Nature Friday at the Greenway

We are joining Arty, Jakey, Rosy and Sunny of the LLB Gang with much thanks for hosting Nature Friday.

We found some wild flowers–or maybe weeds–growing along our driveway. We are going to call them wild violets and wild daisies. We don’t know if that’s right, but it sounds good to us.

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Mommy’s been trying to take us to the Greenway every day. Yesterday was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and the afternoon temperatures in the low 60’s F. We love when Daddy comes too, but it’s really more fun when it’s just us and Mommy. She’s got an adventurous side that borders on dangerous, and that gets our blood running. Well, that, and she walks a lot faster when it’s just us. Yesterday’s adventure also got our heart rates up and our tongues hanging down. We took a side dirt trail going up. And up. And up. There were rocks and roots and downed trees to navigate. It was all woods on either side of us and not another soul in sight, dog or peep or squirrel or bear or coyote or…

Lucy: Xena, that’s enough. Just tell our story.

Xena: You’re no fun. Anyhoo. we passed some branch-offs and we asked to take the first one to the left, but Mommy said, “Let’s keep climbing and see where we end up.” She finally let go of our leashes and said we would all have to walk a little slower to get her heart rate down. So we did. Me and Lucy, we listen really good on our walks. We all kept thinking that around the next corner, the trail would start to go down again. Nope. Maybe around the next corner, and so on. It just kept climbing, and so did we. After we had climbed what felt like 87 miles we met a man coming down the trail and Mommy asked him where it went. He said it kept getting steeper and went to the top of Big Ridge. Now, I know you don’t know what Big Ridge is, but believe me, even the drive up it is steep and like a snake.

With that info, Mommy finally decided we would turn around and head back down. “Are we going home?” we both asked, and for emphasis, we both started coughing.

“Let’s keep walking the main trail loop around to the car. Then we’ll go home and I’ll fix your dinners,” she said.

All we heard was dinner, so we were definitely with that program.

We got to the giant tree that was laying across the path. On the way up the mountain big hill, I showed Lucy how to jump up on it to get across. This time Lucy went first. I jumped up behind her, but I wanted to see more, so I moved up.

I thought she was holding her tail up so I could walk under her. I didn’t realize it was because she saw something interesting. Then I saw Mommy had her phone camera pointing at us.

You want to take my picture ’cause I’m the cutest thing you ever saw?

OK, I’m saying “cheese!”

After Mommy managed to get over the big tree, she saw why she couldn’t get Lucy to look at the phone camera. There was another man with a big black lab coming up the mountain hill. The end.

Lucy: That wasn’t a good ending. You left everything hanging.

Xena: But…

Lucy: The guy detoured around us, we walked another 87 miles. On the way a couple stopped us so the lady could pet me *wags!* and asked what schnauzers were like. After Mom bored her half to death with long details, we finished the trail, drove home and had dinner. The end.

Xena: Well that was anti-climatic. I’ve gotta teach you how to tell a good story.

We wish you a happy Nature Friday! Xena and Lucy