Hiking [in the Age of Corona]

A bit of backstory on the title of this post: My brother and his girlfriend have started adding "in the age of corona, which must be said with a lilting English accent, to accompany most of our activities since we began sheltering at home. From fishing in the neighborhood pond to digging ramps, cooking dinner, playing games, running, and hiking. They're both actors and it's been fun to see their little "in the age of corona" skits evolve. Who knows, maybe one day the whole thing will be some sort of Netflix series that follows their love story through the age of corona. Love in the Age of Corona has a nice ring to it? Maybe? Or maybe we're all just slowly losing our minds.

At any rate, the whole purpose of this post is to simply share some pretty photos of our hikes the past two weekends. The first weekend three of my local girlfriends and I got out for a physically distant social hike with the dogs on some local trails. It was SO WEIRD to see them but not get to hug them in greeting. We all awkwardly stood around like teenagers at their first dance or something. Once we got to hiking though, the conversations flowed easily. It was SO NICE and SO NEEDED. I didn't know just how much I needed that interaction. 

A mature maple-beech forest with a growing understory of Canaan fir and red spruce

One of many beaver ponds 

Physically distance conversations

Laughing about a weird targeted ad Kate saw this week for jawzrsize. Look it up. It's insane. 

And nooowwww, they're ready to smile.

<3

Liz and Floyd and the wilds of WV

And then the wilds of WV ate her leg - note Emma's hand in the lower left corner as she darted to rescue

Annnnd in the process of her getting up to help Liz, she pushed on a snag that fell. Kate caught it and prevented it from bashing me in the head while I continued to snap photos of the whole ordeal. LOL. And thank goodness for Emma's gloves. Go figure that the only RN among us totally throws distancing recommendations to the wind when someone is in need of a helping hand haha

The second hike this past weekend went between our property and my one of my girlfriend's properties in the Sinks of Gandy. The area is much more remote than Canaan. Two of my girlfriends were there again, plus my brother and his girlfriend. We were cautious to keep socially distant from those we hadn't quarantined with, though we all felt pretty comfortable walking a bit closer in some situations because each of us had just finished our two weeks of stay-at-home quarantine the day before without showing any symptoms. 

It ended up being a 9-mile hike, but it wasn't too strenuous because we followed waterways most of the time instead of climbing up and over the surrounding knobs. The temperature was a surprising 73°F, too! Our first truly warm, beautiful day of the year. The exercise, company, and remote environment was a really nice reprieve from the microcosms of our homes.

My quarantine lady-franns. Yes, we're closer than 6 feet, but considering I've been living on-and-off with one of them and in constant companionship with the other for the past 3 weeks all without symptoms and all in remote areas, I think we're okay.

Headwater streams

Brother and girlfriend

Yes, it's kinda like Outlander.

Balsam fir and red spruce in and around the Blister Swamp. The ridgeline in the distance is where Emma and I rode the horses in autumn 2018. 

Blister swamp nestled between the knobs

Emma's family's home in the distance. They've held this property since the Civil War. In the little topographical nook to the left of the house is where the Gandy River begins.

Looking out from the front yard of the house toward Blister Swamp

Kenai being utterly spoiled by his Uncle

Isn't he just the cutest old man?!

Taiga fraternizing with the native cow bone spirit

She carried off that large bone earlier in the day lol

More headwater streams

Love in the Age of Corona ;-)

I hope each of your are able to get outside for a bit this weekend! I hope to get lots of seeds started and begin numerous other chores around the yard and farm. But more on those next week...

Foraging

A big driver to a lot of my riding these past few weeks has been to forage for ramps.

Baby rampies cleaned and ready for cooking accompanied by my most favorite beer. Mature ramps will have much larger leaves. While not pictured in this post, the ones I collected (in the bag in the last photo) are 2-3x as large as these!
On this night we had sauteed red potatoes and ramps, cheddar bay biscuits with ramps, and fresh caught brook and rainbow trout stuffed with ramps. Did we stink? Absolutely. Did we love it? You betcha.

Ramps are a wild leek native to Appalachia. If you're unfamiliar with them, they're basically the offspring of a green onion + leek + garlic. We LOVE them. And we've been cooking with them a lot during this time of quarantine. It's the perfect time to enjoy them, as they do make your breath absolutely foul and - if you eat enough of them - your sweat will share that foul smell!

My brother and his girlfriend digging for ramps. Will had done it before, but it was Leslie's first time! She loved it. 

One side of our mountain is an absolute treasure trove for ramps. There are literal ACRES of them. two of the other slopes also have patches, though they are not nearly as abundant.

Regardless of their location, however, each area is significantly lower in elevation than our house. It isn't the worst hike to get to the ramps, but to return home is a bit of a climb!

Enter: the horses.

