Winters slow transition to spring

It was very clear this week that March has arrived and has brought with it the crazy weather that goes along with the transition from winter to spring.  We had rain and snow, 30s and 60s, calm and windy, sunshine and cloudy skies, sometimes all in one day.  One thing is for sure, March weather really keeps you on your toes!

My work days have been busier than I like lately, and I am exhausted at the end of each day.  But life outside of work must go on even when I'm tired and even if the weather isn't always perfect.  

Monday's are always my most exhausting days, and at the end of the day, I wasn't feeling very inspired to get out with the girls.  I decided to run to Costco to use a gift card I had been given.  I don't have a membership to Costco, so I only visit when I have a gift card to use.  I knew exactly what I was there to get, and made a quick trip of it, because I didn't want to spend any more time there than I had to spend.  I know lots of people love Costco, but I am definitely not one of them!

As I was making the drive toward home, I passed the El Oasis food truck in Haslett. Remembering that I have a gift card from there too, I decided to stop and pick up dinner.  We parked in a park nearby while I ate my burrito, then continued our drive toward home.  We made one final stop along the way so I could get the girls out for a walk before finally arriving home after dark.

Tuesday started out mild, and, when I ran a quick errand on my lunch, I only needed a light jacket.  By the time we were ready for our walk after work, gray skies and colder temperatures had started to move into the area.  

Despite the colder temperature, I was happy that we were able to get out for our evening walk on the South Lansing Pathway.  I had to force Peaches to keep moving about every ten feet because she wanted to leisurely sniff everything along the way and we were nevwler going to get anywhere.  But I did allow her some snuffy time along the way to keep her happy.  It was a bit windy and we were racing against some incoming rain, but overall we enjoyed the walk.

Wednesday was rainy all day.  When I forced myself to leave the house and take a break for lunch, I was happy to see my pretty little crocuses covered in raindrops.  

The girls and I enjoyed our little lunchtime drive.  When we returned home, they had lunch in their snufflemats and got an afternoon Kong.  Then they settled in to nap away the afternoon.

After work. I headed out to the shelter for Dog Walking Club.  Despite the fact that the hourly forecast and radar showed no rain after 6pm,  we started our walk with some rain sprinkles.  But we didn't let the rain get us down, and I think everyone enjoyed the time away from the shelter.  Pebble and Subwoofer were such good puppies on our walk.

It was yucky weather and dark when I got home, so I decided not to take the girls out for a short walk like I would normally.  Instead, they had dinner in their snufflemats, and then seemed content to relax for the rest of the evening. 

The weather was sunny on Thursday, and the girls spent a lot of time outside throughout the day.

After work, we headed downtown for our evening walk.  We walked through downtown Lansing to the LCC campus, where I forced the girls to stop for some pictures. 

Then we continued around downtown and along the River Trail.

As we walked along the river, I had to chuckle at some of the signs we saw.  

Finally, we headed back to the Capitol grounds to finish our lovely evening walk.  Both girls were distracted by a squirrel when I took this picture. 

Saturday we had a full day of fun planned.

We started the morning with our shelter dog walk.  We had a really nice group of dogs.

While it was cold, everyone was happy to be outside enjoying time away from their kennels.

While I was at the shelter, the girls patiently waited in the car so we could head out for our day of adventures as soon as I was done. 

Our first stop was at Grand Traverse Pie Company for a Pi Day geocaching event and a feee slice of pie.  Nothing better than a free slice of pie for breakfast!

Then we headed to Lowell for some time on the North Country Trail.

We started our hike along the Lowell river walk and continued as the trail weaves through town and past the cemetery.  

Mina had a stare down with a squirrel along the way.

While Peaches took a good roll in the grass.

Then we had to closely watch the ducks and geese as we walked back along the river.

We crossed the street to check out the trail on the other side as it enters a grassland and then the woods, but the Flat River had flooded the trail and it was impassable.  So we turned around and headed back to the river walk.

We had completed 2.8 miles on the trail by the time we got back to the car.  That was longer than I had planned on walking for our first walk since I had other plans for the day, but Peaches was still going strong and we all had enjoyed our hike.

Next we headed out to do some geocaching along the Fred Meijer Flat River Valley Rail Trail.   This was our first time on this trail, and we enjoyed it very much.

We passed a few bikers and a couple of runners, but fir the most part, we had the trail to ourselves. It was a quiet and enjoyable walk, and we found several geocaches along the way.  We stopped aftet 1.8 miles on the trail because I was trying not to do too much for Peaches and her arthritic hips.  

We did a little more geocaching and stopped for one last quick potty break for the girls and another half mile on the NCT before starting our journey home.

