Camping in the Mountains

Our little family (sans Otis- he was at the tortoise-sitter being spoiled with cantelope and kiwi) enjoyed a nice mountain camping trip on our travels across North Carolina. We stopped by Asheville and camped out at Mount Mitchell State Park, the highest point east of the Mississippi River. Our campsite was absolutely gorgeous and the hiking was great. Good thing we had two furry ones to keep us warm in the tent- it was chilly up there at 6500 feet!

This was the first family camping trip and let's just say that Sheba is the most easy-going dog ever and Maverick, well, tolerates camping. Both loved the trails (and chipmunks!) and we all had a really lovely time.

Look for a slideshow of photos coming soon!

Lovin' the Lake

Ben and I were not the only ones lovin' vacation at Lake Burton... Miss Sheba really showed off for all the other pups with her svelte swimming skills! While Ben and I waterskied, she was busy sporting her new life jacket and doin' the dog paddle! She's a great swimmer, but naturally, she gets pretty tired running off the end of the dock, belly flopping into the lake, and swimming back to the doggie steps to do it all over again. We strapped on her bright green life jacket (it used to be Maverick's, but he gladly gave it up!) and she was the cat's meow for sure!And quite an audience she had to impress- this was the first time she had met the Georgia family. Everyone was a fan of sweet Sheba, humans and canines alike. We tried to get all 10 of them to pose for a puppy pic; here are the eight most cooperative ones, haha!

Maverick's New Trick

We've been working on this for months and our big brown dog has finally mastered it! He will wait for you to say OK and then flip it up in the air and catch it. Who knew that he would even want to learn a new trick at age six? Maybe it is because he is constantly trying to one-up Miss Sheba ;)

Pizza Dilemma

Tonight we debated over delivery pizza from the place with a coupon, stone oven pizza that we requires pick up, or going to the store to get a frozen pizza... and ended up making our own from scratch! Just like last time, Ben was the dough-master and used the cathedral ceilings in our new kitchen to his tossing advantage! Its currently baking in the oven, with the delicious smell wafting through the whole house, while the wind and rain of tropical storm Danny persist outside our windows. This storm has turned out to be no big deal (so far!) but its a good excuse to sit inside, watch tv with the family (two with furry tails and a shelled-one), and drink beers. Cheers!

Sperm Whale Stranding

Monday was anything but an ordinary day at work- a pygmy sperm whale had stranded on Sunday, alive, and was too sick to rehab, so it was euthanized. This picture isn't the exact whale but one that looked like it (I'm hoping to get some pictures of our whale in the near future). He was a mature adult whale, almost 20' long, and weighing upwards of 800 pounds. We performed a necropsy and discovered that this animal had been sick for a while, likely stranding more than once. Many times, tourists think that pushing a whale back into the water is the right thing to do when actually it can cause more trauma to the ailing animal. When they are pushed back into the water, oftentimes they will float along until they work up enough strength to strand again on another beach.

It is estimated that of this particular species, combined with the dwarf sperm whale which looks almost identical, there are only about 300 individuals in the Atlantic Ocean (and about the same number in the Pacific). Sperm whales have only been seen alive and well a total of 11 times, so not too much is actually known about these guys. They are super-deep divers, since they eat only squid, so spotting them at the surface is pretty unusual.

Teams from Virginia Beach and Wilmington came to check out the whale and collect samples from different organs, etc. Pretty schnazy!

Beach dogs

These crazy dogs of ours LOVE the beach! Who doesn't, really?

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