You Be the Judge

Look at this face. Does Elliott look guilty to you? Let me tell you a story.
Elliott likes candy. Sometimes we give him a little bite. He savors even the tiniest bit that he's allowed.

This is the corner in the living room where our love seat usually sets. At Christmas, it has to be moved so that we have a place for the Christmas tree.

As cold as it's been, when we took the tree down, I asked AD to bring the treadmill in from the garage so I could use it inside until the weather turns warm.

Here's where the love seat is sitting for the time being. Right in front of the bar. We really don't use the bar that much so it's ok.

At Christmas I had some bowls of old-fashioned hard candy sitting on the bar. You know the kind - ribbon candy, raspberry filled candies, etc. There was some wrapped peppermint hard candies too along with some wrapped cinnamon candies. That candy is still there in the little snowman container. (Please disregard the Christmas candles that are still sitting there. I'm putting them away today.)

Anyway, back to Elliott. He really liked the old fashioned candies. A few days ago AD caught Elliott getting up on the bar and going for the candy bowl. So he moved the candy bowl to the kitchen counter

just on the other side of the bar.

This morning as I was reading through a few blogs I heard a noise in the kitchen. Kind of a clinking noise like dishes being knocked together. I immediately thought I knew what was happening.

As quietly as I could I made my way into the kitchen just in time to see Elliott's little tail following him back over the bar and down onto the love seat. He turned around and looked up at me. The look on his face was priceless but I wasn't able to take a picture.

Immediately Elliott wanted to go "out" and when he came back in he went straight to one of his favorite beds (yes, we have several dog beds around the house.) That's when I took the first photo you saw today.

So take another look at it and I ask you - does Elliott look guilty to you?

Determination and Frustration

Our 3 dogs seem to think this box that houses one of our hoses is also home to some kind of rodent.

The box is the first thing they check whenever they go in the back yard.


Two of them are pretty determined but if they can't flush anything out, they go on about their business.


The other one is determined to open the box and get inside to check. See the teeth marks that have been left on the top.


Smoke is the most determined. He just won't give it up. He's convinced there's something in the box besides the hose.

Tuesday night AD let the dogs out about 10pm to take care of any business they might have to do before we called it a night.

Smoke just would not come back in. I could hear him outside trying to find that intruder he just knew was hold up in the hose box.

He whined and he scratched and he dug. Finally AD had to go out, physically pick him up and bring him back inside.

He was filthy.


Which led to this - a late night, right before bed, bath.


And the bath led to this


this


this


and this.

I know Smoke still thinks there's something out there just taunting him. I can see it in his eyes.

He's thinking, "I'm going to catch that elusive invader and then we'll see who gets the last laugh!"

The Nose Knows

Smoke has hip dysplasia. Our vet prescribed Glucosamine and Smoke has done well on it.

This is one of the big, brown pills he has to take everyday. The bottle says the pills are "tasty chewable tablets."

Smoke disagrees.

We've tried camouflaging the pills in cheese cubes, in large marshmallows and other types of treats. But Smoke's nose

KNOWS. And he turns up his nose.

So everyday cheerleaders are enlisted to help - Dani and

Elliott.

They all get a treat when Smoke takes his pill. Elliott and Dani are right there to make sure he does.

Would you call that doggie peer pressure?

Laughter - the Best Medicine

Mikey enjoyed this laugh the other day - Dani, not so much.

The Dog Who Came For Dinner

One year ago yesterday (Saturday) this guy showed up at our back door. He was literally knocking on the back door with his tail.

It was late in the afternoon and a very cold day. We just couldn't turn him away.

AD fed and watered him, then fixed him a warm bed in the shop.

He came with no collar and a big wound in his side. The pads on his paws were in good shape so he hadn't traveled too far. AD thought he'd been dumped and I thought so too.

AD attempted to play with him by picking up a stick to throw for him. When Mikey saw AD pick up that stick he ran the other way, giving us more reason to believe he'd been abused.

(About a month later we took him to the vet to get him some shots. Mikey was NOT going to get in the truck. We think the truck might have triggered a bad memory or two. Eventually we did get him in. AD had to sit in the back seat with him, petting and assuring him all the way to the vet that everything was going to be okay while I drove into town.)


AD got him bedded down that first night. The next morning, AD let him out of the shop and Mikey went outside to do his business. He was (and is) very well mannered.

One of the first things he did was to offer us his paw to shake our hands.

We just let him run around and check everything out that next day. Never once did he offer to leave. And that continues to this day.



After about day 3 we decided he needed a name. Since our fur kids all have NASCAR names and he stood head and shoulders above our other 3 in size, we decided Mikey was the perfect name - after Michael Waltrip who is one of the tallest drivers in NASCAR.

