Welcome Guest Blogger Cara Leckenby of One Thousand Days

It’s Freaky Sunday! Today Cara is being Annie and guest-blogging on The Sunday Hiker while Annie is posting on Cara's blog One Thousand Days. We’ll have hiky goodness all around!

Did you know that it takes 10 seconds for a 12 year old to walk all the way around a ridiculously huge Cedar tree? Did you know that in the Pacific Northwest Rainforests, ferns grow on trees and make 200-foot tall oak trees look like they’re crawling with spiders? Did you know that negative ions cause a sense of euphoria, and are used as “therapy” to treat depression, and that negative ions are present at waterfalls (and in cold showers, but who wants to take a cold shower)?

I knew, but had forgotten these things (after years of neglecting…er…denying…my Northwest roots), and was delighted to rediscover them on a meandering dawdle through the woods at the behest of a favorite fellow blogger.

New Spring Equinox Resolutions

Today is the first day of 2010 in which the hours of day outweigh the hours of dark. You may feel like celebrating.

Resist.

Blueberry Lust: AT Section 2 Part 3

Like goblins on a full moon feast. Like greedy kids in a candy shop, like starved bears in spring, like a caterpillar puttin’ it on for the cocoon; we would merrily fill our bellies to bursting with blueberries, if we came back. As it was, we were taunted by greenberries and the last of the year’s dainty blooms. In mid-June, the AT in Massachusetts would be heaven. On that last day of May, it was unrequited temptation.

Eat Shit and Live - Beaver

As my high school English teacher, Mr. Simpson used to say, the F-Word is for those who are too lazy to say what they really mean. It's inarticulate. Perhaps that is why "Eat shit and die!" is one of my favorite* epithets. To be used sparingly, uttered only when truly meant. In which case, of course, it should be spat.

I was not thinking of cussing as I crossed the ice to examine a beaver lodge recently, but I was ready to shriek if the ice gave way. I couldn't help but imagine the watery grave awaiting me below the ice, despite the fact that it was more than a foot thick and could probably hold a 2 ton truck. The lodge was a magnificent heap of mud and sticks jutting out of the snow covered ice. Up close it towered several feet overhead.