because they ran thru many of these puddles.

Grace drove. She had wanted to take her rig but ours is better equipped.  Ahi was the co-pilot.

I found this super cool "Elegant Sunburst Lichen", which is native to California.  It is the same color as a California poppy.

This was a cave which we were told was used by an escaped convict to hide out in until he was found.

Oh Oakley!  She frolicked in this puddle to the point where she had mud on her head and snout!

We hiked them down to the creek to get some of that red dirt off of them but they all still needed baths when we got home.

Snow Time

There was lots of snow this past week so we took a trip out to Cherry to have a snow day!  We parked where we normally pull off to go to the communications building and snow shoed into a meadow to play for a couple hours.

The snow was 5 feet deep and we sunk about 3 feet in our snow shoes.  It was tough going but we took turns being the leader and managed to plow a bunch of trails so the dogs could run around.  If they didn't stay on our trails it was really really hard for them to move in the snow.

Ahi was....you guessed it...angry at being in the snow.  We carried her until we got some paths made but then she ran around a little in between sitting on a jacket on top of my backpack.

We have never seen so much snow at Cherry.  This is the sign right at the turn to the lake and the bank was about 6 feet high.

Lunch spot

After we played in the snow for a couple hours, we headed to lower elevation to have some lunch and relax.  The snow there was only a few inches deep so the dogs could run around....except for Ahi who was still angry so she stayed in the truck.
 

A Peek at my Week

Its work from the cabin time and I thought it would be fun to capture a few of the highlight from my week.

 It has been consistently cold here all week with lots of rain, snow and slush.  I had worked upstairs at the beginning of the week where it is easy to keep at 80 degrees with the wood stove.  But because of crowds...4 dogs and 2 other people, I moved downstairs to where the new heater is struggling to keep it at 62 degrees.  So Anna suggested I go over to her house and pick up one of their electric fire places!  We found the one above in the closet and it had never been used.    It works for up to a 1000 square feet so it makes it much more comfortable to work.  I love this pic because it shows how my beautifully remodeled basement has been junked up by the dogs and the beardies!  Also - Grendel is loving the additional heat because she was like a beardie popsicle.

Ahi waits for me to say "let's go to work" in the morning and then she runs down to my office and sleeps on the chair next to my desk all day.  On this morning, she made a lap around my desk.  And by "around" I mean on top of my desk ad over my computers.

Consistent with the heat problem noted above, I dove deep into the depths of fashion crisis and ended up working in this "get up" to keep my feet warm.  This was the day that I decided we needed a space heater or to get another wall heater in the basement.

On Thursday at lunch we had a special speakers event which a few of my colleagues arranged.  The speakers were the lawyer and the exonerated death row prisoner from the Netflix show Innocence Files, episode 8.  Wow!  Just wow!  It was so incredible.  Alfred DeWayne Brown was falsely convicted of murdering a white police officer in Houston.  The corruption of a white male district attorney, plus an incredibly broken justice system, led to his conviction.  It was so moving to hear about the lawyer's laser focused commitment to free DeWayne and DeWayne's commitment to not let hate into his heart.  I highly recommend watching the Netflix show and then donating to the Innocence Project, which is what DeWayne donated his speaking fees too.

Probably the best part of my work week is sharing some time with Oakley in my "office".   She is up for the week while her Dad skis in Tahoe.   

Overall, the highlight of my week was when Grace and I bugged out early from work/school and took the dogs up to the snow near the Ranger Station to play for a little while.  Unfortunately I did not get any pictures, but just picture 3 labradors bounding through the snow with sheer joy and big dog smiles.....and Oak with some crazy eyes!

Late January Snow

I was lucky enough to be at the cabin for a big snow storm.  I went to bed with snow and woke up to this!

 

Hiking Journal

After taking the bird journaling class last week, I decided to journal my hikes this year.  The goal is to do 52 hikes this year and I thought it would be fun to journal each hike.

Grown up!

 Astrid went into heat this weekend.  Typically CCI pups go into heat between 6 months and a year.  She is 13 months old so she is a bit of a late bloomer.  She will stay intact until she gets turned in for professional training because she has been identified as a potential breeder.  If she gets chosen as a breeder, she will come back to us and - if all goes well - have FIVE litters of puppies.  And if that happens, get ready because all our friends and families will be taking shifts.

Coyote Lake

Last week's hike was to Coyote Lake.  We did a 3.5 mile loop while G mountain biked an 8 mile loop.  The pic taken above was while I was waiting for Jim to catch up.  He had run back to the parking area and me and the labs kept going.  I stopped after awhile to wait and decided to take some pics as it is good training for Astrid.  I took about 8 pictures of them each looking in a different direction and finally got this one in which they appear to be looking at each other and talking trash about me!

 

You can't see me...

Hops is having trouble with itchy feet.  She took a whole course of prescription allergy meds that worked really well.  But three weeks after stopping it she is itchy again.

To try to keep it under control, we do two things:  1.  Benadryl and 2.  oatmeal foot baths.  Here she is watching G get the oatmeal bath ready!  It doesn't hurt her at all but I think she gets bored standing in the bath tub for 15 or 20 mins!

Mt Madonna

We went on a hike today to Mt Madonna.  I had not been there in years and years but because of the crowds we are trying to go to more remote locations.   That didn't really work because when we showed up the parking area was packed.  But we decided to take a different trail that was 2 miles straight up and I think that scared some people away so it was only moderately trafficked.

Drew, Kaylene and Oakley joined us.  We hiked up to the very top, hiked around the campground and headed back down.  We enjoyed looking at the different plants and G even sketched them - see previous blog post.

Since we hiked with people outside of our pod (for the first time since about May), we wore masks the whole time.  Normally we take them off when we are well away from people.  It made for a very sweaty mask.

What is a trip to the redwoods without a banana slug!

After the hike we had a socially distanced snack time.  We enjoyed some snacks from the farmers market.