Monday, April 23, 2007

Spring

Tulips "Canasta"

We are getting some much-wanted SUN.

tulips 3

James and Audrey are mid-way through the dreaded WASL, Washington's standardized test. Today my friend Janae and I delivered "WASL Water" and snacks for the last days of testing. I'm glad I wasn't stuck inside today.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Hiking With Dogs

FACT: I have 9-month old muscle-dogs with more energy than manners.
FACT: I just turned 38 and I am overweight and out-of-shape.
FACT: I am the primary dog-exerciser. Actually, I'm the primary dog-caretaker (though my husband insists they are HIS dogs,) and it's equivalent (I think) to having naughty toddler twins in the house.
FACT: If my dogs don't get enough exercise they use their energy for evil purposes, like eating furniture and plotting to escape every time a door opens.
FACT: There is no way I am going to be the marathon-runner my dogs wish I could be, and there is no way they can get the kind of exercise they like on the end of a leash that I'm holding.
FACT: While our dogs love our family, tolerate our cats and guinea pigs, and are (mostly) trustworthy at home, they really aren't too sure about other people and animals and can react to them in un-social ways.
FACT: We are working to make them good canine citizens, but they are still only (big) puppies, and don't have a lot of common sense, or restraint of impulses.


So I'm TRYING to get into better shape, and I'm TRYING to get the dogs enough exercise and the best solution I've found so far is at a rest stop on the freeway about a 15 minute drive from home (2 miles north of Castle Rock on I-5.) I discovered it one day when the kids and I wanted to go to Olympia and we couldn't trust the dogs to STAY PUT at home while we were gone. We stopped to give the dogs a walking/potty break, and discovered that the rest stop backed up to commercial woodlots, and logging roads, and there is a spot where there is a break in the fence and you can get back to the logging roads. Logging roads are awesome, and the timber/pulp companies are tolerant of hikers (and hunters in season) as long as there isn't a high fire danger and they haven't suffered some sort of outrageous vandalism. While not without the potential for disaster, it's the closest thing to ideal that I've found so far:

Logging Road

It's beautiful. There are MILES of gravel roads. It's not actively being logged, so it's deserted except for the very occasional person like me who's discovered it's there. I can leave my car parked in the relative safety of a very busy rest stop. There's actually a cell phone tower up there, and in case of an emergency, I can get PERFECT cell phone reception on what is usually a deserted trail in the mountains. And as long as we don't run into other hikers, or (worse) other hikers with dogs, or a porcupine, or elk, it all goes very smoothly. I can let the dogs off leash, they run around like mad but (mostly) stay in sight, they venture into the woods for short periods of time but (usually) come when I call. The time we met the porcupine I was able to call them off before they got muzzles full of quills. And I don't (really) think they could catch an elk, especially not a herd of nineteen of them (like on Monday,) or even the two I saw today.

So it's not without occasional heart-stopping excitement. And it's full of new experiences. Cozy had never rolled in or eaten elk poop before (Yuck! She got a very thorough bath when we got home.) I'd never seen a porcupine in the wild before. I have never "shooed" elk before. (As in Oh crap! There's elk! Oh crap! The dogs are chasing after the elk!" "COZY! CALLIE! COME! COZY! CALLIE! COME HERE! Oh heck! They hear me but they aren't coming. "SHOO ELK! SHOO ELK!" While waving arms like a crazy person and chasing the dogs and continuing to call "COZY! CALLIE! COME HERE! SHOO ELK!")

Dogs Hiking

This is the spot where I usually turn around and go back to the car, there's a clearing all the way down the mountain where a gas line runs (why,I don't know, but the signs say "Danger! Gas Line" and I'll take their word for it.) It kind of gives a cross-section of the woodlots, and you can see how much fun the dogs have going full-speed off-leash. Being out in the woods gives me a chance to work on getting the dogs to come when I call (a VERY important thing,) I took liver treats today and it went much more smoothly. They are also walking much better on-leash, I haven't been pulled off my feet in days! I wish that the highway noise weren't so invasive, but other than that, it's a really enjoyable walk:

Wild Iris

Pink Flowering  Wild Bush

Spring Soccer

For the last 4 years we have coached soccer, for one or the other of our children's teams, two seasons each year: Spring and Fall. James is running track this year instead of playing soccer, so it's Audrey's team this season. It has been kind of nice this time around, because another dad has stepped up to be Assistant Coach, and I can step back from that position and just be Soccer Mom---I can even knit or read during practice---which is real luxury!

John was running practice on Wednesday, demonstrating how he wanted the ball to be kicked, and he sent the ball into the crowd of players. Audrey blocked it with her hand, and it bent her wrist way back with an audible "POP!" It's been x-rayed, it's not broken but we have a Wounded Child:

Wounded

Here she is, on her way to her games on Saturday (a double-header!) with the wrist Ace-wrapped, padded with a pink chenille knee-sock (formerly part of an Energizer Bunny Halloween costume,) and Ace-wrapped again. John feels bad for hurting her, but if he was going to maim a child at soccer practice, I'm glad it was ours instead of someone else's.

Soccer Huddle 4.14.07

Here's John in the pre-game huddle at our first game. Audrey is number 3 with the white socks. There are a lot of similarly-sized girls with dark-blonde/light brown pony tails on our team, so that pink sock on her arm helped identify her for us this time.

