Month: October 2020

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2020 Vacation Day Three

July 15, 2020

2020 Vacation Day Three Adventure: Lowery Falls and Gee Creek Falls, Cherokee National Forest, TN.

**We found the trailhead and everybody is happy .**

**This is a short hike (less than a mile) but it is supposed to be steep and rocky.**

**We found a nice rock formation right away.**

**We jumped off the trail onto the little cascades.**

**Lots of little cascades along the way.**

There was a little bit of work here and there with some branches and trees down.

**Luna wasn’t so sure about climbing up here.**

**This hike turned out to be a little challenging with steep climbs and lots of rocks. We made it back down and ready to go for some more adventures.**

**It was a beautiful spot and we had it all to ourselves.**

**I was poised with the camera waiting for a splash .**

**A nice bridge to cross (although we had several river crossing along this trail with no other bridges to assist with crossing).**

**Beautiful cascades along the entire trail.**

**Another beautiful waterfall with an awesome swimming hole (we will go in on our way back).**

**This bug is looking at you! We also saw a baby rattlesnake!**

**Conquering fears crossing the water on a big log.**

**Is that a snake behind you mom?!** Nope false alarm just a stick.

**Lots of rock hopping water crossings.**

**One last look at this beautiful double waterfall!**

**We definitely had adventurous experiences on this hike!**

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2020 Vacation Day Two

July 14, 2020

2020 Vacation Day Two Adventure: Rock Creek Falls and Benton Falls, Cherokee National Forest.

**Ready for the first hike of the day to Rock Creek Falls.**

**We will stick with the 1.7 mile trail.**

**The creek was along the trail at various points.**

**Our first creek crossing! Luna is not so sure about this because she is not a big fan of water .**

**No problem. We didn’t even have to take off our shoes and no one got wet!**

**There was a smaller waterfall down below.**

**We had a bit of a hike so we decided to eat lunch, rest up, and drive to our next hike.**

**Along the way we stopped at an overlook on a (small) mountain. The girls were so excited to have cell service!!**

**A 1.5 mile easy hike brought us here!**

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Due to the pandemic we had to change our vacation plans from flying to California to go to Yosemite National Park to driving to North Carolina to hike in the Cherokee National Forest (and later to Georgia to the Pisgah National Forest):

We loaded up the car and had plenty of travel snacks for the kids:

We stayed in a hotel the first night and headed to our first hiking spot the next morning.

July 13, 2020

2020 Vacation Day One Adventure: Turtletown Creek Falls, Tennessee, Cherokee National Forest.

We had to cross a steam to get to the trailhead. *footnote: on the way out (after the hike) we snagged the bumper on the wood planks (the car was loaded down with all our stuff since we hadn’t made it to our cabin yet) and we hopped out and snapped it back on. It went on easily, but yet another large section of paint came off the car.

**Although it is a moth, not a butterfly, mom thought of her sister Karen as it flew in the car while we prepared for the hike. Aunt Karen is joining us on our hike today .**

**Of course there are blackberries on the trail 😋.**

**Most of the trail went right beside Turtletown Creek.**

**Everyone was happy (FYI- this is day ONE and we have 67 miles of hikes planned over the next 16 days).**

**Blown down trees along the trail made it all that more interesting. The pine tree smelled like Christmas.**

**We made it to the first waterfalls! Waterfall #1.**

**The water was cool, but that didn’t stop her!**

**The other two girls decided to get in too.**

**Sweethearts enjoying the falls together.**

**We headed further along the trail (about a mile) to the next waterfall. We had a bit of a climb down.**

**On our way back we got another view of the first waterfall from the creek.**

**We had a wonderful 4.2 mile hike and we saw three beautiful waterfalls!**

Time to check out our Airbnb Cabin!

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Kittens!

June 18, 2020

This morning we caught the last two from the older litter (six weeks+). We will be taking all the kittens (and hopefully the older mother who is an outside feral cat) to Operation Catnip July 11th to get “fixed”. UPDATE: We were not able to catch the older mother cat so we have to wait and catch her after vacation.

