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This is how close that guy on his 4 wheeler was to the house!  Who comes that close to a house, sees a mowed path to the gate and thinks, "this is so totally public property, wheee!"?

The north loop is COVERED in poison oak along one stretch.  UGH!

I don't know what this is!

squaw root

I walked out to lounge Sunday afternoon.  It was lovely!

Matt wandered out to join me!

A tick, they are SO BAD out there, we are thinking about just keeping the trail to the cliff open and letting the rest go for the summer because the poison oak and ticks are both thick.
Murphy Jones has 'hair' and not fur, plus it's white, both are tick magnets.  We picked 100 ticks off his 20 pound body 2 weeks ago and he has regular doses of Advantix. the other dogs had 4-5 ticks each, which is WAY more than usual.  The ticks were nearly all dead, but still attached.  It was bad in a few spots on MurJo, like his little arm pits.  He cried and cried and I felt horrible I just did not think about checking them!  Now we check him every single time and are usually able to get them off him before they attach.  As you can see, the ticks are TINY, it wasn't like he was covered in lumpy black things.  :(

It's summer on the bluff!

I finally got Matt to hang right next to me.  WOW, what a ordeal and I am over that little fantasy of cuddling in our pods.  He's a bit of a drama queen about hanging the hammock, though I did buy him much easier to use straps.
still not easy enough!

We hung out until sunset

The last of the light hitting the treetops, so pretty!

We have had a gorgeous run of weather.  It's been cool, sunny, light breeze.  The flowers are amazing, it's rained enough to keep the creeks going but not enough to keep the trails muddy, April has been perfect!

Today I am home on my own.  I have been singing, reading, piddling with a few organizing things.

 We have a trip coming up in a few weeks, camping in Virginia.  Katy is organizing the stay, we just have to show up!  Before that is Matt's week off and I am planning a pretty epic-if-short trip.  We had planned a backpacking week at Shenandoah and the AT is closed through there due to forest fires.  ACK!  So time for plan B. But on the super cheap because our original trip was driving there, parking for the week and eating food we already have while sleeping for free every night!  At least I can still bring lots of easy to prepare meals!

14/52 Welti and Home

Neither are big hikes and I would not count them except-combined they put me at 200 miles for the year!    

The falls area and the creek got REALLY badly hit by the storms at Christmas and likely subsequent flooding, too.  Whole trees had been ripped up, the banks washed out, rocks and dirt exposed and about 10 trees just waiting to go, barely hanging in by the very exposed roots.  It looked so different!

We went with Gina and Jeff, had lunch at the Cantina-my second trip for the week.  I also went Thursday night with Andrea.  I have now sworn off Mexican food.  hahaha  When I was there with Andrea, 2 things happened of note.  One, I inadvertently made eye contact with the line cook several times, which ended up being annoying to me, no doubt he was horrified to have this 40 year old woman looking him over.  hahaha.  I could not help it, we were right across from the window in the kitchen and he was literally the only thing in there to look at.  Other than the hall to the bathroom.  Second, we left and Andrea had a flat tire!  So we waited for the insurance to send a guy to change it.  It was pouring rain!  It stopped by the time he got there, but by then, he was already on the way, so we just waited and discussed walking across to Dairy Queen even though we both were too full to move.  We didn't.

Some of the storm damage

Added tumeric to the boiled eggs this morning.  In honor of Easter.

Matt and I headed to the campsite with hammocks and rain flys

I was expecting much more water!

Oh this dog.

Wild azalea

One thing I can do really fast is set up my hammock!

This annoys Matt, who has not gotten up to speed yet in that area.

He finally moved, after shooting me MANY dirty looks for having an opinion.

I put my rain kilt over my legs, it were a mite cool this afternoon!

Watched the rain a while

Ate some of a Reester bunny

Ignored the pleas to have a bite from the Peanut Gallery

I really like the way the fabric in my hammock feels.

Matt, on Instagram.

In the woods

Saxifrage

Oxalis

wood sorrel

The campsite

devil's urn

rain kilt

It did not rain hard enough to be able to tell if I will like it more than my rain pants.  I am betting yes, with my gaiters over my lower legs.

And that's it!

Plans for the week include a short backpacking trip to South Cumberland, just reserved my site.  

Last Week of Winter

Kuma standing in water.  This is huge, he hates being wet!

This is also from my bench rock seat at the 2 little pools on the creek that we have cleaned up to make a wading spot.  Cleared the privet and moved out the pointy rocks.

The ferns are growing again.  I moved several clumps from the trailbed, I am pleased to see they are surviving just fine.  I spent one day this week digging up trillium with a trowel, moved over 50 plants.  2 days later, that many more again to be moved!

I moved poplar and dogwood babies out of the path, pulled up about 900 privet (not an exaggeration, I will go off the trail and yank that stuff up) and clipped sawbrier left and right.  I tied back vines and moved rocks, raked and raked and raked.

In between, I sat in my hammock.  It's not all work around here.  I can't go getting buff.

Some green popping up

Thursday, Gina came up and hung out for a few hours.  I made wild rice soup and Irish soda bread.

We walked the trail and hung out at the campsite, it was nice getting to share it with someone else!

That night, Emma and Alex came to stay over and Friday, Matt and I were working on the trail at the cliff and there went the kids, all hiking past.  That was SO COOL.  Exactly what I envisioned.  hahaha

We got the extra youngins dropped back off and came back home and spent the whole afternoon on the trail.  Cleared down to the big creek, but not from the cliff as I had thought the trail would go.  There's just nowhere that's not too steep going down from there.  I started at the top of that log road and cleared down to the feeder stream, the walked (puffed) back up and started raking toward the cliff, but the trail wanted to go another way.

Still, it's done for now.  Planning to open the trail from the pasture down to the creek and then cross-country walk between the 2 access points. It floods so much and the creek changes so much, a trail along it would be a PITA.

Headed back from the north loop to watch the sunset.

We walked out the longer loop, I will get busy on that after I get the creek trails done.  The east side will have to wait, there's a problem with that neighbor. 

Murphy was a knotted mess.  So I shaved him.

Hanging out at the cliff

We've really enjoyed having the trail to work on, I was in the van the other day and saw I was 3 weeks past my next oil change, but still 500 miles shy of the 3k they recommend.  I always go 5,000 miles between changes and I have never gone nearly 4 months without an oil change, ever.  Not running back and forth to trailheads and not grabbing fast food twice a weekend and 2-3 times a week has helped the budget and the scales.  6 pounds in the past 2 weeks!

Next week, I have 3 full hiking days with friends lined up, it's good to get out some, too!  I just hope I don't get trail envy.  hahaha