Lucy Bath Time - favorite pic

One of our rare pictures of Lucy "dancing" with her paws up in the air, and this just after her bath:

Great morning walk:

Had a great morning walk with Lucy the other day. The sun was out, the sky was Carolina blue, the trees were a vibrant bright green. We walked our usual route and as we were heading back to the house, Lucy suddenly sat down facing the opposite direction. She usually does that when she sees something of great interest to you -- a car coming, a dog or some wild-life. I paused and looked in that direction. I saw nothing of interest. I cajoled her on, "Come on, Lucy, I have to go to work," but she's just move a few interest and then with great stubborness, sit down facing the cul-de-sac behind us.

It was such a lovely morning, that I was actually enjoying being outside and didn't mind a small distraction, but did need to get going in a minute or two. So, I decided to try again to nudge her along the way home. Once again, we made it only a few inches.

Finally, I decided to indulge her curiosity and at this point mine. We walked back up the hill to the cul-de-sac and then I saw it -- the large yellow lab at the top of the hill sitting like a statue. He stared at Lucy and I motionless. I've met this dog many times and the first time I was a bit scared of him since he's quite large and came barreling down the hill at me and Lucy at full speed. Once he stopped though, he was all licks and his tail was wagging. But, this one might be the other dog, who is also friendly, but very shy.

Once we walked closer the dog froze and then got up and quickly turned to walk a few steps towards his house. The moment we walked away though, this older yellow lab started to slowly walked towards us. The moment we stopped walking, he stopped following us. And so it continued that we took a few steps away and he followed us and when we turned around to say hello, he'd stop or take a few steps back.

I really wanted him to come say hello to us. I even crouched down and waved to him, encouraging him to say hello. Finally, I got Lucy to walk home with me, but only by breaking into fast jog, even up our steep driveway. When I got home, Stuart asked me if I were okay because I was out of breath.

Lucy's first trip with us to the mountains!

Lucy excited for our road trip to the mountains:



Lucy enjoying the mountain air:



Lucy enjoying a short water break during our hike:




Lucy standing proudly on top of Grandfather Mountain:



Lucy enjoying our cabin deck in the mountains:







Lucy tuckered out after her hiking adventures:

Lucy after her bath-time tonight

Dogs & Bees

Two interests of mine - dogs and bees - but let me tell you that those two words don't belong together. In fact, keeping those two words and creatures apart is strongly suggested.

While I sit outside and read, Lucy has been following several bees carefully with her eyes and one bee almost landed on her nose, but I gently brushed it away, for fear that she'd try to eat it. This concerns me for two reasons - 1) the bee may sting her and that would hurt her, and 2) she'd kill the bee which is unfortunate as we are trying to promote their colonies.

That said, it's best to keep your dog away from your bee hives. We've read that bee colonies are very sensitive to smell and don't like the smell of dogs either. The dog smell might agitate them.

On the flip-side, Lucy loves the smell of the honey that the bees produce and gets very excited when we harvest the honey in the kitchen:

Fire & Ticks

Is fire the only way to permanently delete ticks?

I was snuggled up on the couch near Lucy and I felt a little tickle on my leg. I was almost asleep, so I considered just ignoring it. It was probably just a hair or a crumb. But, instead, I looked up and moved my leg to examine the spot. To my disgust, I saw a tick crawling up my leg. I brushed it off and grabbed a small glass bowl to lock it in place on the couch. I put three stone coasters on top to keep it secure. Then I made a mad rush around the house trying to find metal only tweezers. Three rooms and four drawers later, I found a pair. I hated to burn the tips off, but I've never been able to smash a tick completely. Then I rushed to the side closet up front and pulled out a tea candle and got matches from the junk drawer in the kitchen.

Operation Burn Tick was underway. Back on the couch, I gently lifted the coasters, then the small glass bowl and snatched the tick with the tweezers. I held the tick in the flame and a moment later, it was ash.

To my surprise, I found this easy to do. I find that killing a cockroach is something hard for me to do, since it is still a living creature. But killing a tick is something that I think must be done as they suck blood and spread disease. They truly are out to hurt Lucy and even me.

In the larger order of species, I'm not sure where ticks fit in, but I guess that they must have their place. I do know, however, know that their place is not on my leg, my couch or on my dear Lucy.

4 year anniversary of Lucy Adoption/Lucy's "birthday"!

I can't believe 4 years have passed already! It feels like Lucy has always been in my life on one hand and on the other hand, I can't believe that she's getting older and is now about 4.5 years old. We estimated that she was about 6 months old when we adopted her.

She has added this depth to my life - this other source of love and joy. Going for walks or hikes in the woods is simply so much more fun with Lucy since she gets so excited about all the new smells and seeing other dogs. She also loves meeting new people too and is very fond of two of our neighbors.

In terms of her personality, she feels as full of energy today as she did when she was a puppy. She's very playful and still will eat just about anything in sight (that seems remotely eatable). The only change is that it seems that she sleeps a little more than she used to, but I'm not sure if that's true. She has gotten a tiny bit more snuggly - namely at night and early in the morning we have the "Lucy snuggle". She likes to wake us up and run to the kitchen to the pantry and look up at the shelf where her food is as if saying with her eager eyes, "There it is! It's time for breakfast!"

And almost every morning, either Stuart or I say, "I wish I felt that awake this early in the morning!" And we both laugh. Lucy is also a champ at sleeping well, which Stuart attributes to her, "not having to worry about getting up for work in the morning, or paying bills."