The horses tied and waiting. You can also get a sense of how freaking steep this area is. Oh, and look closely for a Kenai tushy.

It's just shy of two miles to take the more meandering trek down to the richest ramp patch. There is a shorter approach, but it is steep AF, so I don't utilize it as often.

In past years, I wouldn't dig for ramps as often as I wanted to because of the return hike being such a bear. And often with my jam-packed schedule, I simply didn't have the time to hoof it down and back.

But now? Well, I've got nothing but time and I've also increased my horsepower threefold!

Meandering back up the mountain after fetching ramps

I've made weekly trips to dig ramps since early March. First with my brother and his girlfriend who fled NYC before the proverbial shit hit the fan, then with just my brother (this included a short stretch riding Staniel double which was hilarious - that horse is simply the greatest), and then multiple times on my own after my brother and his girlfriend took up quarantine residence in an even more remote place than my house.

It's been fun to head out with such purpose on rides. I get fresh air, the dogs get exercise, the horse gets exercise, and I'm able to collect some food for myself, my husband, and my senior neighbors who are hiding away in their house through these crazy times. (I dig ramps with gardening gloves and then bag them and throw them unceremoniously onto my neighbor's back porch. It's kinda fun.)

A bag full of ramps for us and my neighbors + Griffin questioning why I put him through such absurd tasks. I tell him he's just lucky I haven't started mounted archery or shooting. Though those options definitely aren't off the table for the future, hahaha.

Ramps are just the start of my foraging for the year. I'm looking forward to collecting chaga (a fungus that grows on birch trees that helps support a healthy immune system among various other ailments), fiddleheads, morel mushrooms if we can find them (will need to be at lower elevation), oyster mushrooms, lions mane mushrooms, chanterelle mushrooms, and various berries later in the summer and fall (blueberries, huckleberries, blackberries, and cranberries).

Our weather may be unpredictable and often wet, but boy does it allow for some delicious flora and fungi to grow! I'm excited to be able to take greater advantage of all the area has to offer in the way of foraging this year.

Springtime Exercise

One of the biggest downsides of my little farmette is the minimal pasture. It's certainly workable, but it takes careful planning to manage properly. Primarily, it requires a limited turnout schedule based on weather/season and rotational grazing between the two 1-acre pastures to limit wear and tear on the grass and soil. No turnout during the wettest times, limited turnout for grazing during the growing season, and limited turnout for exercise in the off-season when the pasture is frozen. (You should see the divots and churned up topsoil from the one time they were out when the ground wasn't frozen a month ago, oi vey!)

I have anticipated that the early weeks of spring would be the most difficult time for the horses because this is the time of the year that their turnout into the pastures will be most minimal. To allow the grass an opportunity to establish itself requires that the horses are not turned out for a good 4-6 weeks. It's a temporary sacrifice to help guarantee that they have a better turnout situation through the rest of the year.

But springtime weather is helter skelter. And as any horse person knows, the beasties are really feeling themselves this time of year. They're absolutely full of piss and vinegar.

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Good thing horses don't contract COVID-19. These two suck at social distancing. Even with the electric tape 🤦‍♀️

A post shared by Liz Stout (@estout18) on Mar 16, 2020 at 2:42pm PDT

To help keep all of us sane through this period of limited turnout, I've been doing my very best to get them each out for 2-3 mile jaunts as much as possible. I do my best to include one mountain climb on every ride, too. It isn't anything crazy at all, mostly a lot of marching walk, but it does the trick!

The best old man. 

My only occasional riding partner - my neighbor! We've basically quarantined ourselves together through this whole mess. It's been so nice to have female companionship.

Looking north through Canaan Valley. We live on the southern-most point of the Valley.

Though my rides aren't always during nice weather! This time of year isn't exactly well-known for blue skies and sunshine.

A classic day up here, living in a cloud.

The looming shadow is a house.

Descending out of the cloud

See where the trees disappear in the mist? Uh, yeah, we live up there lol

I love how confident this little pony is these days. There was a long stretch of time I couldn't imagine taking a photo like this while riding her because she spooked so much. Now, I take photos like this almost every ride! Oh, and with a bareback pad! It has been months since she wore a saddle. 

Back up on top, about a quarter mile from the house. 

But the pretty days are always the best.

Such a stunning place to call home!

It's such a gift to be able to have the horses at home through this time. We are all thoroughly enjoying our little jaunts about the mountainside. The fresh air and leg stretching certainly helps to keep us sane!

Homebody

The forced slow down of life due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been quite a welcome change for me. For most of the last decade, I have excelled at over-committing myself and my time. In hindsight, it only increased my natural tendency to be anxious and resulted in a lot of undue stress and worry. I wanted to make a concerted effort this year to slow down and find better balance within my life with the hope that I could eliminate much of my anxiety for good.

