I’ve been on a speed-walking binge for the winter, in an effort to get/stay fit and lose a few misbegotten pounds.
I walk Aka Lana Lana nearly nightly, though a little less often during the winter. No matter how much I coax the dog along, though, dogs will be dogs and our average speed tends towards a reasonable 25+ minutes/mile. So I started going out after dog-walking to get some real speed on.
I started walking, and tracking, at the end of November 2021 with a 28:26 average around the lake – about the same as walking the dog. Admittedly, I wasn’t pushing too hard at the time, but I wouldn’t have done significantly better if I had.
Just over three months later, and the same walk is now a 14:22 per mile average, or 4.17 mph.
Ignore Runkeeper’s “3rd fastest” headline, I’m pretty sure I’ve never walked so fast in a long, long time – and this has been most decidedly walking, not jogging or running mixed in.
4 mph has a certain significance in my psyche, because I grew up thinking that it’s a reasonable walking speed for the untrained, after reading The Long Walk, not a breathing-hard kind of pace. In retrospect I think Mr. King got that particular detail of the story wrong; I’m not sure you could expect people to last very long at that pace, and maybe 3.5 mph would have been more realistic for walk that should last more than 24 hours. Then again, I’m the one who might be wrong.
I’ve also dropped a few pounds along the way, but I won’t publish figured on that quite yet.
This is our family dog. She is waiting for me to take her for a our regular after-dinner walk.
I am changing her name from “Butter” to “Aka Lana Lana” (“Hopeful Shadow” in Hawaiian) as she closely follows me around the house from the moment we finish dinner until I actually take her for a walk.
There was at least one of these three ensconced here for the remainder of the afternoon
Bought some new patio furniture on a lark today, now I just need to finish preparing the patio.
We stuck it on the deck in the meantime, where it attracted some squatters almost immediately. I think they like it. They should, as the human children gave me puppy-dog eyes until I caved and agreed to buy it. (Butter had nothing to do with the purchase, but she spent the most time of anyone on it today.)
View down the street. Its really coming downOur backyard. The plays cape is not doing well….Artsy-fartsy picture of my mittens. They kept me warm while shoveling.I didn’t bother with my hat. Whoops.Drying my mittens.View before the second shoveling. Probably 8 inches deep in the shoveled sections – over a foot overall.
So, Storm # 3 (named Skylar) hit today. As of 9 PM tonight, we had at least 20″ – taller than the dog. We had to dig her a path so she could go out to pee, poor thing. But she had a grand time playing with in the snow. For a dog with no fur, she loves snow.
I went out to shovel twice – once around 9 am, and again at 3. Both times took about an hour, and both times were reminders that we should have waxed the shovel in the fall. Car wax does a great job.
The bottom layer was all slush, and really heavy (apparently there was some rain at the beginning). The top layers were light and fluffy, thankfully. I did most of the driveway the second round, but I just couldn’t deal with the slush by the street. I just cleaned up the rest and left it for Quinn. Because I’m terrible.
The kids spent the day inside, reading and playing Minecraft. We kicked off a huge fire in the fireplace to warm up, and we spent some time cuddled up in front of it.
Around 4, we went to our neighbor’s house for frozen pizza and games. We roused Alpha out of her room, and got her to come along. She had fun, once she got there. We played Upwords (for the first time). Beta did better than I did, which is always fun. Sam-across-the-street kicked our butts, though.
Overall, a pretty good snow day!
The snow is deeper than Butter is tall. We had to dig her a path to her “potty.” At least 20 inches.
For the last month or two, Quinn and I have been going out for walks after the kids are in bed. Its quiet, the dog has a great time, and we get to talk for an hour (tonight it was iPad woes and trying to remember this story about the SR-71 and a Navy Hornet). I’ve been feeling better, and am a little smaller, so its a win all the way around!
