trails – Xena Schnauzer Warrior Princess with Riley, Lucy, and Chia

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

After our grand adventure at the Greenway last week, Mommy took us back the next day to try another trail off the main path. This trail started out with a sign saying the Boy Scouts had created it. That sounded promising, right? Well, sorta. Soon after we started along it, it started to climb. Not as steeply as the day before, but we were definitly going up.

The sun was shining in between the trees and everything was either green or brown. Once again, Mommy let go of our leashes and let us lead the way. Lucy didn’t want to get too far from Mom, so it was me who led. Before long, the path narrowed as the trees closed in.

We saw off to our left a huge tree that was uprooted. All the dirt was still on the roots, so we think it must not have fallen over too long ago.

The trail finally leveled out and me and Lucy, we both decided we wanted to be really close to Mommy. The problem was that she kept tripping over us or stepping on our leashes. You should have seen the nice little dances she did to avoid falling. Except once. She did fall once and her right ankle twisted just a little and she landed on the palms of her hands. We both were worried she got hurt and ran to her to see if she was ok. She said, “You know, girls, if I fall out here in the middle of nowhere and get hurt, it could be days before anyone found us.” (She wasn’t hurt.) So, thinking about all the meals we would miss in that time, we were much more careful — especially after Mommy said we would need to let her lead the way so we weren’t in her way.

We saw a lot of trees that had fallen over and were rotting, along with some that were rotting while still standing in place.

That one on the right scared Mommy and she hurried us past it.

There were a couple of signs with the word “Trail” and pointing which way to go. One was at a point where we could have gone kinda to the right and definitely up. As we started to go back down we got to a big downed log that had been cut in the middle to make a couple of steps.

That was nice. It was kinda like finding a present out in the middle of what seemed like nowhere.

The trail eventually led back down to the start of the trail we followed the day before. That explained the part of the trail where we could have turned to keep going up. We’re all getting to know the trails better, but there are a lot more to explore. We’ll save those for another day.

*wiggles and wags*

Xena Schnauzer Warrior Princess

Hi Friends. This story for Nature Friday is from a walk we took the first Sunday in December. The days leading up to it were very rainy and dreary, and no one would take us for a good walk. OK, so we got to go for a short neighborhood walk one day, but there was no one else out to say hi! Slowly, the weather started to warm up from the 30’s to the 50’s F (-10’s to 10’s C) and then Sunday the sky was a clear blue with temperatures in the mid 70’sF (24’sC). Mom helped me with the temperature conversion with a new app she downloaded ’cause her old app disappeared when her old phone got dropped in the t…. Oops, Mom is making the cutting motion across her throat so you can just use your imagination as to why she had to break the bank to get a new phone.

Anyhow, that’s why we finally get to participate again in Nature Friday hosted by Rosy at LLB in Our Backyard

Mom had been ~~complaining~~ nicely telling Dad that he needed to spend more time with her, so when she asked him to go with us for ~~exercise~~ a nice walk at the greenway, Dad –being the smart man he is — said, “Let’s go!” It’s at the same place as the dog park, so I knew right where we were. Most of the leaves were off the trees and provided a soft walkway for our feet. The trail smelled so good, like squirrels and other dogs!

The trail ran right along South Chickamauga Creek. The creek is usually small enough to wade across (not that Mom ever has let us do that) but that Sunday — after all the hard rain — it looked more like a river.You can see the creek behind us. It was flowing pretty fast, so we stayed on the trail (mostly). There were ginormous puddles on the trail, too, from last week’s rains, and Mom and Xena kept exploring other ways around the trails while Dad plodded along the edge with me.There were some really beautiful areas — at least from Mom’s perspective. Me and Xena mostly had our noses down. Xena and Mom were following me and Dad, trying to keep up, and Xena kept pulling on her leash. Me and Dad knew this because we walked to a chorus of “Xena, walk pretty,” and “Xena, walk with me,” and “Xena!!” I told Dad we should just lose them so we didn’t have to listen to it, but he said that wouldn’t be nice,” and “Try to be patient.”

We found an old, abandoned two-room cabin with a tin roof, and Mom sat a spell on one of the big wooden rockers on the porch facing the raging creek. There were only two “rooms” with an outdoors area to cook, all very rugged. The “windows” looked like they had been cut out later with no sign of any way to insert glass or screening, and the only door was gone. Mom had decided to take a picture on our way back by, not knowing we would end up at the end of a loop and not need to retrace our steps. Dad walked around evaluating the structure, trying to figure out when it was built. He found modern nails and things called 2 by 4’s that made him decide it was built probably around 1960 and left to ruin when the previous owner of the land donated it all for the South Chickamauga Greenway.

The temperature had risen by about 10 degrees and Mom and Dad were wearing their jackets tied around their waists as we walked back into civilization at the end of a sock-shaped trail. Can you believe it was in the mid-70’s (20’s C) in December?!

We had walked for over an hour and Xena and I, after getting our paws thoroughly wiped, were very quiet in the back seat of the car on the way home. As soon as we got out of the car Mom threw Xena in the groom tub and washed the dirt and mud off of her until the water ran clear. Between the exercise and the warmth of the sun, we were all sleepy and and jumped – or fell – into the big bed and took a good afternoon nap.

Love and wiggles, Lucy.