Skunk-A-Licious

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Don’t stand, Don’t stand so, Don’t stand so close to me – I kept hearing Sting singing this song as I went out in public right after getting sprayed by a skunk to get some things to combat the stinky smell – I’m pretty sure Sting didn’t write this song about being sprayed by a skunk, but still….

So it’s been 2 weeks since Jo and I got sprayed by a skunk….and everything still stinks.  Definitely not as bad, but the smell is just everywhere.

After my last blog post I ran to the grocery store to get hydrogen peroxide and baking soda to make the mixture everyone assured me would work.  I also ran to the pet store to get special shampoo and spray to get rid of the skunk scent – I was gonna try EVERYTHING!!  Almost everything I read online said the tomato juice doesn’t work and it makes a huge mess so I skipped that. (Dogs tend to shake off when they get wet and I read more than one horror story online about people putting tomato juice on their dog and then having to clean up the colossal mess after they shook it off.  I decided pretty quickly I didn’t want to deal with that mess also.)  As I was picking up everything to make the mix people around me kept saying “EW!” and/or “What’s that smell?!?”  yeah it’s, me…  :/

When I got home JoJo was still waiting for me in her quarantined area of the bathroom.  I mixed up 1 quart hydrogen peroxide, 1 cup baking soda, and a bit of dawn dish soap – put on some rubber gloves and scrubbed JoJo down.  After I rinsed her off, I put the dog de-skunk shampoo, scrubbed her down waited the recommended 5 mins and rinsed her off again.  Everything I used on Jo I used on myself as well – except putting the hydrogen peroxide in my hair after I got a message from my hairdresser strongly advising me to not do it.  She suggested putting vinegar in my hair and letting that sit.  We put bowls of vinegar all over the house as that is supposed to absorb the smell.  It is quite amazing how the smell just permeates through everything – gets in every little crack, even closed closet doors to stink up all our clothes – I am not kidding when I say it is everywhere.

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Not My Usual Morning Routine…

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Skunks are extremely active in my area this time of year – and JoJo and I got a not so pleasant reminder about that early this morning….

I was letting Jo out, opening the door to the back deck and BAM – the door hit something…what the???  I look and in the dim light I see a fluffy black body, tail straight in the air – the smell hit me before my sleepy brain could register what was going on – and also unfortunately before I could grab Jo… she burst through the door excitedly to meet the new visitor, and doing what every dog does when meeting someone new – went up to sniff it’s butt…

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FYI: NOT what an actual skunk is like

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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The Sensory Trail and the Sunflower Cemetery

danaelizabethx Hiking, Uncategorized , , , ,

SUPERBOWL SUNDAYYYYYY!!!! As I know absolutely NOTHING about football (is that un-American?) I decided I would much rather spend the day outside.  I called up a friend, grabbed JoJo and off we went to explore Blue Marsh Lake.  There are many trails around the lake, but the map is very basic and doesn’t have a lot of the connecting trails on it.  I love kayaking at Blue Marsh, but am not very familiar with the hiking trails so we decided to be adventurous, pick a trail and see where it would take us.  We drove around almost the entire lake before we found a spot where we could park – a lot was blocked off for some reason or had a ton of snow piled up in the parking areas.  We finally found a place to park and according to the map there was a loop trail near by called the Sensory Trail.  We walked over to check it out and saw the trail was only 1/4 mile long – bummer!  So we did the loop twice and sort of explored around the area a bit but it didn’t take us long at all.  We hopped back in the car – determined to go for a longer hike than that and found a parking pull off that was clear of snow.  We got out and started hiking, following the tracks of others.  The snow is only a few inches deep now as we had a warm spell and most of the snow from the blizzard has melted away (no snowshoes needed for this trip!)  We wandered around the trails and came to some fields – we started around the perimeter of one and came to an area covered with dried up sunflowers – I hiked part of a nearby trail in the summer that had TONS of blooming sunflowers – I never knew they were there before and it was so amazing to see.

What the area looks like in the summer – so pretty! 🙂

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Backpacking Dreams

danaelizabethx Backpacking, Uncategorized

So it’s 4:30 am as I’m typing this….I just woke up from a weird/ funny dream.

