Oz has been home now for three days. And. She has amazed us by her rapid adjustment to being a tri-pawed kitty. She has not had a super appetite, but we've tried to offer her faves; fresh shrimp, which she's munched on daintily and her Fancy Feast fave, which she's eating here. For the first time today, she tried to escape from our bedroom, where she's been held captive. We're stunned by her continued improvement. After she ate a bite or two, she headed for Sam's giant bed to relax a bit. She hates her meds (of course), but they help her sleep and keep the infections away. We stopped by the Humane Society today to say thanks to those involved in finding her and to re-license the pups. There were at least five individuals who were interested in what happened to her. We learned little more about what happened to Ozzie, except that instead of that nutty woman keeping her for two days, Oz was apparently held hostage for four days. All the days she was missing. I guess we can thank Dog that she was inside on those cold nights. For those who are squeamish, you may not want to look at the next photo, which shows Ozzie's amputation and stitches. She is in great spirits! We are so encouraged by her courage and backbone! What a winner!
It has been a bit nutsy around here, and I apologize for my mom's rudeness in making me so AWOL with my pals - I finally pawed her to take some dictation today. Here we go!We won! We won! Silvie (check out her blog here), a cheerful and happy Bichon, sent us a wonderful pressie! Here I am inspecting it carefully, as I wanted to make sure it wasn't another new puppy. It didn't smell like one; in fact, it smelled very sweet!
Here I am, snootering it a little bit more...
And some more! As Silvie said on her GABE post, I'd have a huge void in my life without a Bichon candle. And you know what? She was right. It's guarding Ma's and Pa's pix of my Splash doggin'! Thank you a ton, Silvie! What an adorable candle! Look who showed up for our next adventure??? I was so jazzed! Here's a little photoshow of our walk with Sierra, her mom, Eric (who is the all-time greatest doggeh caretaker in the world) and his two charges, Smudge and Prius (the hybrid hee hee)! Another beautiful day on the Bay and a pretty park that had asphalt, so my sister could come too. Nothing beats a swim out to my kong on a rope! Yeahhhhh!
A little movie of my sister walking. She's been doing a lot of practicing - that's not bad, Avalon!
At work this week we've noticed some new little critters running around near the visitor center... a family of woodchucks! They are living under the boardwalk and in the bushes next to the visitor center. Throughout the day they venture out to chew on the grasses and dandelions in the yard. Every now and then one of the young ones takes off running down the paved trail, much to the delight of the park visitors. They look so funny when they are running full speed! And, they are much quicker than I thought. I never realized they could run so fast. We have recently had construction work begin on the site for our new visitor center, so there is a lot more noise than there usually would be, what with chainsaws running and dump trucks and loaders coming and going. The noise doesn't seem to bother these guys, though, as they are pretty active all day long. If you happen to visit the park, keep an eye out for them as you walk past the visitor center!
With the bitter cold temperatures of recent days comes the increased production of ice along the shores of Lake Superior! Here's a recent shot of icicles hanging from the cliffs on Red Rock Beach in Grand Portage.
Knights Valley is the most remote area of Sonoma County's wine appellations. It snuggles up against the northwestern flanks of 4342 foot Mount St. Helena - this part of the county's most notable feature. Ideal mountain growing conditions have resulted in Cabernets of regal quality that are sought after for their rarity - there are only two vineyards in Knights Valley! I was very excited to go on a road trip again. I didn't mind that it was raining "cats and dogs" ho ho ho!!! (Note from Mom: at times, we had to pull off the road because wipers just couldn't keep the rain off the windshield fast enough to see!) It took two hours to get there, so I just snoozed. We eventually got into the real country. This cool red barn is just north of Calistoga. Finally we turned into a woodsy place and parked. I began investigating immediately and found lots of things I liked, such as trees, good scents, humans, and ... FOOD!!! Dad grabbed a long tool and a big sled and I led the way up a steep hill, where I veered off the path to check out these trees! Since it was so wet, the smells were just heavenly. I know there were lots of squirrels right above me! After tromping around and galloping through a ton of trees, I sat by this one and gave it my smile of approval. Then Dad got out that weird tool and went to work on it. I tried to help, but Dad said I could assist later. So I supervised. What'ch'all think? It looks a little lopsided, but I made sure there were no critters in it. This is the view across Knights Valley from the top of the hill where we found our tree. It was trying to clear up, but failed miserably. I needed some exercise and time to investigate the woods up here. Then I became GPS dog and guided Dad back down to the car. We passed some of these views and places on the way down. Mom and Dad would love to live in that cute woodsy house down there, with smoke curling from its chimney. Mom loved the smell of those cedars. Cute, huh? This nice kid gave me lots of pats - I encourage and really dig all the scritches I can get. Okay: this was something I'd never seen before. Here's a movie about what it does heheheh!
And here's another of me visiting: On the trip home, we passed some other trees with some odd things hanging from them. Nature's X-mas trees? Anybody know what those clumps are in this old live oak tree? This looks like a witch's tree to me! Any guesses on this one? Will let you know on my next post! Hope you're all having a great weekend!
