The Leaves Are Down! Let the Fun Begin!

Hi there everybody. This is The Daily Bone and I’m your cheerful doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel along with my jocular colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel.

Autumn in Western NY is proceeding and the trees have lost most of their leaves. My ghostwriter says the trees sound completely different without their leaves. Instead of a soft rustling sound, like applause or a stream rushing over pebbles, they now make a deep, whirring hum as the wind blows through the empty branches. It makes her think sadly of the bleak and dismal days to come in later in November and December. 

My humans have been raking up the fallen leaves and piling them on the compost heap. Maybe they think they can save up all that Fall color and keep it there to cheer them up when they need it. They say they’re trying to cover up the muddy spots so we doggies won’t track so much dirt into the house. I don't think that will work. There's mud everywhere in winter! 

Joey dog would like to remind them that no matter how deeply they hide those cauliflower scraps in there, he will still find them! 

Speaking of hiding and finding things, my next subject is about squirrels! Today we put out some peanuts for the blue jays so we could enjoy their antics and bright colors. They usually pick up all the nuts pretty quickly. 

But I stood at my look-out post and this is what I saw: 

Ooooo, peanuts! Num num num num num! 

ZOOM!

That squirrel thought he got away clean. But look … the leaves are off the tree, so now I can see that crummy squirrel way up there! 

Joey dog and I can now bark them all the way out of the yard! They have to do gymnastics to get down from the silver maple to the arbor vitae hedge, and then leap from bush to bush—all while we’re barking—clamber down through the hawthorn tree (those thorns are huge and sharp!) and somehow make it to the blue spruce. Bark bark bark! What a great circus act! Sometimes the squirrel doesn't make it out of the silver maple because of our barking and gets stuck up there. So while the beautiful leaves are gone from the tree, a new show begins, and it’s a comedy! 

Garden Buddha is laughing in the leaves!

Are you still up there, squirrel? Nighty night!

TDB Florida Edition Part 4

Good morning. This is The Daily Bone Florida Edition and I’m your charismatic doggie guest correspondent Miss Charlee Puppy.

I hope you’re enjoying the Florida edition of TDB so far. I'm inordinately happy to have been given this marvelous opportunity to develop my journalistic skills from my erudite associates Chester L. W. Spaniel and Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel. Plus I’m learning a lot of big new words since Chester taught me how to use the thesaurus.

I just realized that you’d probably like to know a bit more about me. I was adopted as a puppy from a shelter, and might not be alive today if it wasn’t for my wonderful humans, Jessy and Dan, who wanted a doggie that reminded them of their beloved and recently deceased doggie Professor Braydie Spiker. They specifically wanted a yellow lab with a pink nose. Well, I’m not a pure breed. In fact, I just might have a bit of Rhodesian ridgeback in my genetic make-up. But they’re OK with that. Nobody knows my exact date of birth, but I am about one year old now.

My toys

When I first arrived at my forever home, I didn’t even know how to play with toys. I now have an extensive collection of squeaky toys which I’m sure even my eminent colleague Chester would be envious of. I still have a habit of hiding some of my doggie food just in case another doggie might steal it, or else I might not get any more for a long time, neither of which is going to happen here at home. But, you know, habits are hard to break.

I share my home with my venerable associate, Emeritus Professor Lane Cat, who is wise and ancient, and not particularly interested in romping around.

Jessy’s birdies live in a room of their own that neither Lane nor I are allowed in without supervision. The birdies can be very noisy at times. They're also messy. Fortunately I like to pick up some of the more choice menu items that the birdies drop on the floor. As you can see, they too have a prodigious number of toys. My respectable (pundit, big cheese, head honcho, smarty-pants—hey this thesaurus thing is kind of fun!—big wig, hot shot, big enchilada, supercilious blatherskite, etc.) Chester would be drooling over these too!

But enough about me! I said I would chronicle Chester and Joey’s Mom and Dad’s adventures in Florida. I won’t bore you with a play by play account, so here are a few random photos:

Big tree

Alligator (Elvis 3rd.))

Downtown Boca Raton

Ibis

Florida sunset

What the heck is a blatherskite?

TDB Florida Edition Part 3

Hello friends and fans around the world! This is The Daily Bone Florida Edition and I'm your gracious and dignified doggie host Miss Charlee Puppy. 

As I promised, here is a report on pumpkin carving at my house. My Jessy human has a vast array of carving tools and has spent years honing her skills. 

Step 1: draw faces on your pumpkins.

Step 2: carve the faces using various knives and other sharp objects.

Step 3: after dark, put candles inside to make the faces light up. 