Soccer 4.14.07

It would have been nice if I'd actually gotten the ball in this picture, but I wanted to include a game shot. Saturday we lost our first game 4-1, and tied our second one 2-2. It was too cool and too windy to be comfortable, but it was still an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Easter Sunday

I hadn't stuffed Easter baskets before the kids got up. Bad Mom. Furthermore, I discovered that the Easter baskets themselves, the wicker ones with the handpainted bunnies the kids have used every single Easter of their candy-eating lives, were NOT in the basement where I thought they were, but in the attic, where I can't get them myself (having been banned from the attic after falling out of the stairless attic opening.) I'm having sort of holiday burn-out, having made elaborate holiday celebrations for the kids over the years and now having an attack of "aren't you too old for this (because I'm certainly tired of doing it.)" Anyway, it was Easter Sunday and I had one of the kids awake (Audrey slept in,) a big bag of candy, and no Easter baskets. So I grabbed a couple of new black photo boxes I had hanging around and we had EASTER boxes. I don't think it will catch on, but it got me off the hook for this year:

Easter "Basket" 4.08.07

There's also kind of a convoluted story about the weather forecast over Easter weekend. It wasn't supposed to rain until Sunday afternoon (as in the weathermen on all networks agreed that you needed to have your egg hunts early in the day because it was going to rain almost precisely after lunch.) That's what the forecast had said, and leading up to Easter weekend we had had some of the most amazing sunny warm weather imaginable. We almost hit 80 degrees on Good Friday and someone told me were having "Arizona Weather," I refrained from snorting and bursting out into impolite laughter, but only barely (anything under 90 isn't "Arizona Weather"----what was he thinking?) Anyway, Audrey and I had planned an elaborate family picnic up to Rainbow Falls State Park with the dogs for Easter Saturday, and it RAINED. Not piddley little "Northwest Sunshine"-type rain where you just carry on with your business, but real duck-drowning RAIN. Then on Easter, when we were supposed to have rain, it was nice, so we threw the family, the dogs and the picnic supplies in the car and took off. As we approached our destination, it starts to RAIN. Then it even HAILS a bit. We get there, and it STOPS, just like that. No sun-break, but a lovely, overcast, non-rainy afternoon with a pleasant temperature. We got out of the car, leashed-up the dogs and took off for a hike, and everything was going really well, until we got a ways up the trail and ran into:

Downed Tree

Trees. Trees that were not standing up like trees are supposed to, but trees that were uprooted and lying across the trail in great numbers. I don't know what sort of weather disaster they had since we had been up there last summer, but it was something. It was amazing. The trail just disapppeared and there was nothing but an obstacle course of downed trees. We would climb over a bunch and find a piece of trail and run into more trees. It was work getting through there! Fun, too, in a gee-isn't-this-kind-of-unusual sort of way, but work! Please note that we entered the trail in the state park in the usual fashion and hadn't come across any "trail closed" or "proceed with caution" signs or anything to indicate it was going to be more than a typical easy 1.2 mile walk.

Rainbow Falls Trail 4.08.07

But it was nice. It was good exercise, the woods were beautiful, it had stopped raining, the dogs had a ball crashing through the underbrush, and we had a nice picnic lunch over by the campground and went home (it started raining as soon as we got in the car.) I share with you:

Trillium

Trillium. A common wild flower this time of year, and in my opinion, as lovely as any Easter Lily, and more appropriate, too, with it's three petals and groups of three leaves in a God-the-Father/God-the-Son/and God-the-Holy-Ghost sort of Holy Trinity way. There are definitely worse ways to spend Easter afternoon.

Spring Break

I like that title: "Spring Break." Not only did the kids have their Spring Break from school the week before Easter, but I ended up taking an unscheduled blog-break this Spring. Not quite a month, but almost. My apologies to family and blog-friends who may have come to check on me a couple of times, only to have the same old stuff come up. As you know, it happens.

John didn't have any time off during the kids' Spring Break, so things were pretty low key, we stayed home other than a few day trips. The kids and I went up to Olympia one day (with the dogs in the car!) Audrey and I had a really nice hike with the dogs one afternoon while James went back to Olympia with his friend Collin's family to go to the Olympic Flight Museum. I took James and Collin to the beach at Ft. Stephens (that's the one with the wreck of the Peter Iredale) while Audrey took a 7 hour Red Cross babysitting course.

Dogs on the Beach

It wasn't a good day for pictures, being kind of dark and damp, but there isn't such a thing as a bad day at the beach. Except for the horses. (Big) SIGH. I had the dogs W-A-Y down the beach from the rest of the people who were there climbing on the ship wreck and digging in the sand and flying kites and doing all their own beach stuff, and I let the dogs off-leash. They live to be off-leash, they really do, and they were having a great time running around and splashing in the surf, UNTIL. . . UNTIL the STUPID HORSESS came trotting out of the mist. Unfortunately the dogs and I saw them at the exact same instant, and the dogs gave chase the moment they saw them. This was a traumatic thing, and I'm sure I have many new gray hairs from it since the STUPID DOGS took off after the horses, which happened to be part of some fancy pay-to-ride-horses-with-guides-dressed-like-Lewis-and-Clark-while-going-to Lewis-and-Clark-sites group. Sigh I haven't Googled what business is running these Lewis and Clark horse tours, but let me tell you, they have a bunch of lovely, tame, Well Behaved horses, because this was the dogs' first horse experience and they were absolute terrors. Callie was content to bark her head off from a distance, but Cozy got right up into the group, barking and snarling and trying to grab the prominent ligament above the horses back knees, just like she was a trained Roman battle-dog who attacks horses on a daily basis. Oh my goodness, it was terrible. But eventually I was able to call them off and the horses continued on their way. There was no actually physical contact. The horses were marvellous, fidgeting but not actually unseating any tourists. No harm, no foul, right? And no more dogs off leash at the beach until they actually PASS an obedience course. (Sigh. They failed to get their certificate in Puppy Kindergarten.) It was a close call.