I've been doing a great job slowing down since the start of the year. The majority of my weekends have been completely free of prior commitments/obligations, and I've been spending a significant portion of my time reading - oh, and taking naps! I've become a bit of a homebody and I don't hate it.

Sunrise rays hitting Canaan Mountain

In a lot of ways, I've been inadvertently prepping myself to be physically distanced from other humans. (I don't feel like "social" distancing is accurate, I'm plenty social still! It is all just digital.)

It helps immensely that I have a job I can do from home indefinitely, my horses are home with me, and I live in the middle of nowhere. My good fortune is not lost on me for one moment. I am so, so, so very grateful for each of these things, and I recognize that they each enable me to have infinitely less anxiety as a result of this whole ordeal.

I can't remember the last time Dave and I took a leisurely walk around the neighborhood together 

But all the same, I needed this slow down. I needed to be better at embracing my inner homebody. Better at taking time to myself instead of sharing it constantly. My mind is still busy, but not at the lightspeed pace it was forced to maintain for so long. And that is a most welcome change.

Now, I read all the time. I sit still and sip my morning tea. I putter around the house watering plants. I slowly muck the dry lot and stalls without hurrying through the task. And I am so very excited to start the seeds I collected from last summer's flowering plants this weekend.

I'm going to continue to do my best to embrace this homebody nature as the next month of physically distancing continues. These small tasks around home are things I can control amidst a world in chaos. And it feels good to do something in my control that gives me a little happiness.

Stay well, y'all. 💚

Gratitude in Uncertain Times (A Bloghop?)

My favorite weekly newsletter, Girls Night In, had a really wonderful quote in the intro of the newsletter today that struck a chord with me:

Small kindnesses build community, and we could all use some community right now, even as we're physically apart.

Social media is an absolute shitshow right now, and these words - and really, the whole newsletter with its various links and resources - were such a welcome relief compared to most of the kerfuffle going on. After reading the newsletter, I found myself smiling and full of gratitude for so many little things right now.

And so, in an effort to introduce a bit of positivity and happiness amidst uncertain times, I thought I would share some of my gratitude items here in the hopes that our lovely little community of bloggers will echo back with some of their own. It's been awhile since a blog hop has gone around, but perhaps our little group can come up with a suite of them in the coming weeks to ease us through these unknown times?

(Click here if you'd like to receive the GNI newsletter!)

Things I'm grateful for amidst the uncertainties of this pandemic:

• each of my animal companions - the simple routine of taking care of them and tending to them is such a solace right now
• an internet connection to stay connected with friends and family near and far
• also on that note, being a part of this little blogging community - your posts are always a highlight, but in the past week they've been an even brighter light in my day
• Spotify. Because music and podcasts in their many forms helps liven up my home and give some more liveliness to tedious chores
• the blessing of having my horses at home - ohmygoodness. <3
• SPRING. More birds return every day and the amphibians are beginning to emerge, too. Hearing every returning species' song brings the biggest of smiles to my face. All of the returning flora is also wonderful. (Though, spring allergies are definitely going to be like the Salem witch trials....)
• a husband who is really psyched to be a mandated hermit. Seriously. If he was more of an extrovert this whole ordeal would be so much more miserable. He's fun to hang out with and over-the-moon about getting to avoid people lol!
• living in the middle of nowhere. It comes with its own share of costs, but right now, I'm really grateful for the benefits - it definitely makes social distancing easier.
• spring chores. Hear me out, while these are often tedious I'm so happy to have something to busy myself with in the upcoming days and weeks. There is so much dusting to do, windows to clean, seasonal items to transition in and out of storage, yard work, etc. to do!
• streaming services! Prime, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, take your pick, I'm happy for all of them right now!
• BOOKS! The opposite end of the spectrum from digital media, but there's never been a better time to get lost in a good, intense plotline.
• online courses - I start my equine nutrition course with Dr. Kellon in a weekish. I'm really excited about it and super grateful that it's something that can continue without needing to be around people.

I could go on, but I think I'm going to head outside to putter around my property for a bit and start on some chores before the next bout of rain hits. ;-)

So what about you? Won't you share a list of small gratitudes during these chaotic times? I'd love to hear about what small things are making you happy right now.

Making Due

Today is my first day feeling mostly human in nearly a week. I contracted some sort of sickness last week for the first time all winter. I had naively gotten my hopes up that perhaps I would escape this winter without sickness. Alas, I had no such luck.

While my symptoms don't lead me to believe it was COVID-19, I'll never truly know because testing for the virus in West Virginia was very difficult to come by until yesterday. In fact, after developing a mild fever of 100°F on Sunday, I called my doctor's office to see about getting tested to rule things out, and they told me they could only test me for influenza, which based on my symptoms and their onset/length I most likely did not have.

