Back Yard Safari

Greetings friends! This is The Daily Bone and I'm your attentive doggie reporter 

Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

My ghostwriter finally has a day off! So we spent most of it outside in the yard. We found a lot of interesting stuff without going anywhere, starting with this:

Look look look lookie look! Look just past the fence post, under the neighbor's umbrella shaped tree. It's a duck! We always have a few ducks checking out the greenbelt area for possible nesting sites at this time of year. But they never stay because the only pond is on the other end of the neighborhood.

Do you see him yet? He sees me now. He's hiding behind the tree trunk watching me.

Hi Mr. Mallard!

OK bye! See you next year!

Time for more exploring. Here's the compost pile. Lots of pretty blue forget-me-nots are growing behind it.

Here's the wood pile. It smells like bunnies and mousies and maybe chipmunks. I'm pretty sure there's a bunny living under the neighbor's deck. I wonder if I'll catch any bunnies this year?

We found a couple mysterious alien skulls. (Cue the X-Files Theme.)

This is a perfect dandelion poof. We sometimes see the little birdies eating the seeds from these.

Right underneath it were some tiny mushrooms growing.

Oh, and lookie here:

There's going to be a good crop from Joey's pear tree this year!

There are lots of good things to find in my yard!

One of the grackle baby gargoyles got out of its nest and is sitting on the top of the silver maple tree squawking noisily. I can't see it because of the leaves. But the parent birdies are giving me the stink eye and making threatening sounds, like, "churk churk churk churk churk churk!"

Yeah, I hear you up there!

Whew. It's hot out today! You may have noticed that there are lots of helicopters on the ground everywhere. Not those big Chinook choppers the National Guard flies around here all the time.

Photo from our archives.

But seeds from the silver maple tree. They're those yellowish-tan little things shaped like propellers. There are thousands of them! When they fall, they spin around like pinwheels through the air. The tree still has plenty more getting ready fall. 

Oh, and there is one more thing we found today. But I suggest you look at this video first.

There are several more Lucas the Spider videos on youtube if you need an extra dose of cuteness. You can even buy a Lucas the Spider Squeaky Toy!

















OK. Here's what we found by the edge of the garage door:

Do you know what it is? Ghostwriter touched it gently with the tip of a little stick and look what happened: oh oh! There they go!

This is a spider ball. A big Mommy garden spider must have made a web sac last Autumn (just like in Charlotte's Web) and laid lots of eggs in it. It managed to survive the long, cold winter, and wasn't eaten by any birdies. Now the eggs all hatched. Pretty soon all of these tiny spiderlings will go off on their own all over the garden to build webs and catch all kinds of nasty mosquitoes and flies! Hooray!

As you may know, we're all science geeks in my family, and think spiders are amazing. We never kill the spiders we find inside the house. We catch them and put them outdoors when the weather is warm. If it's winter, we simply let them go where ever they want.

And now, at the end of the day, I can finally see the moon, even though it's a bit cloudy, and howl a hello to my dearest Princess Leah. I hope things are well with you and your family across the Pond!

I can't wait for our performance on May 28!

But I might not make it to the amusement park that day due to ghostwriter's tight schedule.

More Flowers and Stuff

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

First, I'd like to make a correction from my last report. We thought this white birdie eggshell was from a grackle. However, after doing some research, we discovered it must be from a mourning dove. We are not sure where Debbie Dove has her nest, but we're glad her babies have hatched.

Mourning dove egg.

The other day Dad found this egg on the ground: 

Grackle egg and feather.

After checking a few ornithology sites, we concluded that this is actually a grackle egg. All the things we said about grackles, though, is true! They are big bullies, they drop big slimy poop everywhere, and dive bomb anybody who gets near their nests. At this time, we can figure out exactly where their nests are because the babies are quite noisy when their parents feed them. It sounds like they're getting bigger and will soon be flopping around on the lawn and in the bushes. I'm going to have fun chasing those little gargoyles around!

In other news, here are a few flowers from our yard.

Here's a big mushroom that came up in the wood chips.

Mushroom on day 1.

Mushroom on day 2.

Mushroom on day 3.

The silver maple is loaded with seeds this year. It's going to be like a blizzard when these start to fall!

Our friend Carol sent us some pictures of the beautiful newborn ponies at Chincoteague.

The ponies have brown and white spots just like me!

For my final story, here's a funny that Dad found which pretty much describes his life as a retiree: 

OK Dad. Let's get going! 

All The Spring Stuff

Hello everyone. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your diligent doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

Well, Spring has arrived with a bang here in Western NY. There are flowers everywhere, the grass is growing like crazy, and all the trees are blooming. 

Usually ghostwriter is very happy when the flowers bloom. But this year her allergies are driving her crazy. Here's what she had to use today:

The June bugs come out at night and buzz around the front door where the light is on. Ghostwriter picked a couple off the screen door for me to look at.

Um, hi. I'm a  June bug.

I chased them around a bit, then we put them back outside.

Here's a beautiful purple finch sitting on the window box feeder.

We're fairly sure these eggshells are from a grackle nest.

That means the Great Grackle Flying PTA (Poop Tossers Association) will soon be in full swing, covering everything with blobby slimy baby birdie poop! (The parent birdies feed the babies in the nest, and take away their poops so the nest stays clean. They drop the poo bombs on anything within a twenty foot radius, including cars, outdoor furniture, sidewalks, garage doors, windows, etc.) After a couple weeks, the little gargoyles will come out of the nests, squawking noisily. If you've never seen a grackle baby, here's a picture of one I caught a few years ago. As you can see, ghostwriter rescued it from my jaws before I could give it the shakey-shakey. (I think her name was Squatty Dingledoody or something like that.) They are anything but cute!  

Pffft!

In other news, I got a picture of another one of my kitty cat cousins. This is Xerxes and she lives in the house with my Jason human and his friends. I hear she likes tummy rubs.

For my last story, I have a brief food report. Yesterday ghostwriter and Dad got some dinner from a new place called Naan-Tastic.

You can build your own customized Indian meal by choosing from an array of delicious stuff. Here ghostwriter chose naan bread, with rice, paneer tikka, and chana masala, topped with masala sauce and a bit of corn and raisins on top. Dad tried the beef steak with hot vindaloo sauce. Please check out their website here: naan-tastic. 

I hope you all have a great weekend.