It is now bunny season. They are everywhere, and they are not smart. They will sit very still, even after Butter sees them. They will sit very still until she’s almost convinced herself that they aren’t really there. That’s when they bolt, and Butter tries to take our arms off bolting after them. The worst part is that they never seem to run into cover, they run along it, so she can see them for the longest possible time.
Bunnies.
So, tonight there was a real winner. He sat, still as a stone, until Butter was about 6 feet away from him. Then he ran, along the road, for about 20 feet (if you’ve ever seen Butter run, you know that’s not nearly far enough) to the corner of a fence. And sat there staring at the dog, who was on high alert and at the very end of her leash. It would be worrying, but her ears flop into her eyes, so she just looks ridiculous.
Quinn says, “I wonder what she would do if I ran after the bunny, and pretended to catch it.” I can see the wheels turning in his head, even in the dark.
“Don’t you dare.”
But the bunny isn’t moving, even as we keep walking toward it (he was between us and home; I don’t torture bunnies for fun). Quinn keeps giggling to himself, thinking about chasing the bunny, and the dog’s reaction. And the bunny still isn’t moving and we’re back to a 6 foot lead.
I sighed. No way around it. “Please chase the bunny.”
So he does. He runs towards the bunny, who is completely confused, and takes a second to start running, too. Butter tried to take off with him, but I was ready for it and she didn’t get anywhere. The bunny high-tailed it towards the back of a house, and Quinn went after it, just into a shadow.
This is where the fun starts, you see. He made growly, eating noises. Butter could not believe it. Quinn caught the bunny and ate it. She spent the rest of the walk looking for her own bunny to catch and eat. (He did not really catch the bunny, but Butter was firmly convinced her dad was a mighty predator tonight.)
Quinn wants to get a toy bunny (safe for dogs) and carry it with him on our walks. He’s going to chase another bunny out of harm’s way, and bring back the toy to give to Butter. She will firmly believe that he’s sharing his kill with her. He says, “It will be like teaching her about Santa Clause!” because she will be firmly convinced that is was bunnies taste like.
I’m not sure if this is going to be hysterical, or the start of many bad times for the local bunnies.
Butter did not have a good day today. She’s been licking her paws and scratching her face to the point she’s starting to lose fur. Sprayed her with some anti-itch spray, and that didn’t help much (but she did put herself in her crate for an hour).
She looks so miserable
Off to the vet we go. He looks her over and says yes, it’s allergies, benadryl what she needs, and by the way her anal glands are full.
So, poor Butter is itchy, has been sprayed with nasty stuff, went to the vet, had a finger up her rear to express her gland, and is due to take two pills later.
I said I should just trim her nails to make it complete, but Quinn says that would be too cruel. I think he’s right.
Beta and I seem to be the more adventuresome side of the family. Today we went hiking in the Middlesex Fells Reservation because we’d never been.
For our first look-around, I chose to start near the off-leash area at the Sheepfold, thinking we might be able to let Butter off her leash for a bit. Sadly, the area is not fenced in at all, and she won’t come on command when there are any distractions. (Butter will come when called at home, she’s not totally devoid of training, but the possibilities of squirrels and other dogs and dead things to roll around in are just too much for her to resist.)
From the Sheepfold parking area, there’s a straight shot up to the Bear Hill observation tower (about a mile) so we headed up. The view from the top is impressive.
Beta brought along a book to identify animal tracks, and we found some animal tracks that were neither human nor dog — we think they were bobcat.
Unbeknownst to me Beta did NOT bring socks, however, and her waterproof boots quickly gave her a blister. We discovered this at the tower, so we turned around and headed home a bit earlier than I had planned. She promised me that she would bring socks next time, and she was so miserable by the end of the hike that I kind of believe her this time. I think she enjoyed the hike otherwise, though.
Most nights I take Butter, the dog, for a walk around our neighborhood. It’s good for her and it’s good for me. As a responsible citizen I clean up after her. I wouldn’t want to step in another dog’s waste, after all, so I don’t inflict it on my neighbors. I wish everyone else were so considerate — most are, not all, but that’s a different topic.
