The Bleak Days

Hi. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your ho-hum doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

Ghostwriter has been working and working and working lately. It seems like she's hardly ever home! 

The weather has been monotonous, cold, and gray! These are the bleak days typical of late November, early December in Western NY. 

The yard is ready for winter. The leaves are all raked up. 

My shaggy colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel and I have been doing a lot of sleeping! But that doesn't mean we are devoid of any news at all. Our friend Tibi learned how to walk on a leash. His human is convinced that he is really a doggie and not a kitty cat. 

Ghostwriter found a few little flowers still alive in the yard, like these yellow snapdragons.

Milkweed seeds are everywhere! 

The bare trees and bushes look elegant against the stark gray sky. 

Flocks of geese fly by daily. 

We found clumps of feathers in the back yard. We think probably a hawk caught a small birdie like a chickadee or a junco. Ghostwriter says that years ago, it was like a miracle to see a hawk. Everybody dropped what they were doing and ran to take a look. But these days hawks are everywhere, and they're hunting right in our own neighborhood! 

What's that you say? You have to work tomorrow too? 

Wake us up when you get home. 

Black Friday 2013

This is The Daily Bone and we're your diligent doggie reporters Chester L. W. Spaniel and Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel. Welcome. 

Once again the holiday shopping craze that is Black Friday is upon us. We thought we'd look back and present a post we wrote in 2013. 

Today is Black Friday. It doesn’t look too dark out to me … yet. But I’m sure anything with such an ominous name must be really, really bad. What could it be? Maybe a big, scary thunderstorm is coming. Could it be approaching nuclear war? Or the end of the world? My associate Joey dog, who is adept at spotting the signs of impending doom, such as a visit to the vet, or ear cleaning time, says it’s surely going to be an invasion of aliens from the planet Gobbledigook coming to exact revenge on us for eating so many turkeys yesterday! Hey, wait a minute. I see you snickering there behind the couch, Joey dog. This is no laughing matter! It’s got to be plague, like the black death, and a zombie apocalypse! Oh no! 

I’ve been noticing that my humans have been getting alarmed at the increasing number of ads in the newspaper. The mailbox is always crammed with junk mail too. Furthermore, all the TV commercials are vigorously warning people to get ready for Black Friday. What other reason is there for stores to tell people to shop like crazy, except to prepare for a disaster? This morning there were bone-chilling TV reports about people lining up at three in the morning, and waiting for hours in the freezing cold just to get into stores. Traffic is lining up for miles at the freeway exits to the malls. Once the humans get into the stores, they become an angry mob fighting over the things they want to buy. If that’s not enough to scare the crap out of you, I don’t know what is! Joey dog pointed out to me that our humans have been buying and storing huge amounts of food lately, like that fifty pound bag of doggie food. This cannot be a good sign. 

Therefore, my advice to you is to gather all your squeaky toys, and your yum yums, hide them under the bed, and then get under there with them. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Obviously a terrible catastrophe is coming. It’s Black Friday!

That still sounds like good advice to us! 

Clair De Lune (Wordless Wednesday)

5AM

5:15AM

5:30AM

Dawn

Sunset

6:30PM

7:30PM

8PM

9PM

10:30PM 

Everything's OK Here

Hello. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your content doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel along with my sleepy associate Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel. 

As you can see we doggies are both settled in for a nap. Joey dog slept almost all day. He ate a bowl of chicken and rice soup, but hasn't touched his regular crunchy meatballs healthy weight maintenance yum yum delicious doggie food. We're a bit worried he might not want that anymore if he thinks he's going to get soup all the time. 

It's been a quiet day. We saw a few squirrels sneaking around, but they stayed away from the birdie feeders. We heard robins singing this morning, and thought that was strange. But we have some robins who don't fly south. They stay here all winter and eat hawthorn berries and wild grapes, both of which we have plenty of in the woods and fields. 

The great Turkey Day migration and shopping frenzy has begun! Jets have been flying over all evening. Ghostwriter got a picture of the moon and a jet taking off. Dad went to Wegmans grocery store for the last time till Monday to avoid the crowds.

We hope you get to where you're going safely, and have a Happy thanksgiving Day. 

Where's Joey Dog?

Good evening ladies and doggies, gentlemen and kitties. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your concerned doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

This morning our humans got up early and Dad took my venerable colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel out to the car without any explanation. I barely got to see them go! 

In the meantime, did I mention we had snow on the ground? Here's a picture ghostwriter took last night at midnight upon arriving home from work. 

Here's what it looked like this morning:

I went out to look for my associate. Here's his favorite spot to sniff around.

Maybe he climbed over the wood pile! But I doubt it. He's not so adventurous any more. 

Is he out here by the fence? This is his favorite barking spot. You can see the mail truck, and the garbage truck, and the school bus, and the neighbors go by.

As the day progressed, the sun came out and melted the snow.

Still no Joey dog! 

I tried to take a nap on the couch with my tennis ball instead of with Joey dog.

But it just wasn't the same. So I went outside again and watched the silly geese flying around. 

Then I went in and checked my email. There was plenty of new stuff. I received some good news from our friend Carol, that she has a new kitty at her house. Her name is Pixie and she was rescued from a shelter. Welcome to The Daily Bone Pixie! Have you seen Joey dog?

Hi.

I also received word that our favorite miniature human, Ryan, got a lesson on gears. I'm sure he can put that data to good use when he builds his next intergalactic space ship! Is Joey dog there with you, Ryan?

No. 

I even got  a picture from our kitty friend Tibi as he was working on his ABCs. Have you seen Joey dog, Tibi?

Ah … nope.

How about you, Maddie? Have you seen Joey dog? 

No doggies here!

As the day wore on, the humans pretended nothing was amiss, and told me I had to pose for the yum yum shot of the day. I'm not very good at this! I can never sit still and food watch politely. That's Joey dog's gig!

Pot roast with gravy, egg noodles, and steamed vegetables.

It started to get dark, and the moon came out. Maybe Joey dog went to visit Princess Leah on the other side of the Pond. I'd better give her a call on the moon phone. 

princessleahthecav.blogspot.com

It got really dark. Where is he? How is he going to find his way home? 

Ghostwriter tried to entertain me with some funny comics.

Ballard Street

Take it From the Tinkersons

The Dogs of C-Kennel 

Dog Eat Doug 

Mutts

This one doesn't have anything to do with doggies, but ghostwriter thought it was hilarious!

On a Claire Day

Hey wait a minute! I hear something in the garage! It was Joey dog! He wasn't in a mood for play. 

He didn't even stop to talk. He went straight to the water bowl and drank LOTS of water. Oh, and he was all shaky and smelled like the vet. 

Ghostwriter had made some special chicken and rice soup for him. He just licked up the broth and left the rest for me. How come you're not hungry Joey? Did you have a bad day? 

He said he was stuck at the vet all day long. He had his teeth cleaned, and his chest x-rayed, and his toenails clipped, and his ears cleaned! That sounds horrendous! 

Well, at least things can go back to normal now! Harumph!

Wait a minute. Did I leave the moon phone off the hook???? 

… Chester, are you still there? It's me, Leah. What's going on? Hello? Hello?