Our house had the best pumpkins on the block. Personally, I find pumpkins rather boring, especially since Halloween was last week! I also cannot understand why the humans don't just eat the pumpkins. They are rather tasty. Just saying. 

Trick or Treat!

Autumn Day

Hello everybody. Welcome to The Daily Bone (Western New York Edition.) I'm your humble doggie correspondent Chester L. W. Spaniel along with my esteemed colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel. We will be doing a series of short reports today, since we have a lot of news to cover.

 The State of the Territory

Although it was rather dreary and cold today, we still went out to enjoy the autumn leaves. The backyard featured crisp, crunchy, dry leaves from the silver maple tree. The front yard was covered with beautiful, freshly fallen Norway maple leaves. We are proud to report there was no sign of the Evil Squirrel Cartel, the Conniving Chipmunk Consortium, the Miscellaneous Mousie Mob, or the Sneaky Shrew Squad!

A Sad Announcement. 

Our gecko Elvis passed away last night. He was a very, very old gecko. He devoured lots of crickets and occasionally grubs, grasshoppers, moths, crane flies, and June bugs. We buried him under a rock in the front yard. A lone katydid observed the burial. 

Election Day is Tomorrow! 

Please be sure to vote. I noticed this years elections were particularly filled with mud slinging. I tried rolling in some mud the other day while out on a walk with my Jason human. Things didn't turn out well for me after that, as you doggies can well imagine. I look forward to the day when elections focus more on the opponents' good attributes for a change, instead of all this character assassination!

Some Things I've Never Seen Before

Here are some photos my ghostwriter took especially for me while she was flying in a jet plane. You know how much I love to see jets flying in the sky!

Jets lined up for take-off in Baltimore

Fort Lauderdale and the Everglades 

Departing Orlando

Cloud footprints on the Atlantic Ocean

Rochester at Night. The blurriness is from the jet wash.

It boggles my doggie brain! Sleepy time! 

TDB Florida Edition Part 2

Hello from sunny Florida! This is The Daily Bone Florida Edition and I'm your earnest doggie reporter Miss Charlee Puppy. Sorry for the problem with the photos in my last post. It has been corrected, and you should now be able to read it AND see the pictures. 

Today I'd like to present a short treatise on science geek decorating. As you probably know, my esteemed colleagues Chester L. W. Spaniel and Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel live with a family of science geeks. That means they love everything about science and technology; they do weird things like take pictures of the ground because a random arrangement of leaf litter seemed profound to them, and say odd things like, "What if I told you your inability to pronounce a chemical ingredient is not an argument against it?" I never really thought about this much, since it's pretty much the norm in my house too. But Chester thought our readers might be interested in seeing how genuine science geeks decorate their homes. 

First up, the skull theme. Our Jessy human loves to collect animal skulls and bones. Here is her beautiful display cabinet. All skulls have been legally procured from reputable dealers in accordance to any law that applies. With the bird skulls is a carved ostrich egg, and a puffer fish seems to fit right in on the bottom shelf. 

The skull theme is repeated throughout the house, and blends into the next theme: exotic and gigantic bugs. (Also note the photo Professor Braydie Spiker on the shelf.) 

Another theme blends effortlessly with all that, and that is Hindu god statues.  My Dan human's company sends him to India once a year to train their staff there. He always brings home one of these statues. They are quite authentic in the blend of metals used to make them. Jessy is sure to give Kali a drop of blood every so often so that she doesn't send bad luck their way. 

Kali

Shiva Nataraja

My Jessy and Dan humans absolutely love Halloween, and have huge collections of scary movies and TV shows. We watched Hocus Pocus, Paranorman, and other such horror/comedy classics whilst carving pumpkins. 

Well, it has been my pleasure to be able to give you the Florida Edition of TDB. Next time we will have the pumpkin carving results, and also a visit to a cultural themed restaurant. And that's a memo!

Oh, I almost forgot: Chester's ghostwriter, as you probably know, loves to take photos of things like spiders. She spent days trying to get the perfect pictures of these black and yellow garden spiders and their interesting webs below. The little brown lizards that are everywhere are also notoriously hard to photograph since they move so quickly. 

They're Back!

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

It is with profound relief that I announce that my humans finally came home after being in Florida since last Tuesday! They're currently quite tired from travelling, so I will save the details until tomorrow.

I have been in close communication with Miss Charlee Puppy regarding her on-location post from last week. We will repost the one in which the photos didn't show tonight. Tomorrow we'll start going back through the week and post her continuing coverage, perhaps one a day, until we catch up. (Unless we happen to have a lot of energy tomorrow!) So please stayed tuned.