June 27th, 2020

Today’s Update: ONLY FOUR KITTENS need forever homes. We have three 8 week old kittens (2 males & 1 female) and one 6 week old kitten (male). The mamma cat for the older kittens is a feral outside cat and she is also the mother to the mamma of the younger kitten. We have socialized her and she is inside with her kitten. We are working with operation catnip and have a spay/neuter date of July 11th. We are using the Diversion Program for shots as well!

July 6th, 2020

UPDATE: ALL the kittens have been Adopted to Forever Homes. This was not easy, but we did it!

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Today’s Adventure: Sante Fe River.

Post author By myjoyfulspirit
Post date October 18, 2020
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June 15, 2020

**According to the AllTrails app. there are hiking trails at the Canoe Outpost in High Springs. However, the owner of the boat rental company said there are no trails.**

**We did go down by the water for some exploring.**

**We checked out the area and the river. Then we left to try a different location.**

**And spent the rest of our adventure on, in, and by the Sante Fe River.**

**Enjoyed making a Carin by the trail.**

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Cats and Kittens!

June 7th, 2020

A feral cat we call “Effie” had a litter of kittens about a year ago. Although we tried to get them fixed through operation catnip, the pandemic hit and they stopped accepting cats. One of her kittens we call “Katniss” became pregnant. Her mother, Effie also became pregnant. Effie had a litter of kittens about 6 weeks ago. Katniss had her kittens 2 weeks and three days ago. We have been helping (bottle feeding) Katniss with her kittens because she is not consistently taking care of them. Last night Effie brought her kittens to us. We caught three of them. We are looking forward to getting all of them fixed and to good homes. This house has turned into a full-time care center! We are currently caring for 12 cats/kittens, one dog, and a rabbit.

Effie’s (3) kittens – about 6 weeks old. There are at least three more in the litter we haven’t caught yet. We hope to take them all in to get fixed through operation catnip soon. Anyone interested in one of these sweet little ones?

**Luna dog . She will be happy to be the center of attention again when all these kittens and cats are adopted!**

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Today’s Trail Adventure: San Felasco Park Trails – Cyprus Trail, Firebreak Trail, Pond Trail, and Flatwoods Trail South.

June 4, 2020

Mom, Dad and Luna did this one on their own:

**Information Station: trial maps and nature information.**

**We explored a few offshoot trails along the way.**

**We had a great time exploring the trails at San Felasco Park.**

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Today’s Trail Adventure: Florida Trail from Rodman Dam.

Post author By myjoyfulspirit
Post date October 18, 2020
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June 3rd, 2020

**We really have enjoyed the Florida Trail adventures so we are looking forward to trying this section of the trail.**

**Just outside of the trail is the Rodman Reservoir at the Kirkpatrick Dam**

**This beauty was right at the edge of the water.**

**These were right at the beginning of the trail.**

**I found out after returning home and doing research that these are Chickasaw plums (Florida sand plum). We didn’t know at the time they are edible.**

**The trail started off along the water.**

**The Florida Trail crossed over the Rodman ATV Trail. The girls had a great time playing in the sand!**

**Running in the deep sand is quite fun but exhausting**

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Today’s Trail Adventure: Broken Arrow Bluff Nature Park.

Post author By myjoyfulspirit
Post date October 18, 2020
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June 2, 2020

**Mom, Dad and Luna went on without us on this trail adventure. This is our first time at this park.**

**There is a very small picnic area and the trail which goes right down to the sink.**

**There were awesome limestone rocks to climb.**

**Luna did not realize this was water. She was tricked by the duckweed .**

**Luna is not so sure about climbing the big rocks.**

**The trail is not much of a trail and there are no trail blazes or marks. We made our way through the brush to another sink.**

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Family Adventure

June 1, 2020

When the pandemic hit and everything went on lockdown, we started our daily trail adventures. We went on our trail adventures for eleven weeks while we were doing virtual home school and mom was out of work ! It is officially summer break and Florida gets pretty hot so we will be cutting back on our trail adventures. Today we went on a very small Trail Adventure and it was late enough in the day that Dad was able to join us.