Sunday, November 30, 2014

Football

Hello. This is The Daily Bone and I’m your sporty doggie commentator Chester L. W. Spaniel along with my agile associate Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel. 


Today Dad was watching football, (instead of the news.) I’ve tried my best to figure out this sport, but it continues to elude me, and boggle my doggie brain. Joey dog has lived a lot longer than I, and still can’t explain it either. But apparently Dad likes this game a lot, and gets quite emotional about it.

Mom, why is Dad yelling at the TV? 

From what I can tell, the game involves a kind of oddly shaped squeaky ball. (That’s OK so far. I like squeaky balls.) A whole bunch of big muscle men try to catch the squeaky ball and keep it away from the other men. (Still OK: I play keep-away sometimes.) But then I get confused. In the picture below, for example, they got all lined up nice and straight. But then they all started running in different directions. They all bumped into each other and lots of them fell down. It’s really hard to keep track of the squeaky ball in all that commotion!


The teams have funny names, like buffalos, and birdies, and other animals, and they wear different colors and numbers so they can tell who is who. Here are the blue buffalo guys (below.) This was the part when they all fell down; and then they did it again; and then again, except real slow; and then they all fell down again. Then some analyzer guys started talking about the falling down guys. I think the falling down guys fell down about ten times before a stripy shirt guy made some arm signals, that everyone was either really mad about, or else really happy about.  


Here is a team called the browns, but they’re wearing shiny orange hats. They had a big group hug, and then got in line again for some more falling down. Dad did a lot of yelling. (I think he wanted the buffalo blue shirt guys to win.) 


Just when I though the game was over, they all changed their shirts and kept on playing! You see? Now they have on purple shirts! Dad said these are the ravens. Where did the blue buffalo guys go? I was hoping to see a real buffalo! 



Dad tried to explain it to me, but I forgot what he said. 

But then Joey said I should come to the kitchen because Mom is cooking dinner. 
At last! Something I can understand! 



BBQ ribs, collard greens, mashed sweet potatoes, and green beans. Yum! 

And then the football was all done. Oh well, I guess I'll try to figure football out again next Sunday. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.


Saturday, November 29, 2014

The Evil Squirrel Cartel Strikes Again!

Hello mystery fans. This is The Daily Bone and I’m your trusty detective doggie reporter Special Agent Chester L. W. Spaniel. 


These are the compost buckets. We put two osage oranges (aka hedge apples) in there because they were getting moldy. We noticed this morning that said fruit was missing. 


Special Agent Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel discovered several mounds of chewed up organic material underneath the pear tree. After sniffing carefully, he concluded that these were the remains of the osage oranges from the compost bucket. 


I was not so sure. As you know, osage oranges are green! (Here’s an original photograph from November 10, 2014, when we first acquired the large round fruit.)  


The remains pictured here are mostly yellow and orange. But if you look closely, you can discern fragments of the bumpy green outer skin. 


We began to widen the perimeter of the crime scene. Look, I found a bit of osage orange stuck in the pear tree. In addition, I picked up the scent of squirrel!


Subsequent investigation revealed no more fresh tracks. The perpetrator had fled the crime scene! 


And I ended up having to jump into the bathtub to get the mud cleaned off my feet. (Don’t worry. I like to play with the water in the bath tub.) As you know, Special Agent Joey dog is quite fastidious about keeping his feet clean because he doesn’t like the bath tub at all! 


We retired to the sofa to mull over our findings. We still have one osage orange left. Since it is not very palatable for either doggies or humans, we could possibly use this last one as bait and finally catch an operative of the Evil Squirrel Cartel. That would be a triumphant day indeed! 


Friday, November 28, 2014

TDB Florida Edition

This is The Daily Bone Florida Edition, and I’m your dutiful doggie reporter Miss Charlee Puppy. 


I’m on guard duty right now. 


Yeah, it’s serious business …


… especially with all the humans coming and going on this holiday weekend. 


But the pay is good! Yum! 

Black Friday

Hello. This is the Daily Bone and I’m your perspicacious doggie reporter Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel. My hebetudinous associate Chester L. W. Spaniel was too tired to think up a story today.


As you can see, I am sitting on top of a newspaper that says “Black Friday.” There is a reason for this. We doggies can never understand the human passion for shopping. I mean, do you really NEED a smelly candle, a tacky tie, and an ugly sweater? We doggies don’t mind if we don’t get a new doggie bed. The old one is just fine. How about instead of going shopping today, you spend some quality time with your doggies, and your family. Thank you for your kind attention.

Sit. Stay. Good.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Turkey Day

Good morning. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your playful doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel along with my esteemed colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel.

We are not having turkey today! Why? Our ghostwriter has to go to work, Dad is not feeling well, and our Jason human is on call. It's really hard to get our entire family together in one place on a particular day. After years of working in medical fields, they have accepted that fact. Holidays are almost never celebrated on the correct day, and they don't care. We'll get to the turkey eventually. Maybe Sunday? In the meantime, we doggies are thankful for our yard, which today is covered with beautiful snow!









Have a happy turkey day! 

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Border Patrol

Hello. This is The Daily Bone and I’m your humble doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel. 


I had a lot of different reactions about the fact that I caught a rabbit yesterday. Some doggies thought I did a good job; and I thought I was being a great hunter. Others felt very sad about the rabbit. This continues to confuse me. I am a cocker spaniel, the smallest of the hunting doggies, so chasing, and catching small animals and birdies comes naturally to me. You'll be glad to know that I've worked very hard to learn not to bark at the nice birdies that visit our window feeder.

It's actually quite rare for a rabbit to get into our yard, and here's why: We have a chain link fence so that we doggies can run freely around as much as we want. Otherwise we'd have to be on a leash at all times as is the law in our town. My humans have made sure to block the small gaps that rabbits or other similar sized critters can fit through. (Actually this measure was enacted after the great wood chuck debacle several years ago.) So today I patrolled the perimeter of the yard to try to figure out how that rabbit got in.








After due diligence, and some careful sniffing, I concluded that the rabbit must have quite an made an effort to squeeze through the slim opening between the house and the fence as seen in the above photo. My humans will undoubtedly block up that area now too.

The next question is: why did the rabbit come into our yard in the first place? Our territory is well marked, and surely the rabbit must have been able to discern this. What could possibly have been so desirable to this rabbit?

The only thing I can figure out is this:

Hawthorn berries

Oh, you have to check out this great story!

                    


Monday, November 24, 2014

Rabbit

This is a TDB Fast Breaking News Story! 
I'm your big champion rabbit hunter doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel.

Look Mom! I caught a rabbit for you! It's a big fat rabbit too! It must weigh three pounds!

It was hiding in the leaf pile right here and I caught it all by myself! 

Are we going to have rabbit stew for dinner today? Because I caught the rabbit for you to cook!

I'm a very good rabbit hunter! 

Oh boy! I can't wait for some yummy rabbit stew. Are you going to put carrots in it? How about potatoes? Yum yum yum!










(Does anyone know how to prepare a freshly killed rabbit?)

Birdie Watching

Hello. This is the Daily Bone and I'm your observant doggie correspondent Chester L. W. Spaniel. 


There's a contest going on at Blogville, and we should post pictures of birdies. We love birdies! We have lots of birdie pictures too! Here they are: 

First up is Crazy Bird the angry red cardinal. For several weeks in Fall 2013, Crazy Bird battled his reflection in the windows of our house. We tried putting pictures in the windows to scare him away, and I barked at him, but it didn't help. He also attacked the rear view mirrors on the cars in the driveway and left poopies all over them. 


Next we have the blue jay who likes to eat peanuts we put outside for them. 


I'm at my look-out post here.

They're in the feeder while I'm outside. What cheeky jays!

Here is our most common birdie feeder visitor: the house sparrow. 


A flock of ducks visited our next door neighbor's yard last spring. 


When my ghostwriter went to Florida last month, she took pictures of all kinds of birdies. 

Ibis

Spoonbills

Flamingos

Galinule

Jet Birdies

In keeping with the season, here's a picture I got from our good friend Pat and her kitty cat Tricky. 

Raelin's Turkey Squad

Finally, here's my personal favorite: the whirley birdie! 


Oh, I almost forgot. Here are Jessy's birdies! 



Squatty Dingledoody the baby grackle I caught last spring. (Mom let it go.)

And last but not least, the baby robins from the nest in front of our house in May of 2013.