Tag Archives: dogs

Oh No…

-A lady in the parking lot of our local grocery store walks up to John and the girls.-

Lady -Excuse me sir, is that a Brittany in your front seat?

John – Why yes it is.

Lady – Oh I thought so, they are wonderful dogs!

John – Mam, clearly you don’t know anything about Brittany Spaniels. This is an ill mannered, uncouth, chicken killer.

Lady – Oh I know Brittany’s, I have one. How old is he?

John – Two years.

Lady – Oh no… (looks at girls)… and these are your three girls?

John – Yes mam.

Lady- You must drink.

Still Here

She’s still here.

I catch glimpses of her happily bounding through the field with the other dogs.

Her gawky, grass stained, adolescent face makes grin when I see the chew marks on the counter tops.Piper looking down

Out of the corner of my eye I see her flopping down on the bed with a giant sigh.

When I walk by the apple trees, she’s still overseeing the planting operation.Piper by apple tree

The sound of running paws on the porch finds me bracing myself for the crash against the door that doesn’t come.

She’s still here.

But now, as we make plans to move, I wonder, once we are gone, where will I see her then?

Written in response to Prompts for the Promptless Episode 10 – Saudade hosted by Rarasaur.

If like me you have no idea what Saudade means here is Rarasaur’s definition:

“Saudade is a Portuguese word that describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something/someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing will never return.”

I’ve Been Looking Like This…

For the last week I’ve mostly looked like this:DSCN0780-(2sm)

Well, less fur,shorter snout, but same general position.

Two varieties of antibiotics later and I am hoping that soon I’ll be back to my normal blogging self.

Until then I shall leave you with a bathroom conversation with Clara.

Clara:” MOOOM!!!!! MOOOMMMM!!! MOM!! MOM!! MOM!!”

Me (go into bathroom to find Clara on toilet): “Yes?”

Clara: “People don’t eat bugs – cause they yucky.”

Me: “Yes….”

Clara: “…..”

Me: “???”

Pig Pen

Yesterday I tweeted a picture of my dirty, dirty, dog along with my wishes that the cold snap we are supposed to get hurry itself up and gets here already.  I woke this morning to discover that last night’s rain had turned to snow and I hastened to let my, dirty, dirty, dog out of his kennel and sent him out into the snow with happy thoughts of frozen mud and the cleansing power of running through snow.

Sadly, the mud was not frozen…mud dog

…and the cleansing power of running through snow was not all it was cracked up to be.

DSCN0679-(2sm)

In fact on closer inspection…DSCN0678-(2sm) …I realized it wasn’t just snow flying through the air as he zoomed around the yard.

dirty snow

What do you think, is it too late to change his name to Pig Pen?

Camp Birds

Hello from Kansas!

We are camping (in a giant camper with a great heater) in Prairie Dog State park.  We have seen all sorts of wildlife in the park and very few people to share it with (just how I like it!), herds of deer, prairie dogs, and lots of birds.

We’ve seen some Canada Geese:    DSCN0164-(3sm)

Some Snow Geese:DSCN0228-(2sm)

And by some I mean lots of geese:DSCN0190-(3sm)

And by “lots” I mean that in the evening the flocks of ducks and geese create a ribbon of birds across the entire sky!

Also there are a few robins around:DSCN0182 (2)

And some Bald Eagles:DSCN0177-(3sm)

These are just the ones I was able to photograph with the kids before they froze, which didn’t take long. The high today was around 14 and the wind chills were below zero all day! The kids have been doing more exploring of the public library than the fields but the weatherman claims it’s going to get a bit warmer so hopefully we’ll be able to drag them along on a hunt or two before it’s time to go home.

In other news we have shot a few birds, but not lots. Cover for the birds is sparse this year making things tricky. Even so we’ve been eating turkey and have pheasant and quail just waiting to be cooked up for tomorrow!

Finally, just in case you were wondering, my dog is awesome…DSCN0162-(sm)

… and very tired!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons

Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing SeasonsGEDC7992-(2sm)

Here in Southern Wisconsin, we were in the midst of changing seasons from fall to winter when we landed smack in the middle of the dreaded fifth season of the year. For those of you lucky enough to have no idea what I’m talking about let me fill you in on the mud season.

Mud season has the obnoxious habit of sneaking around twice a year, first it shows up right when you are hoping for spring. It bogs down everything, get everywhere and right when you are just about ready to throttle the next person (clearly one with no dogs/kids/big yards/small farms/ducks/chickens/gravel driveway)  who talks about what lovely weather we are having spring is here for good.

Then again just when we get a snowfall and are dreaming of white Christmases it rears it’s big ole muddy head again. Snow one day, sun the next and we end up with muddy slop everywhere. I love living where the seasons change but sometimes the actual changing of the seasons leaves a bit to be desired – bring on the cold!

It’s true that Trip’s feet are suspiciously clean for a mud season picture. Let me assure you that it was just a fluke and I’ve got the muddy prints all over the floor to prove it!

A New Solution

Yesterday my Mom and I had a chance to go pheasant hunting together and the culmination of a morning of mishaps was when I looked down and realized I had lost the transmitter to Trips shock collar.

Not good.

Not good at all.

My much loved, daily used controller that not only “reminds” Trip to pay attention to me but also controls the locating beeps his collar makes was lost in a swamp full of cattails.

This afternoon after dejectedly looking one last time at just how much a new transmitter would be I made one last effort to find it. I headed back to the cattails and dove in.

A quarter of the way in I was certain I was on my trail from yesterday and Trip was hunting just ahead of me.

A third of the way in I was pretty sure things looked familiar and Trip was somewhere… perhaps off to the left…

Half way through I found a very dead, very old, very stinky, six point buck and was abruptly certain I was no longer on my path from yesterday and I thankfully had no idea where my dog was.

Disheartened I quickly pushed through the wall of cattails away from the carcass looking for my old trail, (and the dog) but it was the beginning of the end.  I was never able to pick up my path from yesterday or the transmitter.  Trip, however, was not as far away as I thought. He found the deer and took matters into his own paws.  Yes, my intelligent dog solved our problem with stink.

After that I didn’t need any fancy transmitter to know where Trip was – I could smell him.

Even when I couldn’t see him or hear him – I could smell him.

Not only did I know where Trip was but he solved his own problem at the same time.  After Trip applied his “solution” my whistle blowing was over and my cries of “Come!” turned to “GO!” and he was allowed to range out as far as he wanted.

I’m pretty sure he thought he was all that and more after solving our problems…

… until I got him home and it was bath time!