Exhausting Moses

Moses is the dog. And I exhausted him.

It was a challenge between me and owner. After giving me directions to the most kick ass trail ever, they cheerfully suggested, "Take Moses." I obviously, knowing what was in store for the poor dog if I did take him, asked them, well, "How long can Moses go?" The owner promptly replying, "3 days" Hmmm, I said skeptically. Leading my host to issue forth from his confident mouth, "If you bring back Moses dead from exhaustion with something left of your legs from the knee down..." then he shook his head and left. I was left on my tip toes straining and barely containing myself for the 'then' half of the statement....I was left dangling. So I took Moses. And I found the most kick ass trail ever and we both headed off. Moses like a dog, running ahead of me and all around. Moses I yelled in warning, pace yourself old man, stick by me or you'll be hurtin by the end. But dogs do not speak English. Nor are they very good at pacing. So, up up up up up we went. It was a 130 year old Miner's Track over a mountain pass from the gold rush days. Sweet! And it climbed up and up and up and up. Apparently, dog was going to win over human on this one. I was huffin and puffin, thank Mills Avenue for what it had given me, thanking Potato for what it had given me and thanking Long 'Tennas for what it too had given me and calling upon their strength I muscled my slow pathetic out of shape ass up the mountain into one of the coolest forests I'd ever been in. With moss covered rocks, wet leaves and gnarly roots all over every which way I had the time of my life flying through the forest like some primeval hunter chasing down the black shadow of a dog 50 meters ahead of me. (i really am surprised I didn't break my leg)

After an hour the wind started to pick up and it started to get a bit chilly. As I had been warned time and time again that the weather can change on a dime in the New Zealand bush and that all four seasons can be experienced in a single day and to ALWAYS BE PREPARED when going into the bush, I figured my skimpy running shorts, socks, shoes and running hat were not much of a survival pack. Nor was I McGyver. So turning around was a good idea. Especially since, about halfway through the return journey, Moses pulled an all too familiar move on me. He slowed down so much on the single track that I was stumbling over his hind legs. With a deep valley abyss to my right and sheer mountain to my left there wasn't much I could do. I leapt over him and took off to put some distance between us. Poor guy. He made a small effort to keep up with me, but on the small uphills going back down the mountain he was absolutely useless. After a couple I didn't see him again. I simply had to wait for him at the end until he came shuffling along. Poor guy was tuckered out for sure. We'll see if I get any reward from Mr. Cocky Owner.

If I don't, I will do this to his dog every day that I am here. To be fair, on the car ride back to the house, I did try to explain to Moses why I had said to pace himself in the beginning and told him why he hadn't lasted until the end, why he was so tired....etc. He just lay there. But I think he appreciated the advice.

Two new WWOOFers have joined the household and I've got to go help them make dinner. They are mid twenties from Colorado and spent the winter here teaching skiing and snowboarding. Cool. They've been WWOOFing here since winter ended. They have a little hippie van. It's cool. Yeup. Ok

Otherwise nothing happened today. I worked all morning like usual, slept for an hour in the afternoon like usual and ran their dog into the ground (it's going to be like usual) and now I'm updating my blog...like usual. Now I'm going to go do something which isn't that usual: take a shower. hee.