Sunset canvas and our house's silhouette 

I had a suite of relatively-minor-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things symptoms that left me feeling just bad enough to be unable to do much of anything productive. While I am beyond thankful to have the horses home for this entire pandemic debacle, being sick myself left me in a pickle when it came to barn chores while I was down and out. I made due though, and while mucking wasn't performed with quite the regularity I normally exhibit, the horses were fed, watered, and sheltered in a more-than-adequate fashion.

I can't remember if I ever shared this incredibly thoughtful gift to the blog. 

In the days prior to my sickness, I managed to get out and begin doing trailwork to create a some new routes on and around the mountain. With the cancellation of nearly everything I had planned outside of the area over the next two months, I anticipate I'll be racking up quite a few miles on these and other trails in the area. I've done a bit of map studying lately, too, and am cautiously optimistic that I've found a way to rack up 30-50 miles without having to trailer! How cool would that be?

Personal paradise complete with mostly-full moon & alpenglow

While my illness sidelined me from riding much for the last week, I am still very much on track for my annual goal of riding 600 miles. As of yesterday, my current annual tally sits at a very respectable 110 miles. I've got a solid 9 days of self-quarantine ahead of me and not a lot planned, so I anticipate lots more miles in my immediate future! And hopefully some blogging, too, now that I'm feeling human again.

Hope you all are well and hanging in there during these uncertain times.

Birthday Boy(s) + Kenai Update

Last week we celebrated Kenai's 10th birthday.

He's looking pretty good for 10!

This old man is feeling the best he has felt in literal years. We finally shipped over to DC to see a dermatologist about his skin woes after local vets continued to be perplexed and the medicines they prescribed ceased to benefit Kenai. He has been an absolute itchy mess despite multiple prescriptions over the past year. His skin was inflamed and itchy, his hair was coming out in large clumps, and he was generally miserable all of the time. It sucked.

The dermatologist we saw was wonderful and quickly diagnosed him with Alopecia X with an underlying secondary bacterial skin infection. She prescribed two new drugs and a follow up appointment to touch base 5 weeks later. The goal for the follow up was to have the lesions/inflamed skin resolved with the beginnings of hair regrowth in those areas.

Within 48 hours of the new meds, Kenai was a new dog  behaviorally; he went from constant biting/gnawing/scratching/pacing to simply chilling the fuck out. Neither Dave nor I realized just how miserable he had been until he simply wasn't. We knew he'd been itchy and had done all we could with what we had to resolve it, but damn. Our entire household is much calmer now, and I am so incredibly happy to see my best guy so calm and content again. He's even playing with Taiga more!

He wouldn't square up for his birthday photos. Or generally stand still and pose. So this awkward shot is the best I've got.

The odd, patchy hair on his truck is all regrowing. His caudal thighs, tail, and back of neck will very likely remain bald fo'ever.

Learning he has Alopecia X was a HUGE WEIGHT off my shoulders. I'd known it was an option based on how his symptoms were presenting, but I was never fully convinced he had it because it isn't as commonly seen in huskies as it is in other plush breeds. What this means is that he will likely never regrow the hair on his tail, caudal thighs, or back of neck. He may continue to have permanent hair loss on areas of his trunk for the rest of his life, but his legs and head should be spared.

I could care less that he has hair loss now that I know the cause of it. All this time, I was so worried it was something else. Something I overlooked. Something that was possibly wreaking more havoc on his body that I knew. Knowing now that it's just alopecia is the best answer possible. He's not in pain. He isn't reacting to some bizarre allergen I couldn't figure out. He's a happy 10 year old husky with weird hair...or lack thereof...that he could care less about.

Look at that happy old dog!

For Kenai's birthday, we went on a lovely 3-mile ride at his pace. With the gnarly arthritis in his stifles, he doesn't keep up like he used to on our rides. He also doesn't do super well for more than 3 miles on our local trails due to the nature of the terrain. So to treat him to a ride at his pace where he could keep up and/or lead for much of it was a thrill for him.

And miracle of miracles, as Kate and I were prepping to head out for the ride, Dave asked if he could join, too! He never wants to ride. In fact, when he asked he prefaced the request with, "So, you're not going to believe this, but..." I was over-the-moon that he wanted to come! It's always wonderful to be able to get all three horses out at the same time. Doubly so when I get to ride with my husband.

Dave laughing at something Kate said following our first sunset gallop

The last patch of snow had the sunlight shining on it so prettily. Even though I only had my cell phone, I made Dave and Kate gallop it for photos. Wish I'd had my DSLR to capture the snow spray and lighting better than this.

Look at those happy Staniel ears!

Taught Dave the best gallop position about 10 minutes before these photos by using skiing terminology lol

Dave's birthday is the day after Kenai's. So the ride ended up being a little mini celebration for both of them. Dave, of course, enjoyed more celebration the following day.