Present from the Dog

or dogs?

But first - the laundry room lizard reading about physics.


If you are of a weak constitution, you may want to skip rest of this post and take a look at these instead.






I'm not sure where it came from but Honey or some other dog/dogs Wednesday night brought me this:


I'm pretty sure a neighbor had been butchering this little guy and left the head and spine, carelessly, where dogs could get to it. From the tip of the nose to the hip bone he's maybe 5 feet long.



The head is about 14-16" long. I tossed him into the woods Thursday by Sunday it had been pulled across the yard and the skin on the head was gone. I'm sparing y'all that sight. The ribs are gone now, too.



He must have had some kind of rack because it was hatched off.



Luckily it's barely gotten above freezing this past 5 week so he's not rotting terribly fast and the there aren't many flies. Hopefully Dad will find him and toss him in the brush today, otherwise I'll have to go out when I get home and do it in the dark.

Pet Pictures

Because really what else do you want to see while surfing pre-New Year's intoxication?

Did I post Me and My Shadow yet? Well, either way, it's so cute.



Honey got How to Teach Physics to Your Dog for Christmas but Irish got a hold of it first.



I think Irish is trying to steal the book from Honey by scent marking it here.

Here's Honey reading it:


Taking a break to ponder bunnies made of cheese:


Here she's pouting because I took the book away.


I'm anxiously awaiting my turn at reading the book. :)

Roomba Time!

I took my Roomba out for a spin last night. Figured out pretty quick that I should just put the piano bench in another room and I can't go too far because it can (and will) get itself stuck under the corner of the couch. The dog ignored it until it came over to the couch and then she kind of freaked out.

Roomba

All in all it did a pretty good job. I didn't use the virtual wall, because it was in the box way over in the next room, so I blocked room off with random stuff (by the stairs) and my dining room chairs at the other side, which the Roomba doesn't fit under. To start with I was worried it was going to blow around as much hair as it picked up but needn't have. It managed to get around the piano and bench (after I pulled it out a bit) but it would have been faster without the bench in there. I might want to move the rocking chair out of the room, too, since the Roomba can't get under it all the way; yesterday I just moved it to block the least amount of wall possible. Somewhat amusingly, it kept trying to climb up into the book case. I don't have a base for the shelves and the lip is low enough the Roomba attempts it before hitting the books. The base of my couch is smaller than the box, so there's a space (like at the bottom of cabinets) that is just a little too short for the Roomba; it got stuck twice at the corner and I had rescue it.

I didn't take a picture of the bin and filter because it was kind of gross (I really don't understand those vacuums with the see-through bin - who wants to see what they've sucked up off the floor?) but it got most of the hair off the floor. The only things it didn't do well was right at the edge of the rug where dirt got "stuck" because (I guess) the beater was too high since the wheels were on the rug; I don't think this will be noticeable if one is standing or even sitting on the couch, just lying down. Besides, I read my book and rubbed the dogs ears while my floor got cleaned - what do I have to complain about? At least until Mom borrows it semi-permanently.

Random things I've been doing

Here's what I've been doing lately:

Getting sunburned

T-town Airshow

Alright gardening hasn't really taken up that much time but I have been planting stuff with help from Nettie. Someone's also been helping unplant things and it better not be one of my animals!

2009 Garden

I went to the TBDC's The Roaring 20s dance weekend before last. I didn't have a costume for that one. (Flapper stuff was so boxy.) But I did have a costume for another one Friday night.
70s Dance (@Forest Lake Meth.) I was going for the late 70s disco look. I'm not sure anyone appreciated it. (And I remembered my camera had a timer.)

I finished two books last weekend (yay 3-day!) and throughly enjoyed both The Engine's Child by Holly Phillips (deadwood) and Farthing by Jo Walton (free e-book from Tor). I'll be looking for more from both authors. (Best line from Farthing "he wished that people would read the rest of the things Jew aren't supposed to eat and take to serving us buttered lobster or shrimp on toast." Out of context they may not be so funny, even in context it's not LOL-funny, but it still has me giggling.)

Oh, and knitting (and some sewing but that's not quite done yet)A week and a half to Mother's Day and only one hole left to fix.

Honey's Present

Yesterday Honey brought me a present. I won't post any pictures of it here in deference to any weak stomached readers I may have because, you see, she presented me with 2/3 of a rabbit. I think she was quite proud of herself. I doubt she killed it. I think she and some other dog (who probably didn't kill it either) had a tug-of-war over the body and both got to take some home - which would account for why there was no head or fore-legs on the furry lump left at my door. Nettie and I buried the remains in the yard and Dad covered it with some concrete cylinders while we went to the park. This makes me rethink my assumption that the dove was a present from a cat (it did seem awful large for any of them to drag home), I assumed the dog would have chewed any yummy dead thing up before leaving it by the door to come in but oboviously not necessarily. Nettie was quite the trooper. She shrieked when she first saw it, was skittish when I went out to do something with it, and carried it (on the shovel) into the yard and was saying "ooo, get a picture of that" in the end.

