Sweet summertime

You may remember that R badly tore a toenail - so badly that the vet surgically removed the nail, leaving a bare nailbed. Soon thereafter, a nasty infection took hold, despite the fact that he was taking antibiotics. We switched antibiotics, and R's toenail is looking much better. He wears a boot when he runs outside to protect his exposed nailbed but is back to his romping ways!

The caveat to the good news has been that his face has suddenly become salt and pepper. White hairs are forming a mask around his eyes. Even his eyelashes are turning white! This transformation started suddenly within a day of him beginning one of the antibiotics. The strong antibiotics might have caused the new fur that's currently filling in his summer coat to be white. The photo below was taken just as the process was starting (I don't have a more recent one uploaded yet).

If you look closely, you might be able to see that his formerly totally jet black face is sprinkled with white fur, especially below his eyes. We elected to continue the antibiotics despite the fact that they might have been the culprit. Preventing another toe amputation in our pack is much more important than retaining black fur! There's a remote chance that the fur will fill in black again after his next shed in the fall because R is only 3 years old.

K and I been having a glorious time mountain biking on the trails.

She is full of happiness and enthusiasm. We're a lucky pair that we both love our forest so much!

K is happy when we're rolling along non-stop but she's also happy to "cover my back" while I take photos of wildflowers.

While we searched for Fairy Slippers to sample their sweet scent as suggested by Barb, we found a violet, a rarity around here.

I've written recently about K's fears, which seem a bit better over the past two days. However, I started thinking about my irrational fears. I have a couple of "tough" spots on the trails that I'm scared to try to ride because I've crashed at each of them previously. I know that I'm capable of clearing them but, until last week, I always chickened out as I approached them. As mountain bikers go, I'm particularly afraid of crashing due to my spinal fusions and the continuing deterioration of my discs.

After writing about K's fears, I decided that I needed to tackle my own fears. For the past week, I've cleaned those sections of trail like they were never scary obstacles for me! I figured that, if I was going to ask K to tackle her fears, I'd better tackle my purely irrational fears.

We also love our sunset hikes... with no scary obstacles to try to clear on a bike!

It's an amazing world, especially in the sweet summertime.