We finished the day with 3.3 miles on the NCT and 1.8 miles on the Fred Meijer trail...for a total of 5.1 miles for the day.  We took the slow, leisurely way home, making a couple of quick stops along the way. 

 When we arrived back in Lansing, I stopped for gas and was debating what to do for dinner when the nice lady at Speedway reminded me that they were running a Pi Day special on their pizzas, so I decided to bring a pizza home for dinner for just $3.14.  

We all had dinner, then the girls went outside for a bit. I cleaned up with a nice hot shower, got into my pj's, and then we all headed into the bedroom for a quiet evening. It was only 7:45pm. The girls slept while I worked on a puzzle books and read. It was the perfect, peaceful end to just the day we had all needed.

We had a chance of snow overnight, which didn't happen, and a rainy morning forecast, which also didn't develop.  The temperatures are expected to get into the low 60s by early this evening with rain,  but we are currently in the mid-40s.  The UP is getting slammed by a major storm with blizzard conditions.  The forecast is for 2 to 4 ft of snow across the area and wind gusts over 60 miles per hour.  I also saw the potential for 30 foot waves on Lake Superior.  That all os just crazy!  Most of the businesses are closed, the Mackinac Bridge is closed, and I hope people just decide to stay home and hunker down.  I know that's what I'dbe doing. 

It's been a fairly quiet morning here, except for Peaches' occasional bouts of pacing.  She's having a little extra anxiety this morning, and I can never figure out what triggers them.  These pacing episodes can usually be cured, temporarily at least, with a trip outside or a meal.  I think the latest bout was her indicating to me that it was time for lunch, so she just had her Dr. Harvey's with eggs and a vetprofen in case she's experiencing some soreness from all of yesterday's walking.  Usually after a good lunch, she will settle down.  I'm hopeful that will happen. If not, I may have to add an extra Xanax for today. 

If I can get Peaches to relax, we are going to have a nice quiet Sunday at home for our final Sunday of this winter.  We'll watch the Men's Big 10 Championship game this afternoon, eat some leftovers for lunch and dinner, the girls will get a Kong, and maybe we'll take a quick walk around the block before the rain starts.  Mostly, I just want a day of no work, no thinking, no people, and a lot of relaxation before heading back into Monday.

I hope everyone has a great week.  By the time I write next Sunday, it will be Spring!

Hooray! It's Match!

We kicked off the month of March last Sunday and there isn't much that makes me happier than that.  I love March.  It brings us longer daylight hours, warmer temperatures, and the opportunity to spend more time outside.  And most importantly, it brings us Spring!

The girls and I enjoyed some really nice evening walks this week.  The temperatures topped out in the 20s on Sunday, but the rest of the week we were lucky to have temperatures rise and enjoyed 40s, 50, and even some 60s.  

On Wednesday the weather for our shelter dog walk was absolutely perfect. 

Not only did we have great weather, we also had some really cute dogs to walk.

I think we all really enjoyed the time out on the town with these cuties.  I know that they were happy to be out of the shelter.

After some wonderful weather early in the week, the rain moved into the area for Thursday.  The girls were not happy about it.  It rained my entire work day and the girls refused to go outside, even when I knew Peaches really needed to go out.  But we made it through the day and, thankfully, the rain stopped in time for our evening walk.

We took a different route through the neighborhood than we normally do, and we stopped at Hillborn Park so Peaches could get her fill of sniffing and I could challenge Mina to some fun on the playground equipment.   

I love that she trusts me so much when I ask her to do crazy things.

Then we had a nice walk home.  I was pretty excited to see more of my crocus leaves popping through the ground.  Another thing I love about March.

Friday morning, Peaches had her annual vet appointment.  While she is always happy to see her friends and get treats, the appointment itself causes her quite a bit of anxiety and she did her best to make it difficult for Dr. Jason to examine her.

But ultimately she got all of her shots, got her blood drawn, and let him check her over.  She's doing well for her age and is overall pretty healthy.  The main issues impacting her are arthritis and anxiety, but we are treating them both and hope to keep her happy and comfortable for a long time to come.

Friday was once again rainy, but after her trip to the vet, Peaches was happy to nap the day away while I had a busy day to end my work week.  Mina happily napped the day away, too.

After a long busy week, I debated what fun we would have on our Friday evening.  I had thought about heading out for a hike on the NCT, but some really dangerous weather created tornadoes in areas very near to where we would have gone to hike.  So I decided to stay closer to home.

We had a lovely walk around Old Town, visited Preuss Pets, and then headed home for dinner and a quiet night at home. As we arrived at home, it started to rain, and very quickly after, thunderstorms moved in.  As I sat eating dinner, the storms really picked up and then we all heard what I ultimately discovered was nickel sized hail.  The storm moved through pretty quickly, and we had a nice, quiet evening once it was gone. 

