Hiking Kennesaw Mountain

Stephen and I will be taking a trip with our friends, Samantha and Tim, our parallel couple.  (Their relationship/life/likes and dislikes are very similar to ours, we even have two black dogs.)  For a few months we've been talking about heading out to Yosemite National Park to hike Half Dome.

Source:  Wikipedia

The hike is 8 miles one way with a 4,800 ft gain.  Yes, in one trip we'll hike 16 miles.  And climb up to the top of that giant rock.

To get ready for this trip Stephen and I have started to hike here in Atlanta.  We don't have anything near as dramatic as Half Dome here in Georgia, but we have two small mountains, Kennesaw Mountain and Stone Mountain, that we can hike to get our legs ready for steep inclines for miles at a time.

Kennesaw Mountain.  Source: Atlanta Outdoor Club

The hike up Kennesaw Mountain has some pretty steep parts of the trail which is nice while we train.  The path to the top of the mountain rises about 800 feet.  So we're about 4,000 feet short of Half Dome.  At least we'll be ready for some of the big hike.

What's great about Kennesaw Mountain is that it's free.  Yep, Atlanta still has something to do for free. The mountain played a huge part in the Civil War and the fall of Atlanta and along the way up to the summit you'll pass historical markets with stories of the battles that took place at the mountain.  You can also bring your dog on the hike.  It's been great to take Goose with us the past two days.  We haven't taken Mabel because she's a barker and none of the other dogs along the trail are barkers and she'd interrupt the peacefulness of the hike.  Goose has been great and having a sleepy dog at home this weekend has been wonderful.

If you're going to hike Kennesaw Mountain I recommend good, sturdy hiking shoes, a bottle of water and some bug spray.  It's best to get there early because the close parking lot fills up pretty fast.  There aren't any bathrooms along the trail, so stop at the Visitors Center before you start the hike if you have to use the restroom often.

I've also joined a gym to get ready for this hike.  I'll be doing a lot of cardio to get my heart and lungs ready and I'm going to focus on my legs, a lot.  Like all of the time.

Wish us luck!

Grant Park Farmer's Market

Stephen and I love buying local and organic food.  I've posted about the DeKalb Farmers Market that we try to go to at least once a month and we're always looking for healthy substitutes to our diet.  The park in our neighborhood, Grant Park, has a farmer's market every Sunday from 9:30am - 1:00pm in the warm months (April 29 - December 16).  Click here for the market's website.

source: grantparkmarket.org

Surprisingly, this week was the first time we went over to check it out.  It was pretty nice!  There were a large variety of vendors and there were tons of families out and about.  They even have a cooking demos by a local chef each week.  We caught the very end of the cooking lesson this week by Nick Melvin.  The chef demo on August 12 is on Quinoa Cuisine.  We're huge quinoa fans so I'm going to try to make it to that one.

The area where they host the cooking demos was gorgeous.  We plan to take some wedding pictures in Grant Park and this area is going to be 100% perfect.  I emailed the picture above to our wedding photographer right away.  Don't you love how the light comes through the giant trees to the stone arch. I'm pretty sure it used to be a fountain, now it's perfect for some wedding pictures.

We ended up buying some produce and some jam Sunday morning.  All of the produce that we needed for the week wasn't available at the market, so Stephen and I dropped off what we bought and headed to the DeKalb Farmer's Market to finish off our shopping list.  Great Sunday morning.

Over the weekend we also discovered our new favorite park not too far from our house - the South Bend Dog Park.  Yep, we found a legit dog park by our house.  I noticed the sign for the park a few months ago when we drove past on our way to a Dave Matthews Band Concert at Lakewood Amphitheater.  Now that Goose is old enough and fully recovered from his neutering surgery with all his shots we decided to take the pups out to see how they like it.  Obviously we knew Mabel would be in Heaven as long as we brought a ball, which we did.  Goose was pretty excited about his freedom off the leash.  He didn't quite understand fetch (he can do it in the house, but in wide open spaces he had no clue what to do) but he'd run with Mabel as she went after the ball.  The park is huge and they had tons of space to run.  We were lucky to be the only ones there on Saturday morning.  There are a lot of hills in the park so after 4 or 5 throws of the ball both pups were tired and we headed home.  We met another family on Sunday who come to the park all the time and they said work day evenings are packed.  We'll try to avoid those times because Mabel doesnt' always get along with other lady dogs.  The best part of the park - how tired they are when we get home.