Here's a little photo essay of the burial of the rabbit:

Honey, Mighty Huntress

Or if you prefer, pictures from our trip to the park:

Saturday at the Park

Tallest Peak

Callan has a list of the tallest points in each state. I won't list them all because I've only topped one:

We are standing on the tallest rock at the top of Mount Cheaha. Nettie went up in the observation tower (and took a couple pictures), Honey and I had to stay below.


I can safely say this is on the easier peaks to climb since the road is less than 100 feet from the tower with parking. Some of the trials in the park are not so easy.
(more photos of the camping trip here)

Warm spot

Last night it was kind of chilly here in west central Alabama. The dog went out about 11:30 and I woke up at 2:30 (or 3:30?) with her asking to come in. So, being a nice doggy mommy, I went down and let her in. She bolts (as usual) up the stairs and hops up in MY warm spot. Obviously thinking to herself "Oooo, warm spot!" She politely hopped over to the middle of the bed when I got there. (This is not what she does at bed time when she takes her half out of the middle, or even on my side of the middle, of the bed and will not move. Under her own power anyway.) I get back in bed and discover that her feet weren't clean. Yay. (This isn't as bad a a week or so ago when her paws were wet when she hopped up into my warm spot.) Then she snuggles up against me and buries her nose in the pillows. It was cute, if I ignore the grit under my shoulders. She moved a little bit this morning - when I got out of the shower she was curled up facing the other direction. She'd apparently decided that it was too cold to go out for a morning pee.

Lesson learned: don't leave the covers thrown back when letting the dog in.

Loot!

Ok, I just wanted an excuse to post a picture of my second knitting project -part of Nettie's take Thursday morning:



Since the first bag didn't quite come out right I did another. This one was with a narrower yarn so it took a little longer to knit. I didn't decrease fast enough and the flap is a little bit longer than the front of the bag. I also had to block the flap to try and get it into a nice triangle (when I realized how long it was going to be I changed the decrease rate and it was, predictably, a little lopsided). This yarn felted faster with less fuzzing. I wonder if the yarn weight was a factor in that? Less time in the washer probably helped with the fuzzing and lint knots. I knit it tighter in general which means it shrank less, too.

You really can't tell but I knitted the front (under the flap) in a checkerboard pattern which looked 'eh' before felting* but turned out pretty nice afterward; You can't see it but you can feel the texture. I like felting. It hides minor mistakes like dropped stitches - the holes just close right up.

And just because she's so cute:

Honey sporting her new 'outfit'. (The harness - let's see her back herself out of that.)

*Not sure why. It looks good in my practice yarn. Maybe my tension and stitch length varied too much? I screwed up more on my stitch counting than I thought?

Nifty Photos

Nettie (with her new bike), Honey, and I went to the park Sunday. I decided that Nettie will never make it as an actress unless she learns to smile more convincingly on cue. I tried to get her picture while she was laughing but then she'd freeze in this very fake smile. Oh well, another dream of being related to someone rich and famous* goes down the tubes.

Here are some of my pictures.

Ripples; Nettie and her bike waiting impatiently for me and Honey; Forsythia; Honey deciding if the water was too cold to fetch the stick in.


I think the first log looks a bit like a seal or walrus or a giant snake. The second and third pictures are the same log but from opposite sides. It's hard to see but I think in the second picture the end of it looks like a dog's head (you can't see the "ear" in the picture, but there is one). In the third it still looks likes a head/face but this one more like a dragons, maybe?



This was the sunset I had to drive into. That thing attached to the sun visor is my hand trying to block as much of the sun as possible and still see where I was driving, in the first pic. The second one is the sun through the train trestle. Nettie did a good job while I drove.

This is what we did Monday.

I aired out the house this weekend and it got COLD Sunday night. I joined the animals out in the sun for a while, until I closed the windows and turned the heat back on.

*I am, through my brother's wife, related to someone famous, but I don't think professional flutists are very rich.

Voices

I don't think I can capture my Honey's voice as well as Chad seems to have Emmy's (could be one reason he's writing a book explain physics to his dog and I'm not) but here's a sampling to watch she says to me.

After coming back in first thing in the morning and curling up on the couch: "You're going to work aren't you?"

A few minutes later, from same perch: "Please don't go to work. I'll be so lonely."

When I get home, sometimes: "MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY! I've missed you soooooo much. Pet me, please, please, PLEEEEEESE. Rub my ears, rub my ears...oooooh, that's the spot....."

Later while watching T.V.: A half groan half sigh with big stretch followed by "you wouldn't believe the day I had. After you left I had to get off the couch and walk all the way to the kitchen to eat. Then I went up the stair to nap on the bed, later I got down and napped on the dirty clothes, then I went downstairs to get a drink and all the way back up the stairs to the dirty clothes pile. Mid-afternoon it became clear that I needed to move back up to the bed (it was trying to float away) so I had to get up, walk across the room and JUMP up onto the bed. I'm exhausted, when's bed time?"

In the picture above she's saying "oh, Mom's paying attention to me instead of the stupid rock. Gotta be cute, maybe we'll go to the park."