We were up early on Saturday so we could get ready to meet with Vanessa and head out for a day of fun.

We met Vanessa at her house and then we headed North to West Branch for the geocaching Winter Social event and a fun day of geocaching. 

It rained on our drive North, but the rain stopped by the time we arrived in West Branch.  Vanessa and I checked in to the event, then headed into town for a really delicious lunch at The Highway Brewing Co.  A walk with the girls around downtown followed lunch, and then we headed out of town to continue our geocaching fun.

It was still snowy in the woods, but that didn't stop us from our mission of geocaching fun.

The girls were happy to be along for the ride and kept an eye on us as we jumped in and out of the car to locate the geocaches.

It was 60 degrees and cloudy most of the day, but it was still beautiful in the pines.

And the sun tried to peek through the clouds on a few locations.  I just loved how pretty it was.

The girls loved being able to hang their heads out of the window on this beautiful late winter day.  Here they were keeping a close eye on Vanessa while she searched for one of the geocaches. 

We stopped for ice cream before heading home and while we were stopped,  I fed the girls a late lunch.  Then they settled in as we slowly wound our way toward home, picking up some geocaches along the way.

We got home after dark after a day filled with fun.  The girls ate a late dinner, took their evening potty break, and then we headed into the bedroom so I could read for a bit for turning in for the night.  We all slept great after our day of fun and fresh air, and the girls finally woke up for breakfast shortly after 8am.  
 

We had a lazy morning, and Mina enjoyed some time soaking in the sunshine.  While the girls relaxed, I did some cleaning and then made lunch.  We sat enjoying the quiet sunny, Sunday for a bit.  What a lovely start to our Sunday.

Finally, around 2pm, we headed out for a nice walk along the NCT in Marshall.  It was just too nice outside not to take advantage of the day.

We had a really nice walk and finsihed at 3.1 miles with a very pooped Peaches.  We are now at 25.3 miles on the trail for 2026, which puts us ahead of pace for the year.  Peaches really prefers the cooler weather for her hikes and even 60 degrees was a little harder for her.

I'm hoping to get several more miles this month, while it is still cooler, to keep us ahead of pace.  I'd love to be at 50 miles by the end of April so we can avoid hiking in the heat of the summer.  I guess we'll see what we can do.  As long as Peaches is happy to keep going, we'll continue to get out with her.

After we got home I did laundry while the girls spent some time out in the yard, enjoying the lovely day.  Then we had dinner, celebrated the first post daylight savings time sunset of the year, and settled in for another quiet evening. It was the perfect end to our perfect Sunday.

Happy March! The world is waking up and I'm ready for it!  

Farewell February

After being sick for a week and having very little activity during that time,  I was determined to get out to make the most of every day this week.  So despite the cold temperatures and wind, we headed out the door on Monday after a long and exhausting day of work.

The girls had been so good while I was sick that I wanted to give them a real adventure close to home.   I knew the perfect spot.

They were very excited as we pulled into the parking lot at Fenner Nature Center.  And I was excited when I saw only one other car in the parking lot.  There's nothing better than having the whole place basically to ourselves. 

While I was feeling better, I still had a lingering cough and I didn't want to over do it, so we broke up our walk with a small break.  By the time we left we had walked just about 2 miles.  It was starting to get dark, and I felt really good about what he had done.

On the drive home, we saw this house with the Olympic Rings on their garage door, which I thought was pretty cool.  When we got home, we took a quick walk around the block for another four-tenths of a mile.  Then we headed inside for dinner.  I was pretty happy with just shy of 2.4 miles for the night, and the girls crashed after dinner.  It was a quiet evening, and we all had the best night's sleep we'd gotten in a week.

My Tuesday started off with quite the thrill when I let Mina and Peaches out for their morning potty break.  As soon as I opened the door, Mina ran out and was immediately chasing the poor, unsuspecting rabbit that had made the bad decision to enter my back yard.  While Peaches isn't nearly as fast as Mina she was also in hot pursuit.  

Try as I might, I couldn't distract Mina from the chase, and for the first time in her life, she caught the rabbit.  It died quickly and without a sound, and the girls did not want to walk away.  So I headed outside in my pajamas and flip flops just before sunrise to drag them into the house and dispose of the poor little rabbit. 

There have been many chases like this in my backyard over the years with all of my girls, and rarely do the end this way.  Normally the rabbit is able to escape under my fence and live to see another day.  This is only the second time in 22 years a rabbit has died.  Imke caused the last one and that scene was much worse than this one.  

After dealing with the rabbit, I headed inside to feed the girls and myself breakfast and to get ready for my day.  The girls were happy to eat and then headed right back to bed to nap the day away.