Puppy Update

Goose continues to make us laugh as he tries to figure out how big he really is and how his body moves.  He's such a big boy for 5 months old, he has a lot of learning to do.  We have a chair in our living room that he used to not be able to jump on, when we first brought him home. We'd have to pick his little butt up and help him up to cuddle with us.  He now gets a running start and jumps over the arm of the chair.  Here is the chair and Goose when we first got him, about 4 months old.

Goose is very hard to photograph because he's so dark!

Last night he tried to jump over the back of the chair above and got stuck with his front legs on one side and his hind legs on the other.  Before I could get there to help him, he just rolled off the side and crashed to the floor.  I'm sure if we could see bruises on him, he'd be covered.

Goose is now noticeably larger than Mabel.  He's stronger than her now and their wrestling is much more evenly matched than when she first taught him some moves.

Sorry the picture is so blurry, you try getting both of them to look at the camera.

You can tell from picture #1 to the one above that he's definitely grown in the past month!  Sometimes I feel like he's grown while I was at work.

He is still working out that the outdoors are not a frightening place.  He hates going anywhere off the back deck unless it's into the backyard to go to the bathroom.  If we try to take him in the car or for a walk, it's a tug of war to get him down the steps.  We're not bribing him with food.  It seemed to work on the last car ride.

Mabel is still sweet as can be and is the perfect big sister.  She puts up with a lot of his puppy nonsense.

This is her "please throw the ball" face

Goose is learning to look at the camera, but I'm sure it will be some time before he poses like Mabel does.  

Sunday morning Goose vomited (yes, vomited) on the chair in the top picture.  My gorgeous, huge, expensive chair.  The chair that had I known I'd have two black dogs I would have chosen darker fabric.  I love that chair, so I freaked out.  We're already going to have to have a professional cleaner come into clean the chair and couch, but the stain was starting to smell.  Off the cushion cover went and into the washing machine.  As soon as the water started running in the wash, I noticed the warning on the chair that one mush NEVER remove the covers from the cushions and only have them cleaned professionally.  Perfect.  Well, it was washed and we hung it to dry.  Happily, it's back on the cushion and after a few more days of Goose jumping on it and me curled up with a book, it will be back to normal.  The corners look like they need a little more stuffing to move their way.  

As Goose continues to grow, I'll keep updating the pictures.  I found this canvas below on Pinterest and I can't wait to give it a shot.  

I'll make one for Mabel and one for Goose.  I'll wait until he's full grown and I have a better camera so I can try to get him quickly while he's sitting still.  Click here to see the full tutorial on how to make the painting from The Creativity Exchange blog.  

The Cone of Shame

Goose, our puppy, is 5 months old now.  That means it was time to get him neutered.  From what I read that typically happens between 4 and 6 months for a puppy, so we were right on schedule.  We took him back to the vet where he and his brothers lived before we adopted him.

I've never had a puppy which includes the need to care for a puppy after he is neutered.  He came home a little groggy and slept the rest of the night, but that's to be expected.  When we came home the next day and I took him out of his crate I noticed that his incision area was a little bloody - he was licking his wound.  The rescue group that had Goose paid for the surgery, but they didn't cover paying for the cone.  You know the cone... what I like to call the "cone of shame".

After calling the vet, Goose and I loaded up in to the car (might be his least favorite thing in the world) and we headed back to have him checked out and fitted for a cone.

This is before he realized that the cone comes home with us. He looks so happy.  I think it's because he saw me again after going into the back room and he was just happy I wasn't leaving him there forever.  He's a big boy - we weighed him at 40 lbs at 5 months!  Notice how nice the cone looks.  

Goose and his cone!  Look at all of those big boy teeth that just came in!

Just a few hours later, including one car ride, and the cone is no longer a circle.  He didn't quite understand how to walk around the house at this point.  So we did what any good pet parent would do, we videoed him learning to walk in the cone.  He ran into everything.  If he got lost or disoriented (like he does in the video when he get to the stairs) he would just hang his head and wait for us to save him. 

I will point out that he only had to wear the cone at night and when we were at work, so this was really the only time he was in the cone walking around - we love our little man, we don't torture him.  The other dog in the video is Mabel who was terrified of him in the cone at first.  

It's been a week and Goose doesn't have to wear the cone any more.  The first time we left him in it he was able to get out of it and chew it up a bit.  Then he got depressed when we put him in it.  He'd lay down on the ground when we'd put it on him and then walk right into the crate to lay down.  He was too sad to even fight it.