Too cute.

This morning when I finally got downstairs Honey was just going down the porch steps as Irish got to the top. I watched as she leisurely walked to the middle of the yard and sat down. Irish followed her out there, walked up to her, meowed loudly at Honey, looked like she was going to wind around her legs, and then sat down right in front of her. I was to cure for words. Irish, supreme ruler of her sisters, was following Honey, a mer dog, around looking for love. Awww.

(Sorry it's so dark, I must have accidentally had some weird setting on the camera.)

Wowzers

We humans like to be able to relate something unfamiliar to something more familiar. When a huge piece of the ice shelf in Antarctica breaks loose it might be described as being the size of Rhodes Island. There can be a danger in doing this since if one looks at a map the Ocean State looks really small, possibly leading one to think that the piece of ice is small - it's not the size of New Jersey even!?. Or, Germany may be described as being about as large as New Mexico or Montana, which is true for area but it has a population more like New Mexico, Montana, California, Texas and New York combined.

In this vein I'd like to give a shout out to Sarah for having now lost a Honey and Q-tip.(At least that much, and probably an Irish, too. I don't know how much my cats weigh and I'm not sure exactly how much Honey weighs.)

She's had some help. But I'm still impressed. I mean WOW, the weight of my dog and two cats! Or 1.25 of my little sister. Or a crap load of cans of Crisco. WOW.

I can't motivate myself enough to lose one cat much less the two-two and a half I should.

(I'm not sure how it would have happened but I think I have lost a puppy or so.)


Oh, in somewhat related news - I've started letting Q-tip and Irish in for short periods of time. Q-tip runs upstairs and curls up on the day bed; Honey forgets she's in the house. Irish was very vocal when I let her in and Honey wouldn't leave her alone. Last night when honey went out after dinner I let Irish in and loved on her. I had to wash my face and neck afterwards but she got to be loved for a little while.

Happiness is a Warm Puppy

It really is. One thing that makes me happy is coming home every day and having my dog SOOOOO excited to see me. Well, it usually makes me happy, sometimes when I'm grumpy or when she's been bad (or sick) I want her to go away and stop being so cute. It is hard to be mean to her when she's that excited to see me, even if she has pulled dishes out of the sink and broken another mug or spread trash all over the study. I generally find it hard to be mad at her because she's just so happy that I love her and take care of her.

Lounging

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Picture someone or something in the act of lounging about or slacking off. Naps, loitering, general loafing -- it all works. Show yourself, show friends, show pets. All this shoot needs is to have them not doing much at all.

Exhibit A: Q-tip on the porch


Exhibit B: Honey on the couch

She's saying, "You go on to work Mom, I'll stay here and keep the couch from floating away." (I really need to put the cover back on the cushion, goodness that thing is ugly. Oh wait, can't do that 'til the cushion stops smelling like puppy pee.)

The Red Eye

Actually mostly green ones.

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Show off a recent picture that is chock full of red
eye. Because there's nothing more amusing than light reflecting off retinas,
making folks and animals look like demon spawn! Admit it, sometimes it just
gives you giggle. For the purposes of this photo shoot, other reflective eye
colors work too, so if you've got green or yellow glowing eyes (or some other
color), bring 'em on.

Here's Stubby, glowing in anticipation of supper.


Q-tip has one green and one blue eye. I don't know if this is why she always has one green and one red "red-eye" or not but she does. Here she is looking very devil-spawnish at having her picture taken.

Here's Honey getting fed from the table , with one bluish eye staring lovingly at Ellen. (Bad dog! Bad Ellen!) I'm not sure what she was just handed but it makes her look like she has no teeth and an orange mouth.


And Irish, in a unusually good night picture of her, eating supper be herself because the Queen does not share.

More Cute Pictures!

I just submitted these to Stuff on My Mutt, but wanted my loyal readers to see them first.





Izzy discovered a week or so ago that she could use Honey as a step ladder to get up on chairs. She can jump up on the couch, but it usually takes a running start. I was sitting just out of view eating, so she was very interested in getting back up on me. (Instead of just interested in getting on me and running around and licking.) Ellen and I started trying to teach her not to get on the couch unless invited last night. Izzy must have spent 15 minutes sitting on Honey and putting her paws on the couch, only to have me push them off again.

My dog is soooo sweet. She just lay there looking somewhat aggrieved.

Cute pictures

These are a few pictures I can't resist sharing. (Sorry no time to crop the pics.)

Q-tip resting on top of my car.


Honey looking hopeful. And Izzy, too.


Honey looking guilty, because she knows she isn't suppose to get table food.


Two shots of Honey being sweeter and more tolerant than I ever thought she would be.

She's is letting Izzy share her dinner! Honey doesn't really like other dogs and really didn't like Izzy when she first came. (I think, Honey thought Izzy was going to replace her. I have reassured Honey that she is my only dog. Izzy is Ellen's dog.) She even left some food in the bowl. I wonder if Honey thinks Izzy needs to eat more because she's so small?

We almost had a shot of those two for "stuff on my dog" this weekend but Ellen wasn't fast enough.