A week or so later, Mikey's bed was moved into our garage. Now he has a Dogloo house inside the garage.


All of these photos were taken one year ago.


This one was taken a few minutes ago in AD's shop. Whenever AD is out there working, Mikey likes to lay on the old couch that's out there.

We are so glad Mikey found his way to our home and that he decided he liked us well enough to stay.

Wordless Wednesday

There's just nothing like a good chew bone!

Castle Guards

If, as the saying goes, AD's home is his castle - then these are the castle guards.

With the local temperatures being so cold and continuing to drop the field mice and rats are really scrambling to find warmer digs.

Much to my dismay the little varmints have been coming closer and closer to the house.

Much to our fur kids delight the little varmints have been coming closer and closer to the house.

And the fur kids have been standing guard almost constantly. Even the slightest movement outside catches their eye and they go into a frenzy wanting out the door.

I've been knocking on the glass to give any wildlife fair warning the guards are going to be let loose.

Heaven forbid that one of my sweet darlings would actually catch one of those creatures!

Oh, and please overlook the Christmas tree and stocking post that are still in the living room. I really am going to take them down this week . . .

New House for Mikey

Mikey doesn't look happy in this picture does he? We bought him a new "Dogloo" on Saturday.

I worried a lot about him last winter being too cold in our garage. He had a bed with lots of blankets to keep him warm and we tried covering him up at night. Sometimes he'd keep his blanket on and sometimes not. So I worried.

When it started to turn cold this year I started to worry again. I wondered if they made blankets for big dogs like they do for horses. When I asked AD about that he just kind of gave me one of those looks.

Knowing how I worry about animals though - any animals - not just ours, AD took one of our little guys' heated pads out and hooked it up for Mikey at night. He put Mikey's other blankets on top of the heated pad and Mikey REALLY liked laying on his bed. Sometimes in the morning he didn't even want to go out - he just wanted to lay on his warm bed.

I still worried because the big guy might be warm on his underside but surely he was cold on top.

Then one of the local farm and ranch supply stores had the Dogloos on sale last week. I asked AD about getting one for the big guy. He agreed that Mikey would probably stay warmer in the Dogloo rather than just a heated bed because the house would keep Mikey's body heat inside.

Saturday we went to the store and bought the house. And we came home and set it up in the garage, of course. Put his bedding in - but without the heated pad - along with some of his favorite treats. And tried to get the big guy to go in. Try as we might, no amount of coaxing could get Mikey to go in! He laid down and wasn't budging. And he's one big dog. Talk about dead weight!

You should have seen AD and me trying to "put" him in the house. We just knew if he'd try it once, he'd like it.

We could have probably won $10,000 on America's Funniest Videos if we had the event on tape.

Then something dawned on AD. Mikey is SCARED of the dark. He has to have his own night light. So AD got a flashlight and put it in the house to see if Mikey would go in and look around. You can see it there on the left.

Mikey did go in all by himself and I ran to get the camera. By the time I got back to the garage though he was coming out. He'd had enough looking around for the time being. That's the reason AD has hold of him so I could snap a picture.

Then the worrying started again. We'd spent all that money on a Dogloo right before Christmas and Mikey wasn't going to like it after all.

But AD had yet another idea. Maybe the flashlight didn't light the house up enough. AD moved Mikey's night light closer to the house, hooked it up (it's really a small lamp) and that did the trick because Mikey went right in, laid down and was happy as a clam.

Now he LOVES his house!

The downside is - Mikey can go clear to the back of the house and if he doesn't want to come out, we can't make him. And he's one stubborn dog.I foresee that being a problem sometime in the future but for now, I'm just glad that he loves his new digs and I won't have to worry about him being cold.

Mikey's snug as a bug in a rug at night - a Big bug - but's he's snug. LOL

They Weren't New Toys For Me?

I just don't know where I went wrong. There were these pretty orange balls in what I thought was a toy box on the front porch. The balls weren't very round though. Maybe that should have been a clue.

It turns out they were really fall decorations. Who woulda thunk it?

Well, maybe my friend, Cosmo. He laid way out in the front yard watching all the fun I was having throwing some of them up in the air and catching them. Cosmo didn't even act like he wanted to play with them or me. It was LOTS of fun until Granny looked out the window and saw what I was doing.

She came outside and she WAS laughing. But she picked them up and took them in the house. I thought maybe because some of the parts had broken off. So I just got another one out of the box and was starting to play with it. Then she came back out and took it and the others in the house too.

I'm REALLY sorry!

That's ok, Mikey. Daughter told me she thought you would probably eat them. But you don't bother the flowers and I didn't think you could get them out of the baby bed anyway.