In the dream JoJo and I were backpacking somewhere and it started to rain like crazy.  I pulled out an umbrella (?? I don’t have a backpacking umbrella- I know some people do, but I do not) and try to hold it up over me as I hike along.  I couldn’t hold the umbrella over me and use my trekking poles at the same time so I decided to set up camp and wait out the rain.

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FINALLY got to use my Snowshoes!!

danaelizabethx Hiking , , , , ,

Over the weekend I FINALLY was able to test out my new snowshoes.  The snow was PERFECT – I was able to float right on top of about 2 feet of snow while Kevin, who doesn’t have any, sunk in – up to his knees at some spots!  We were visiting his parents so Joey and I went for a walk in their woods.  It was so beautiful – the only tracks were those of wildlife so it was very easy to walk around on the mostly undisturbed snow.  I have to say it was sort of fun to take my snowshoes off and see how far I sunk in without them!  🙂

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Oatman, Arizona

danaelizabethx Interesting Places , , , , , , , , ,

In 2013 I went to visit my best friend who moved to Arizona.  While I was there she took me to the small town of Oatman, Arizona.  She knew too well I would LOVE it there – it used to be a gold mining town along Route 66, now it’s a tourist attraction where they have “wild west” shootouts.  Jen knew I would be most interested in seeing the wild burros that come in from the desert where the tourists can feed them.  At night the burros go back into the desert.

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Thoughts While On A Treadmill

danaelizabethx Running , , , ,

I couldn’t be happier – all around me were German Shepherds – all sizes, colors, ages, and levels of fluffiness.  I was walking around making sure every one got a scratch or a pat on the head when I hear a voice: “Hunnie – HUNNIE!!  Wake up – didn’t you want to go to the gym this morning??”  After informing Kevin he woke me up from the best dream ever, I got up and did my morning routine which consists of giving Willow her insulin shot and JoJo her eye drops (for her keratitis which I will give an update on in a later post).  Even though I COMPLETELY wanted to go back to bed, I sucked it up and went to the gym with Kevin.  I knew of I didn’t I would have still been awake anyway and then regret not going.  I have to get back into the gym routine now that it’s getting colder out.

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GIVEAWAY!

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This year when I was setting up my Christmas tree I was just not happy with all the old ornaments I have had for YEARS.  They are just very generic ones that anyone could get at any major store – nothing personal about it.  I remember being a kid and almost all of the ornaments on the tree had a special meaning – either my sisters and I MADE them or they had some other significance (1st Christmas, etc).  Thinking about this made me realize my tree was pretty drab and how I could personalize it better.

I am a big fan of supporting local artists and shops on Etsy (In case you don’t know Etsy is a website that sells only handmade or vintage items), so I set out to see what kind of ornaments I could find to “spruce” up my tree (see what I did there??  🙂 haha!)  OK – bad jokes aside I found several LOVELY ornaments that would let me bring my love of the outdoors in!  Then I thought, why don’t I share these with all my outdoorsy friends on my blog – and have a giveaway with one!  (We will get to the giveaway in a sec)

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Conestoga Trail – Section A: part 2

danaelizabethx Conestoga Trail, Cycling , , , ,

The Conestoga Trail is a little known trail in PA that is 63 miles long, starting in Furnace Hills, PA where it meets the Horseshoe Trail and goes to York, PA where it meets the Mason-Dixon Trail.  It is considered an endangered trail because big sections of the northern part of the trail have been rerouted onto roads due to landowners revoking trail access.  I can’t say that I blame them – on the one hand I want people to get outside and explore, but on the other I’m not so sure I would want people trampling through my private property either.  I can see both sides.

While the southern most section of the trail is considered the most scenic, I decided I was going to do the whole thing in sections- why not?  🙂

I began with the on road section of the trail (Which is near the end of section A of the trail guide) as it is hunting season and a big portion of the start of the trail is closed until hunting is over – this way I could get the “boring” on road section of the trail out of the way first while the days are still nice.  I found out this section is ANYTHING but boring.  While some of the roads are fairly busy (which is why I decided to bike it instead of walk), the views of farmlands, animals and covered bridges were amazing – good old Lancaster County!  This section of the trail is a little hilly with one section I had to get off and push my bike up – it was steep even to walk it!  The only other thing besides cars you need to watch out for on the trail were the road apples which if you are from PA you will know this is a nice way to say horse poop from the Amish horse and buggies.  🙂

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cross over this covered bridge to get onto the Conestoga Trail

 

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