Butter isn’t very regular. Some days she craps three or four times in the span of our walk (about 45 minutes to an hour), other days there’s not a single bowel movement. If I could choose which days would be more feculent I would pick garbage night so that I wouldn’t have to carry the bags very far, but I don’t get to choose so sometimes I wind up carrying around a lot of purloined stool.
She pees a lot too, but that seems to go alright because I don’t hassle her about where she makes water and I certainly don’t go back for it. But her manure is fair game for pilfering, and it’s mine, all mine.
I think Butter has a vague idea that we do our business in the bathroom instead of outside. I find the dichotomy interesting, actually: a dog’s bathroom is outside, in the open. If a person made them defecate and urinate inside their house, and other people found out, that person would be considered weird (and probably a bit filthy) and no one would want to go visiting at their home. The flip side of that coin is, if I am caught soiling the ground outside I could be arrested for disorderly conduct and possibly charged with other offences — even if I do it in the bushes and offer to scoop everything into this nice little baggy I brought with me.
When it comes time to make doody I imagine Butter’s internal monologue goes something like this:
“uhh… hold on… ohohohoh uungh… ahhhhhhhhhhhh
“oh I feel better, time to kick it away and clean up —
“why is he yelling at me to stop? Doesn’t he like clean —
“ugh no he’s fiddling with the rustling things again. He’s going to —
“oh gawd yeah he’s picking it up again. Why do you have to make it weird?
“dude.” Looks at me reproachfully. “If I drop a deuce in the house you yell at me. I do it out here and you insist on bringing it all the way home with us. What’s up with that?
…
“gawdammit everywhere I sniff it smells like my poop now. How can we search for everyone else’s scat if all I smell is my own?
“You’re a moron, did you know that mister?”
And so it goes. From her perspective I stalk her in order to plunder her excrement and keep it for myself. I think I confuse her a little, but not too much because she’s not that smart.
Humans, on the other hand, supposedly are smart. We recognize that dogs are a paradox.
She might be the smart one, though. After all, she gets free room and board, and a personal turd burglar.
Backstory: a long time ago as the ice sheets from the latest ice age slowly receded, an island was carved out of the Maine coastline. My father purchased a few acres of land shortly before humans showed up in North America to jack up the prices, intending to build a vacation home when modern building methods were developed.
Taking a quick break on the trail
A house never materialized but we made annual treks to the island, called Islesboro, for years while I was growing up. After my parents lost interest, I occasionally went there on my own to go camping until finally I, too, got busy with life and stopped going.
Fast-forward a couple of decades, to last Sunday night in fact. Meghan and I got to talking and we realized that we’re really only a short drive away from Islesboro nowadays– only about 3 ½ hours from door-to-ferry slip. Why don’t we go? So we booked a room for Friday night and started rearranging our schedules.
A little more backstory: When I used to go up by myself, I generally spent a my first night at a little motel on the mainland, just a mile from the ferry slip. This motel was about as bare-bones as you can get: little cabins with a clean bed and a shower, and if I recall correctly it was about $25 / night back then. They family that owned it made you breakfast in the morning (Best blueberry pancakes I’ve ever had.)
The hotel is still there, under new ownership and a new name but still relatively inexpensive – and still clean and comfortable. They also accept dogs, so we could bring Butter instead of trying to board her on short notice.
We left mid-day Friday, after I finished up my tasks and morning meetings at work — my employer offers some scheduling flexibility and I put in a number of extra hours over the course of the week to make sure my promised deliverables were deliverable (I have to explicitly mention this since some of my co-workers may actually read this blog).
Megh standing near the peak of Mt. Battie. The tower is a memorial to the soldiers of ‘The Great War’, dated 1921.
