Black Friday

Hello everybody. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your diligent doggie reporter 

Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

Today is a very ominous day. In fact, it's so ominous that the humans call it Black Friday. It marks the official beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the USA. (I don't understand why the humans need a special day for that.) Anyway, it involves some grueling rituals. First, the day before, the humans stuff themselves with mountains of food, sometimes to the point of becoming obtunded. The next day, they get up really early—like 3am early!—and dress in their warmest coats and sweaters and hats. They proceed to the nearest shopping center and stand in line outside in the cold along with masses of other humans who are also heavily dressed, and probably hung over from yesterday's eating and drinking. As soon as the store opens, a stampede ensues and everyone rushes to buy whatever they can get their hands on. Occasionally this part of the ritual becomes violent. Upon completion of the sale, the humans all go home and collapse on the couch, and then stuff themselves with left-overs from the day before.  

My humans never go anywhere near any kind of store or shopping center on this day. Instead, they enjoyed a calm and peaceful morning doing nothing special. Upon looking out the window to the back yard, ghostwriter spotted this squirrel: 

It's totally black! Ghostwriter says she's seen this squirrel around the neighborhood lately, but it's just recently ventured into my yard to snarf birdie seeds along with the rest of the Evil Squirrel Cartel. I went out to chase it away …

… and then did a thorough inspection of the premises for signs of other invaders.

Here's what I found: The neighbor's oak tree has finally started shedding its leaves, and now they're all blowing around on top of the snow.

The Stodgy Robin Society was perched in the silver maple. Some of them were even singing!

It's still mighty cold out!

Now I think that was a lot more fun than jostling through a crowd of humans and buying stuff at stores! Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving Day. 

Snow For Us

Hello everybody. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your faithful doggie reporter 

Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

As you can see, we have snow! Within a couple days all the colorful autumn leaves dropped from the trees and got covered in whiteness. I don't mind the snow. It's good for running in. 

Check this out: I've been practicing all my life to do a one-ear-only-flip! Wow!

But my ghostwriter thinks we were gyped! She says it's too soon for snow like this. We should still have some nice autumn weather with temperatures in the 60's. Normally she doesn't acknowledge winter has arrived until the first big snowfall, or Christmas, whichever comes first. Now she has to admit winter is here and it's not even Thanksgiving yet! I say quit sulking and let's take a walk! 

It did make for a few pretty pictures.

You see? It's not all that bad. 

I say, let it snow! 

(Then you won't have to rake up those fallen leaves until Spring.)

Birdie Business

Greetings friends and fans. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your faithful doggie reporter 

Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

I'm at my post watching the birdies who visit our window box feeder. It seemed pretty much like a regular day.

Blue Jay

Assortment of sparrows.

When Mr. Mortimer Seedcruncher III, CEO of Sparrows Incorporated, showed up in a huff. He said, "Hey Chester, the Evil Squirrel Cartel is plundering our birdie seeds again!"

"Do you see him there? What are you going to do about it?"

I'll be right out!

Initiating stealth mode:

Peeking out the door …

Squirrel spotted at 12 o'clock

Zoom!

I chased that demented squirrel clear out of my yard!

A doggie's work is never done!

Changes

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

It's been a  crazy week with lots of changes going on! I have several stories for today's report, but I'm going to start with the weather. There's been a big wind roaring through our area lately. The clouds have been practically racing by! One minute it's all sunny and bright.

And the next minute storm clouds are rolling in.

Hey, get lost storm clouds! Can't you see we're doing a news cast here?

The high winds blew most of the leaves off the silver maple tree. So ghostwriter had to rake them up. (She also put the Halloween pumpkins in the compost pile. Do you see them there?)

While she was working on that, I snooped around the yard. Check out this big stick pile. Dad was planning to put all of this mess through the screaming monster stick grinder machine thing and turn them into mulch, but didn't have enough time before he got his knee surgery. So now Sparrows Incorporated has an all new remodeled and rebuilt:

Hotel and Winter Resort in the Sticks!

  It's the perfect venue for sparrow conventions, chirp concerts, and birdie kick-boxing events!

Hello in there! (I can smell birdie poop already.)

In other news, the National Guard must be practicing because their helicopters have been out day and night. This one's a big Chinook chopper with two rotors. 

Flocks of geese have been zooming around as well. Gee, I hope they don't smash into each other!

We have to report that we no longer have any flowers left. But the colorful Norway maples, and the Japanese maples are now loosing their leaves. We think they're just as pretty as flowers.

NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH

This is a fast breaking story. I'm live in my back yard and it's snowing out! Yes indeed, big wet snowflakes are falling along with even more leaves. Amazing!

Now ghostwriter is going to have to get out the snow shovel AND the rake!

For my final report, it's getting darker earlier every day. There's only one thing to do about that: 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Nice Fall Day

Hello everybody. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your dedicated doggie reporter 

Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

Do you know what this is? 

It's the sun and we can actually see it after a week of dreary, cloudy, rainy, cold weather! Amazing! 

Look look look!

I can see my shadow!

It wasn't long before it clouded up and rained again. But we only had to look down and see many more beautiful things.

In case you're wondering, Dad is doing OK after his knee replacement surgery last week. He's walking around more, but still has to use the walker or crutches.