We’ve been spending most of our free time in the forest lately.

We have walked almost all of this recently. I don’t know how to measure, but in sections, I am traversing the all of the Santa Cruz Mountains. I would like to walk the whole of our mountains in one walk, someday. For now it’s in sections, and many of these sections we have to walk in stealth.

We walk early, and we walk late. We try very hard to never, ever take the same path twice.

We have to split up now for some walks. Today’s trip down into the steep gulch was a bad idea for poor Ruby.

Gustavo has finally turned into a good boy hiking dog, after all this time. I wasn’t sure it would ever happen, but he has become reliable and trustworthy, quiet and stealthy. He still runs twice the walk that the rest of us do, but he has learned to stay within eyeball of the group, so I never have to call his name.

Dog hiking should always be very quiet, and you always need to know exactly where are all your dogs.

I’ve been borrowing some big dogs some days, Ariel and Rocket. It works best when they go only with Otterpop, so this weekend she had double trips into the forest on both sides of one of our mountains.

A walk for everyone, and everyone for a walk.