The trip was rainy as hell on the way up. We detoured into Freeport to visit the LL Bean store — even if you’ve been to a L. L. Bean store, it’s not as big as the L. L. Bean store. The girl-folk went inside to procure winter jackets for the kids, while I took a nap in the car and walked Butter around in between squalls. (Did I mention I’ve been staying up late all week to get stuff done?)
Hiking upwards on the Tablelands Trail, Mt. Battie
We arrived in Lincolnville around 5:30 pm. The rain was still coming down and occasionally pouring, but the breaks were getting longer. After settling into our room, and letting everyone (including Butter) stretch their legs a bit, we headed back up to the road to downtown Camden in search of dinner.
We found a nice tavern, away from the main drag, called the Smokestack Grill. Not much ambiance inside — it looks a bit like a sports bar with large TVs over the bar — but the building is an old mill so there’s architectural interest. I had a jalapeño cream cheese and bacon burger, Meghan had calamari, and the girls split a fried shrimp dinner. The bill was quite reasonable, our server was attentive and friendly, and the food was delicious. Butter, sadly, stayed in the car and waited for us.
Afterwards we went back to our room and got ready for bed – except me, I stayed up until the rain stopped so Butter could get in a short walk — she is a princess and doesn’t like to get wet, and sleeping in close quarters with a wet dog is not high on my list of things to do. I didn’t have to wait too long, and we were all in bed early. There’s something about travelling that just makes you tired, even if you’re sitting in the car all day.
Saturday morning was sunny but really breezy and chilly. The kids were divided on whether or not to go to the island, so I cast the deciding vote: no, the seas are rough and I don’t want to spend $70 to have two seasick kids and a sick dog – we’ll come back for that. Lets go do something else this time.
Right up the road, between the motel and downtown Camden, is a state park called Camden Hills State Park / Mt. Battie. We drove in, paid our fee, found a place to park, and went hiking up the ‘Tablelands Trail.’ It takes you right up to one of the peaks, which overlooks both the Penobscot Bay and downtown Camden, from nearly 800 feet up.
After playing around on the peak for while, and after the clouds started playing peek-a-boo with the sun, we headed back down to find some hot chocolate in Camden to warm us up. The breeze was making us chilly even when we were ascending on the trail, so without the sun we got downright cold.
Camden starts to shut down before October, so while a majority of shops were still open there were a few that have already closed for the season. We window-shopped and walked around downtown for an hour, and hit the road for one last stop down Route 1.
The Maine State Prison “showroom” for prisoner-made woodcraft. The store is still staffed by prisoners and prison guards. The items inside are made with impressive quality, including furniture that is as nice as a high-end store (but much lower cost)
For whatever faults the Maine prison system may have, they maintain an intriguing program of teaching trades to prisoners, including woodworking. The finished products are then sold to the public.
I’ve been stopping at the Prison Store in Thomaston for as long as I’ve been going to Maine. The last time I was there was in 2001, and the store was still attached to a working prison; in 2002 the prison was closed and subsequently torn down, but the store remains.
Unsurprisingly, we came out with some gifts for family and a few things for ourselves.
After Thomaston, we made a bee-line for Bath (home of the BFC – Big Friggen Crane – at the Bath Iron Works) and the interstates so that we would be home in time to make dinner.
All in all, it was a fun little jaunt, even if we didn’t actually step foot on the island. Next time I think I’ll try to just take the day off instead of squeezing five days worth of work into four.
Over looking Penobscot Bay – Islesboro is the big island in the middle, stretching the width of the picture. If you click to view the full-size version you can see the ferry.Looking down on Camden from Mt. Battie. There is a trail that descends from here into town, which looks like it might be a good hike for next time. The color is a little washed out because we’re pointed right into the light.Taken from the tower on Mt. Battie, looking off to the south east.Mt. Battie isn’t the highest peak in the park, it merely has the best view. Mt. Megunticook stands 400′ higher — I think I’d like to tackle that next time.