It was probably the smell of the olive oil that I rubbed on them to shine them up a little. That's probably what attracted you to them.

Not to worry, Mikey. I was going to cut them open eventually anyway. I want to see if I can save the seeds and plant them next year.

Does anyone know if that's possible?

It's probably a good thing that I hadn't gotten that scarecrow made that I was going to set in the bed too.

A Weekend of Pumpkins, Birthday Cake and a New Puppy

Last Friday we drove to Oklahoma City to visit Son's family. Their little foster daughter was celebrating her 3rd birthday.

She requested a "Hannah Tannah" cake and Son made this one for her.



She was thrilled! They told me that she was "taking pictures" of her cake with her toy cell phone earlier in the day. How cute!

She had the biggest smile on her face and giggled and giggled when everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to her. I wish I could show you a picture of that but unfortunately I can't. After some miscommunication a few months ago I found out that it's a HUGE NO-NO for a picture of a foster child to be on the internet.

See the parts of letters and a hand print on the tablecloth? That's a tradition I started back when G1 celebrated his first birthday. Each kiddo has their own birthday tablecloth (we made them out of white sheets.) Then each year we put fabric paint on their hands and have them leave a set of their hand prints on the tablecloth. The year is painted by that set of hands. It's fun to watch their hands grow through the years. (A few years ago G1 and G2 decided they were too old for that sort of thing but it's a wonderful keepsake anyway.)

On Saturday morning we loaded up and went to buy pumpkins for Halloween.

G3 has very discriminating taste in Halloween pumpkins. I think he examined almost all of the pumpkins there.



G4 found this pumpkin and it looked like a pretty good one.




Eventually they decided on these pumpkins.




Of course their foster children got pumpkins too. I think they'll have a lot of fun decorating them for Halloween.

After AD paid for the pumpkins we were told that we could pick 2 smaller pumpkins to take with us for free. Halloween is very close and they had an over abundance of the smaller ones they were wanting to get rid of them.

G3 got to examine even more pumpkins for just the right 2.



Son is supposed to help the kids with pumpkin carving and send me pictures. It would really be interesting to have pictures of Son helping the kids because he's much like Kathy over at Four Dog Day. He thinks pumpkin guts are gross and yucky. I don't remember him being that way when he was younger though.

Son's family has 2 Schnauzers. Their names are Lightning and Sally (think Pixar Cars movie). A couple of weeks or so ago someone gave them this adorable Yorkie. His name is Mater and he's a cutie-patootie!




I think Lightning is a little jealous. Sally may be a little jealous too but I didn't get a good picture of her.

The dogs do get along well though. At one point they were all laying close to each on the couch asleep. It was the cutest thing ever.

A birthday and pumpkins and a new puppy. How much fun is that?

A Witch and Pumpkins and Spiders - Oh, My!

The few Halloween decorations are in their places now so I thought I'd share them with you.

A trio of pumpkins are smiling on top of my Hoosier cabinet.


You've no doubt heard of the Headless Horseman. Well, here's my Handless Witch. When I took her out of the box her left hand was missing and I can't find it for the life of me. She's so cute though that I just had to put her on display. (I also own a "Venus de Milo" Barbie Christmas ornament but that's a story for another time.)


I bought a spider web tablecloth a few years ago, put it away and forgot about it. It surfaced when we moved and I made sure to store it in the china cabinet so it could be used this year.

The crystal dish on the table was a gift from a friend and according to the box it came in, is a pie dish. It's where I put the brownies or cookies that I bake for G1 and G2.

Silk sunflowers and pumpkin cups sit on top of my computer cabinet.

Halloween noisemakers - 2 are old and the others are newer - a spider that used to play a spooky sound and more silk sunflowers sit on top of my pie safe. I don't use it for pies either. It's where I store some of my cookbooks.

That's about the extent of my Halloween decorations this year.

Oh, my! I just remembered my Haunted House and Mickey Mouse ornaments that hang on it. It is way cute! Son gave them to me as a birthday present a couple of years ago. (No, my birthday is not in October, it's in September.) I know right where everything is so I need to get them out today and put them on display.

One more thing. While going through my Halloween boxes I also found some Halloween beanies - not the ones by Ty although I do have some of those - but kids' hats.

I plopped one on Elliott's head as he was laying on his bed and snapped a picture. He's thinking, "Oh, no! I thought Mikey took care of the whole Halloween dress up thing the other day."

Smoke just glared at me from underneath the vampire fangs.

Dani just looked pitiful. You know, I think one of my grade school pictures was taken in my Brownie uniform and I had a similar look on my face.

Not to worry. Elliott, Smoke and Dani all got their much deserved treats. And they didn't even have to put on a whole costume - this year.