More hiking and bugs!

The past few days have been super nice weather-wise. In the 80's and sunny, cooler at night.

So of course we've been hiking, again! Yesterday we decided to take a longer hike, about 1.5 hours, but I think we only went about 3 or so miles. Tennessee hill hiking is a lont more strenuous (on Mum anyways) than Indiana flat land hiking.

Mum got us to sit still for a bit for the obligatory pose...

It was just beautiful up on the ridge, especially with my pretty sister in the shot, BOL!!! Ok, Mum made me say that...

We walked on and got to the creek, such a gorgeous site...the photo just doesn't do it justice...

Mum let go of the leash and let me take a quick dip to cool off, felt good on my belly. Gracie wasn't that much interested this time in the creek....she still gets nervous, all these unfamiliar wide open space are still so new for her.

After the creek is was a big climb up the other ridge...

We made our way clear around to the open fields, and saw much more hiking in our future. But Mum thought we may get overheated if we kept on. So we headed back toward the cabin.

Up the final hill toward the cabin, Mum let me drag my leash since we had been there many times now. Little did she know I had a squirrel in my sights and climbed up the big hill after it. But the darn thing climbed a tree, so I just watched Mum climb up the hill via the road and met her on the top side. I kinda scared her, but I was just fine :). She says I'm getting really good at off leash stuff, or at least dragging my leash.


There are different bugs for us to get used to down here. The day we moved in we were warned about the scorpions and how they may show up in our kitchen sink next to the Moen kitchen faucets or in the bathroom sink or shower. Well, this is what Mum woke up to yesterday when she went in to clean the kittie litter box in the bathroom. It was a baby, perched on the wall, so she smooshed it.

Then Mum immediately went online to see what effect a sting would have on her and all four of us. Seems they aren't the same scorpions that live in AZ. Here they are much smaller, and their sting doesn't pack the wallop that ones in AZ would.

The Internets says it will hurt like a 'son of a gun' if she should get stung, but it should go away in about 15 minutes. And on a dog it may swell like a bee sting, so it's good to keep some Benedryl on hand. That is if you aren't allergic, if you are they can be very dangerous. So, we're going to check with our vet this week, to get more opinions, but it seems that it's kind of rare that a kittie or dog will get stung. But we want to be better safe than sorry right?

Then after our evening walk yesterday, Mum found a tick on Gracie, then another one on me. Seems they are a couple of weeks early down here this year, so Mum is going to check with our vet this week on keeping the ticks at bay too.

Down here the ticks are so prevalent that our vet (that's our new extreme holistic vet) during our initial talk recommends we get some Frontline. You know how we feel about those topicals, don't like those yucky chemicals. But ticks can carry some nasty diseases and she says other 'green' ways of combating ticks just don't work down here. But we're going to explore all the options with her this week, and make a decision.

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend!