VALENTINE'S DAY

Happy Valentine's Day, blog friends!

Mixed-media art quilt. Vintage and photo-printed fabric/paper.

Wishing you love, chocolate, roses...and a cuddle buddy. Stay warm. Looks like Old Man Winter is about to get a little crazy around here.

Scout and Nigel

GOOD NEWS AND KAYAKING

A great big thank you to everyone who voted for Nigel in the Hair O' The Dog Wine and Spirits doggie costume contest. He WON!! Now his mama gets a fifty dollar gift card. Drinks all around! Here's "the Nige" in his Bark In The Park tee shirt.

I am relishing these glorious fall days. On Sunday, we went for what will probably be the last paddle of the season. It was very windy, so we picked a little river that winds through trees... lovely with leaves falling all around us.

Transquaking River

I didn't know that water beads up on lily pads this way.

The roots of some of the larger up-ended trees have a definite Sasquatch-y vibe. Or is that just me?

Can you see it?

There was a beautiful moon last night.

Don't think I'll ever be too old to not be just a little excited about Halloween. Scout and Nigel, too.

Happy last week of October, and thanks again to those who voted! XO.

COFFEE DOGS

It can be very disconcerting to get out of the shower and smell coffee when you are home alone, and the coffee maker hasn't been used in a couple of days. Must throw on a robe and run downstairs to see if I am being victimized by a gracious home invader, but wait...

Someone was counter-surfing and found a bag of coffee. Someone else brought it upstairs and chewed it open. In her bed.

We bad!!

Hope someone brings you coffee in bed this weekend. Don't forget to spring forward. We can have more daylight, even if we can't have spring weather. Yay!!

DOG-SHAMING AND CRACKING UP

Hopped out of bed one morning this week and stepped on the prickly bits of a chewed up St. Nicholas, who had apparently fallen from the Christmas tree in the night, and been rescued by Scout. Poor old guy is now a double amputee and his French horn is just a plastic stub. Not that he could play it anyway. He'd need arms for that.

You all know I take lots of photos of this pair, but it's not always as easy as it looks, especially when we are outdoors with props. They get rambunctious, the wind is blowing, and so on. I use treats. In this case I thawed some of the turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving. They were over excited by this, and not to be indelicate, but male dogs can be a little too obviously over excited, if you know what I mean. "Put that thing away" is not a command they teach in obedience school. Unfortunately. I'm going to try and tell this carefully, using words that will hopefully not attract pervy Googlers. Anyhow, downloading my pics, I can see that Nigel is a little excited in the ones I want to use. No problem. I'll use my red-eye corrector. Brilliant, right? Except, that it made "that area" look larger and darker, like he is sporting a pig-in-the-blanket under there. Hmmmm. I'll just airbrush it. Haven't really used that feature on my photo-editing software, but how hard can it be? Too difficult for me, apparently, because when I was finished, the area in question had a glowing red light on the end, like Rudolph. Only lower. Well, now I'm laughing so hard I'm wheezing, but determined not to be beaten. I'll use the paintbrush feature to cover that area in white to match the fur. It looked exactly like he was wearing a condom. I am not even kidding! And now I've gone and said condom. Twice. Who knows what kind of traffic that will bring.  

Hope you found a way to crack yourself up today. I've gotta run. There are gifts to wrap, and date balls and toffee to make, and mud. So much mud. Snow on Monday, and nearly 70 degrees today. That's the recipe for mud. XO.

ICE AND SNOW AND C-C-C-COLD

Real winter is here with a vengeance. We don't normally have too many winter days when the daytime temperature stays below freezing. We are having them now. My coveralls are on, the heated buckets and trough heater are working in the barn and this morning we awoke to a dusting of snow.
Barn chores keep me busier when it's in the teens. Manure freezes and is harder to pick up. The horses need to stay blanketed and given hay more often. They don't like to drink extremely cold water, so I need to keep the heated buckets filled. Colic is always a worry when they don't drink enough. Zoey entertains herself by pooping in her bucket. It's hanging on the wall, so it requires some extra effort. I know she does it to annoy me. Yesterday morning, I opened her stall door and noticed that her tail was frozen solid. It actually had icicles hanging from it. I couldn't understand it until I saw her bucket. Rude pony!
Today's snow was just a dusting, but it is little Scout's first and she went crazypants when she saw it. More snow is predicted for the weekend. She'll lose her mind!
Let's look at some pictures of this icy winter business...

Black-eyed Susan

Marsh ice.

Incredible how a bit of snow makes everything look fresh and clean. I know the mud will return next week, daytime highs in the 50's are predicted. For now, I'm crossing my fingers for the weekend snow.

Stay warm. XO.