Well, here we go- off to England for our honeymoon! Two weeks of
walking and drinking (beer) in the beautiful wet and wild countryside
of Great Britain. Plane flight aside, I can hardly wait.
It has been almost exactly 10 years since I last saw England.
Ten years?! Things have changed so dramatically in a decade, even when
I just consider the microcosm of my life. I can only imagine how much
an entire country has changed.
Of course, there will be posts upon our return. That is, if
we decide to return.
Anna and I went for a hike today to Stissing Mountain and the
Thompson Pond Nature Preserve. The entire area is owned by The Nature Conservancy and is really
quite pretty.
In addition to a very steep and challenging trail up Stissing
Mountain to the fire tower, we hiked a 3 mile loop around Thompson’s
Pond.
In addition to a couple snakes, we saw numerous birds — most
of which I hadn’t a prayer of actually identifying. Anna also captured
these trees doing their snake impression:
This was the first time I’d used my new Camelbak Trail Blazer day pack. What a difference cold water
makes. Before we left home, I filled the 2L reservoir and added an
entire tray of ice cubes. Throughout the four hours we were hiking, the
water in the pack stayed cool if not exactly cold. Anna had to bring
along a water bottle, because her Camelbak was on back-order at REI.
Perhaps I’ve already told you that Augustus likes
to go walking on a leash. Perhaps you’ve lain awake at night wondering
how I convinced a cat to accept a harness and leash. Well, your nights
of sleeplessness are at an end.
You’ll want the following ingredients:
- Size Right Harness
- This is the best harness I’ve found yet. We’ve tried a couple
and this one is easy to put on and really doesn’t seem to annoy
Augustus at all.
- Retractable Lead
- Augustus doesn’t like a woven nylon leash because it actually
weighs something and he feels like he’s restrained. However
a retractable lead uses a thin nylon string which seems to weigh
almost nothing (plus it’s longer). You can get a good 16′ long lead from PetsMart.
Of course, having all this equipment is great; but it won’t make
your cat like walking on a leash. In the past, numerous people
have weighed in with their advice on helping a cat acclimate to a
harness: all of it turned out to be bunk. The least accurate was, “Put
the harness on him while he’s in the house and let him wear it for a
while to get comfortable with it.” I can tell you first hand, he’ll
never grow comfortable wearing a harness. He’s a bloody cat and cat’s
don’t wear harnesses.
The approach I took with Augustus was to put the harness on him,
attach the leash, pick him up and carry him outside and plop him down
in the middle of the lawn. Suddenly, he really wasn’t thinking about
the harness or leash, because there were squirrels and birds that had
his undivided attention. I did learn to play out all the string on the
lead and lock it to give him the greatest feeling of freedom.
Now all is well: Augustus lays down when I grab the harness and
leash and even rolls over to let me fasten the harness easier. I doubt
he really likes either the harness or the leash; but he definitely
likes what they allow him to do…
