What’s a Girl to Do?

Well, today I told several people I AM GOING FOR A WALK.  Since the long hot dusty summer has hit, and since Tigerlily’s walking challenge ended, and since I joined Curves, I have really not walked nearly as much as I should.  BTW, TL is starting a new walking challenge.  This is such fun.  Come join us!

So I set out this morning (good for me, I usually can’t get myself to go before 4pm) and told Oliver (the practically perfect black Standard Poodle) that, ‘I know, we’ll walk down to the creek and our little waterfall.’  That is a 3 mile round trip walk, and a nice cool treat in the middle, because it was already hot.

We weren’t too far when a neighbor came out to tell me “be careful where you walk, yesterday a mountain lion came and took one of my sheep away…”  Well, on further talking, it was a lamb, and he didn’t actually see the mountain lion.  I think a good sized coyote (which we have plenty of) could have taken a lamb.  I am not scared of coyotes, but I have a healthy fear of mountain lions.  Nevertheless, there are plenty of ‘mountain lion sightings’ on our road, and it is pretty frustrating.  What is the point in living in a beautiful rural area if you are supposed to be afraid to take a walk?  But the creek and a couple of other pretty secluded places where I walk are always areas that I think I might be more likely to encounter a mountain lion or bear, and so sometimes I just don’t go there.  But other times, I do.  These are really the best places to walk.  But I don’t like being nervous–kinda takes the pure joy out of the experience.

So today, we didn’t go to the creek.  Since I hadn’t walked for a while, one mile was good enough for me.  I do feel pretty safe with a big dog.  Although Oliver is one of the most laid back big dogs I have ever had.  I did think about asking my Dad for one of his knives to walk with.  I am really NOT a person who wants to carry a weapon of any sort.  I don’t even like killing bugs…and in an emergency, I just don’t know if I would have the guts or the quick-thinking necessary to use it.

In the meantime, I will do my 100 Push-up Challenge, and go to Curves later this afternoon.  Here’s a picture of the little waterfall we didn’t get to.  There is a little spring that feeds it, so no matter how dry it gets here, the waterfall is always there.