Odds and Ends

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

I have a collection of stories to report today, so let's get started!

It's been two years since my ghostwriter got her left knee replaced. Next Tuesday she will be having her right knee replaced. We might not be posting The Daily Bone for a little while after that so she can recuperate. Here's an x-ray of her knees. See how the right one is all crooked? I'll have to be sure to remind her to tell the surgeon to save that gnarly old joint for me as a chew toy! 

Sunday, we had a visit from my favorite miniature humans, Ryan and Lily. Here they are making funny faces with their Aunt Joanna:

You may be wondering why Lily is wearing glasses. She suddenly developed cataracts in both of her eyes about six weeks ago. (It's a genetic thing.) She's had surgery to remove the clouded lenses from each of her eyes. Since she's so young, the doctor didn't put new lenses in. This will be done when she grows up some more. In the meantime, she'll have to wear glasses. She's doing very well, and has been keeping her glasses on. When she visited, she made sure my doggie bowl had food in it, and my water bowl was full, and I had plenty of gentle pats on the head.  

Today we actually had some sunshine! After all the dark and dreary days we've had lately, I needed to squint in the brightness.

I got rewarded with three yum yum doggie treats for this photo session!

At the nursing home where my ghostwriter works, she met a very nice doggie named Marley. I might remind all you doggies out there that people in nursing homes really love it when doggies (and kitties too) come to visit.

Hmmmm. I think I've covered everything.

Don't forget to always take some time during your day to look up, look down, and find all kinds of interesting and beautiful things!

We hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!

The Dark Days

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

So now we're into the depressing days of the late Fall here in WNY. The snow has mostly melted, and we have mud. Instead of sun and pretty leaves, we have dark clouds and bare trees. 

Canada geese fly over every day, sometimes in huge flocks, but usually in small family groups like these below. They're still foraging the harvested fields during the day, and then going to find the ponds and small lakes that aren't frozen over yet at night. Once we get a big freeze, they'll finally leave for warmer places.

Those geese are pretty noisy, and you can hear them coming from a long way off.

Oh oh oh oh! I treed that dummy squirrel again! Hehehe! This time he went up the linden tree.

The only snow left is what has been shoveled into piles along the streets and our driveway.

There is still a bit of color left in the fallen hawthorn berries among the oak leaves and last of the tiny mushrooms on the grass. Thank goodness the grass is still green!

We spied a tiny spider, crawling lethargically in the doorway to outside. 

Don't be afraid! It's only a little spider! It was so cold it could hardly move. Ghostwriter tried to brush it gently aside so it wouldn't get smushed by the door, and it just rolled up into a ball and fell to the garage floor. We hope it finds a safe place to spend the winter months. 

By five o'clock it was almost dark! 

We did get a bit of brightness in that our friend Sunny sent us a few amazing pictures of her incredible artwork characters.

Hmmmm … I wonder if Sunny would do a picture of me?

We have also been watching an animated series on youtube called "No Evil." Here is a link to the first episode below. It's a good idea to watch these with the closed captions on so you can understand some of the unusual character names from Aztec mythology, like Chalchiutlicue or Calamity the lizard spirit (our favorite character.) It also mixes in all kinds of American folklore stories and wonderful folk music. Most of the episodes are only five to ten minutes long.

No Evil 001

If, by the tenth episode you're completely lost, watch this video that gives a critique and an explanation of the plot. But don't forget to go back to the rest of the episodes!  

Scribble Kibble

Have fun!

Hey Winter

A chilly hello to everyone! I'm your hardy doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel, and this is 

The Daily Bone. 

No, it's not January. No, it's not February. No, it's not even March! In fact, it's not even officially winter yet. But here I am, standing in the snow in the middle of November. While snow this early is not unheard of here in WNY, we feel kind of cheated out of Autumn. 

Of course, you know, my ghostwriter is still clinging to her belief that it's never actually winter until we either get a big blizzard, or it's Christmas, whichever comes first. Was this not a big enough snowfall? She was just grumbling about her horrifying drive home from work on unplowed, icy, slippery, snow-covered roads after leaving work at 3am Monday night. She says she saw a few snowplows along the road, but they were just ditzing around, deciding if they should start doing their job or not. 

Well, I'm not complaining! Here are some pictures of our winter wonderland:

Icicles and snow clouds

A leaf

Birdie footprints

Snow capped sedum

Ghostwriter saw this when she ran some errands today:

A parking lot snow plow

Parking lot snow mountain with two crows on top

Looking for a hand-out

Yesterday afternoon, I chased a squirrel. You can see his tail sticking out of the snow a few feet ahead of me here.

He scurried up the pear tree. 

But then, he had no place else to go!  Bwahahahahaha! 

Anyway, I wonder how long this snow will last?

I'm going to enjoy it while I can. 

Stay warm everyone!

Mr. Bones Daily

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

Now that Halloween has passed, Mr. Bones Daily is resuming his job keeping watch over Dad's garage workshop. 

Oh hi everybody!

I still don't know why that's considered work.

So you're just going to sit on a bag of birdie seeds all winter? 

Hey, it's work! Oh, and I'm practicing a little song too.

Um … do I dare ask?

♫ A hundred bottles of beer on the wall, a hundred bottles of beer … ♪

Well, that should keep him busy at least until Thanksgiving.