The rest of my day was busy, and the girls were quiet while I worked.  After work, we headed out for a walk around the neighborhood.   It was cold again, especially with the wind, but we had a really nice walk.  Peaches especially loved all of her stops to sniff along the way.  We finsihed at just shy of 3 miles, which I was really pleased about.  And after dinner, we had another quiet evening. 

Wednesday was an extra busy day, and after work, I had to head out to the shelter for our shelter dog walk.  

We haven't walked much this year with the frigid weather we had in early on combined with work conflicts for me and then my cold.  I was looking for to getting back to a more normal schedule again.

We only had three dogs available at the shelter and only two could go on our walk, so I harnessed Subwoofwer, the 10 month old puppy, and Ada, a 7 year old Boxer mix, and prepared for our walk.

One of our volunteers was happy to stay behind to hang out with 11 year old Bug a Boo, who had no interest in going outside.  I don't blame her because it was cold!  She definitely enjoyed her snuggles, though.

After the walk, we got everyone settled back into their kennels for the night, and I headed home to get my girls out for a quick mile walk in the dark.  

Thursday I wasn't feeling very inspired to get outside, but I knew the girls were ready for some fun after being really good all day.  I debated about what to do, and I finally made the decision to head to Old Town.

When we arrived, we headed out along the Lansing River Trail.  I thought that the ice on this fallen tree looked pretty interesting. 

We walked around the Brenke Fish Ladder and down the trail a bit and then detoured off the river trail and to head back into Old Town.  About mid-way through our walk, we made a short detour into Preuss Pets  because the amount of mental stimulation the girls get here is better than any exercise I can give them.  

After our short visit, we continued our walk and eventually reached the car again and headed home.  

After a very long week of work, I was so happy that Friday had finally arrived!  I was so busy that I just took a quick mid-day break and ate my lunch while working.  So when 4pm arrived, I decided to wrap up my work for the day to get the girls out for some fun.

It was 58 degrees with some peaks of sunshine, and I wanted to take full advantage of it.  So I decided we'd head out to Kimball Pines in Battle Creek to get in some North Country Trail miles.

This is the second Friday evening hike we've done this month, and with sunsets getting later, I think it may become a more normal part of our routine.  I love that we can get out and enjoy Friday evening,  make progress toward our NCT goal, and get home in time for dinner.  Plus it frees up the rest of my weekend.  I especially like that I can have two full days over the weekend at home to do projects or to relax, with no other obligations.   And if we want to have an adventure, we can do that too.

The girls had a great time on our walk between Kimball Pines and the Ott Biological Preserve, and so did I.  There were some muddy spots, but it was nice to get into the woods and we enjoyed the paved portion of the trail too.  It was the perfect combination of landscapes and scenery.  The spring-like temperatures were great, too.  

We finsihed the evening with 3.4 miles on the trail, giving us 9.65 miles in February, and 18.15 miles total toward our 100 this year.  I'm really happy with our progress so far. 

On the way home, I decided to grab some takeout for dinner and then we headed home so we could all eat and enjoy a peaceful evening.   It was a great start to our weekend. 

Saturday started slowly as we enjoyed a lazy morning, but by late morning I was busy cleaning.  Dishes, laundry, dusting, organizing followed by preparing Kongs for the freezer and finishing some other odds and ends.  After eating a late lunch, I got cleaned up so we could get out to run some errands.  

I filled up the car, got a car wash, and made a couple other stops before heading to Soldan's to pick up a couple of things for the girls.  When we got there and parked, I knew Peaches needed to take a walk so she could potty before going inside, so we headed out for a walk around the neighborhood behind the store.  It is always quiet there and it's a nice change of scenery from our walks in our own neighborhood.  The girls always enjoy a little change of pace.  We had a nice walk, finished our shopping at Soldan's, made a couple more stops, and then headed home for the night.

We were able to get in another short walk around the neighborhood when we got home as the snow began to fall.  Then the girls ate dinner, went outside for a potty break, and settled in for the evening while I made dinner, ate, and cleaned up.  It had been a pretty perfect day. 

It snowed  throughout the evening and overnight, and we woke on Sunday to a pretty white blanket over everything.  But I don't think it will stay very long.  By Monday temperatures will be near 40 and then stay in the 40s with rain most of the week.  It is slowly starting to feel like winter is wrapping up and spring is on it's way.

It is a beautiful, sunny morning with temperatures currently in the mid-teens.  It is only going to get into the 20s today, but all of that sunshine sure does make me happy.

Our Sunday will be spent doing a little more cleaning, putting up some decorations for St. Patrick's day, and taking some time to relax and refresh before the week starts again.  And I will quietly celebrate the arrival of March, my favorite month of the year.