If anybody here can remember my posts from the old bicycleforum.com site, or some of my earlier ramblings over at bikeforums.net, they would probably point out that I used to be quite volatile, something of a "loose cannon", looking for the slightest provocation over which I could lose my temper at the world generally. In recent years, however, I have tried to "turn over a new leaf" so to speak, and in a major shock to the universe, it may actually be working. Today's incident happened somewhere around 128km into the ride in North Burleigh. Some idiot pedestrian decided to step out onto the road right in front of me without looking. This isn't exactly a rare occurrence on the Gold Coast these days, and I had anticipated it pretty well, so I was able to avoid a collision. However, this moron then decided to abuse me because I was supposedly riding too fast (about 30km/h below the speed limit here). In the past I probably would have responded with a flurry of expletives of my own. However, today it didn't bother me a great deal. There was a mild irritation for a few moments, before the arrogance that I have worked so hard to cultivate kicked in. I began to realise that I have absolutely no cause for concern that this moron should blame me for his own inability to watch where he was going. After all, I'd been prepared for the eventuality, I'd avoided a collision, nobody was hurt, and I'd even earned an apology from his wife (who was actually smart enough to look before stepping out onto the road). But what really gladdened my heart, was the knowledge that if this guy is in a habit of blaming others for his own inability to watch where he is going, it's just a matter of time before he steps out in front of someone who will be either unable or unwilling to take the evasive action necessary. As a consequence, it probably won't be very long before he removes himself from the human gene pool altogether. I am at peace with the world, perhaps moreso now than ever before. Unlike the other guy at the intersection about 3km later who wanted to shout abuse by yelling from his car across four lanes of moving traffic. Yeah right, pal. What obligation do I have to prove anything to someone that cowardly? Oh yeah, as far as the ride itself was concerned, Numinbah Valley turned on the beauty once more, and the changeable weather conditions -- from this... to this... to this... and finally to this: Interesting thing here -- it only seemed to rain on the descents, never on the climbs. I'm not sure how this works, but it just does. It played havoc with my average speed, but that's life sometimes. It's still better than doing the whole ride in dry weather.
Oz has been home now for three days. And. She has amazed us by her rapid adjustment to being a tri-pawed kitty. She has not had a super appetite, but we've tried to offer her faves; fresh shrimp, which she's munched on daintily and her Fancy Feast fave, which she's eating here. For the first time today, she tried to escape from our bedroom, where she's been held captive. We're stunned by her continued improvement. 
After she ate a bite or two, she headed for Sam's giant bed to relax a bit. She hates her meds (of course), but they help her sleep and keep the infections away. We stopped by the Humane Society today to say thanks to those involved in finding her and to re-license the pups. There were at least five individuals who were interested in what happened to her. We learned little more about what happened to Ozzie, except that instead of that nutty woman keeping her for two days, Oz was apparently held hostage for four days. All the days she was missing. I guess we can thank Dog that she was inside on those cold nights. For those who are squeamish, you may not want to look at the next photo, which shows Ozzie's amputation and stitches. She is in great spirits! We are so encouraged by her courage and backbone! What a winner!
Here I am, snootering it a little bit more...
And some more!
As Silvie said on her GABE post, I'd have a huge void in my life without a Bichon candle.
And you know what? She was right. It's guarding Ma's and Pa's pix of my Splash doggin'! Thank you a ton, Silvie! What an adorable candle!
Look who showed up for our next adventure??? I was so jazzed! Here's a little photoshow of our walk with Sierra, her mom, Eric (who is the all-time greatest doggeh caretaker in the world) and his two charges, Smudge and Prius (the hybrid hee hee)!
Knights Valley is the most remote area of Sonoma County's wine appellations. It snuggles up against the northwestern flanks of 4342 foot Mount St. Helena - this part of the county's most notable feature. Ideal mountain growing conditions have resulted in Cabernets of regal quality that are sought after for their rarity - there are only two vineyards in Knights Valley!
Dad grabbed a long tool and a big sled and I led the way up a steep hill, where I veered off the path to check out these trees! Since it was so wet, the smells were just heavenly. I know there were lots of squirrels right above me!
After tromping around and galloping through a ton of trees, I sat by this one and gave it my smile of approval.
Then Dad got out that weird tool and went to work on it. I tried to help, but Dad said I could assist later. So I supervised.
What'ch'all think? It looks a little lopsided, but I made sure there were no critters in it.
This is the view across Knights Valley from the top of the hill where we found our tree. It was trying to clear up, but failed miserably.
I needed some exercise and time to investigate the woods up here.
Then I became GPS dog and guided Dad back down to the car.
We passed some of these views and places on the way down. Mom and Dad would love to live in that cute woodsy house down there, with smoke curling from its chimney. Mom loved the smell of those cedars.
Cute, huh?
This nice kid gave me lots of pats - I encourage and really dig all the scritches I can get.
Okay: this was something I'd never seen before. Here's a movie about what it does heheheh!
On the trip home, we passed some other trees with some odd things hanging from them. Nature's X-mas trees? Anybody know what those clumps are in this old live oak tree?
This looks like a witch's tree to me! Any guesses on this one? Will let you know on my next post! Hope you're all having a great weekend!
