Finally A Flower!

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

If you read my last post, you'll know that we've been hit with all kinds of crazy weather. Snowing one minute, sunny the next; and all with a wild wind blasting trucks off the roads, knocking down trees, and strewing branches and debris everywhere. It's pretty cold out, but not cold enough for the ground to freeze. Therefore, I have been not allowed to run around my entire back yard because it's almost all a vast expanse of squishy, muddy swamp. I've been mostly going out attached to a long leash.  

Harumph!

But yesterday I did get to go out and explore while ghostwriter, wearing her boots, went out to pick up my doggie poops that have been accumulating in the same area since I couldn't wander very far.

 Look look look lookie look at what I found! 

Finally! Actual real amazing flowers! Hooray! Now the three pictures above are from yesterday. Here's what we woke up to today:

I bet those daffy-dillies are sorry they bloomed already!

This afternoon the snow all melted and the high winds are back. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

In the meantime, our other flower, Lily has been having fun indoors with her big brother Ryan.

Hey, I wouldn't mind playing with those squeaky toys too. Just saying …

Crazy Weather!

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

Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

Yesterday we had a big wind storm! There were wind gusts up to 75mph that tossed big tractor trailer trucks around like toys! Trees were blown over and everything that was not tied down was flying in the air! My ghostwriter had to leave for work at 2:30pm, but within a mile, she had to turn around. The road she usually travels was closed because a truck was in a ditch. She took another route and managed to get there on time. Shortly after she arrived at the nursing home, though, the power went out. Fortunately they have a generator that kicked in within a few seconds. The high winds kept up for the entire day and into the night! (At the end of this post I have provided a link to a local news report of the mayhem.)  

Unbelievable!

Today the wind is not quite as bad, and it's been snowing on and off.

Sometimes it was snowing and sunny at the same time! The following pictures were taken within a few minutes of each other as a snow squall moved through, blasted snow on us, and then cleared up, only to be followed closely by another one. 

This has been going on all day. Wow! 

Here comes another one!

I can't wait to see what tomorrow is like!

toppled-trucks-downed-trees-and-thousands-without-power

Good night!


Oh, and a quick note to our Blogville friends: ghostwriter has been working a lot lately. On top of her regular hours, she's been going in for training on the new computer system the nursing home is getting soon. The schedule isn't going to let up for the next couple weeks. We're trying to keep up with your wonderful posts—we don't want to miss even one!—but we might not always comment. 

Just a Quick Hello

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

There's been nothing much going on around here lately. We still don't have any flowers, except for little Miss Lily who came to visit today.

 There were a couple hours of sunshine this afternoon. But that was soon replaced by the usual WNY March cloud cover. Then around 6pm a big wind hit—BLAM!—that sounded like thunder! Leaves and sticks were flying everywhere! Later, when I went out, I was amazed to hear a few spring peepers. All ghostwriter could think about was, oh those poor little naked froggies in the nasty cold wind. They must be freezing!

In other news, I got some recent pictures of my kitty cat cousins and our TDB Florida associate.

Hannibal and Tiberius

 Maddie (aka Medusa aka The Kitten Overlord) 

Miss Charlee in Florida

For the entertainment section today, check out this movie trailer! 

Any movie that features doggies has got to be good!

And that's all for today! 

NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH

It's getting late now. I was able to get a quick glimpse of the Blue Moon when it appeared through the fleeting clouds. What exactly is a Blue Moon? Check out the link below for a full explanation.

Good night!

earthsky

To my dearest Princess Leah, I'm going to try to give you a call on the moon phone. But the reception might be a little sketchy due to the clouds and wind. Hopefully you have a clear view of the Blue Moon where you are across the Pond. 

And to everyone, please have a Happy Easter!

Icicles and Sournotes

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

Chester L. W. Spaniel standing in the last snowy area in my yard.

It's on the north corner of the yard next to the house and the shed where the sunshine can't reach it long enough to melt it like in the rest of the yard.

Another Friday has arrived and we still have no flowers! But we do have one thing to show you that might be just as nice. 

The snow drift on the roof has been melting. The dripping water made icicles on the yew bushes! 

Amazing!

In the evening we were serenaded by a gaggle of grackles. Oh joy! After announcing their initial arrival way too soon on February 27th, a big snow storm rolled in, crashed their party, and cancelled their grandiose performance. So this is their second debut. You wouldn't believe the racket they made: an inharmonious cacophony of screeching and squawking and bragging!

If that wasn't bad enough, they proceeded to raid the birdie feeder and chased all the little birdies away.  There's a link at the end of this post if you care to read more about these pesky birdies.

Can you see Mr. Seedcruncher CEO of Sparrows Incorporated trying to get a perch on the feeder? I'm sure he's not very happy about this situation either. I agree with him that there's not much worse than a mob of pompous, magniloquent grackles! Of course I went out to chase them away.

At least we got a nice sunset after that clangorous crowd left for the night! 

Just before the sun went down, we heard the Stodgy Robin Society tuning up for their Spring performances. Hopefully they'll sound better than those horrid grackles!

Common_Grackle

I Guess It's Spring Now

Hello loyal readers. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your windblown doggie reporter 

Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

Supposedly yesterday was the first day of Spring. If you take a look around my yard, there is absolutely no sign of it. The ground is frozen solid and covered with snow in parts. This snow has been melted, frozen, melted, and refrozen a number of times. It's hard and crusty, and not nice to walk on. The sky has a thin cover of clouds that make a halo around the sun. Usually when that happens, it means there's a storm coming our way.

And it's very, very windy. Do you see my ears flapping?

We found some little piles of feathers on the ground this morning. Ghostwriter says they're from a mourning dove that was probably caught by a hawk.

Tail feathers.

Wing feathers.

I did some more snooping around and I found a whole pile of birdie feathers right next to the fence!
Wow! There must be enough to cover an entire mourning dove! I bet the hawk sat right here on the fence and ate that birdie for breakfast. Ghostwriter says she's seen a lot of hawks in her travels lately. It's migration time for them. She's spotted lots of vultures too, and thought she heard an owl hooting in the middle of the night after she came home from work late the other day.

Also this morning, there were two ditzy squirrels under the birdie feeder. They ran away before ghostwriter could take a picture. But then they played a silly, inane game that involved chasing each other round and round the trunk of the silver maple tree. Perhaps it's squirrel (gag) mating season.

Ew!

You squirrels keep out of my yard!

Gee, I wish those hawks would catch some of those screwy squirrels for a change instead of our nice mourning doves! 

Ahem, where was I?

Oh, here's the science geek part of my report today. Vernal equinox means that the Earth is at a certain spot in it's orbit around the sun, so that the days and nights are of equal length. There's a link at the end of this report where you can get a more detailed explanation.

Spring is usually thought of as the time when flowers bloom and the summer birds arrive from their winter vacations and start singing in the budding trees and bunnies hop around happily and everyone is singing with joy.



In Western NY Spring usually means "Still Winter." (Ghostwriter always laughs at the store ads that show skimpy Easter dresses for sale. Hahaha! You'd have to wear a winter parka over one of those!)

Actually, here is a pretty accurate depiction of the so-called Spring time around here:



Yup! I think I'll keep my nice, warm, furry coat on for at least another six weeks. Please inform my groomer, Miss Jacquie to schedule my Spring buzz cut sometime in May.

everything-you-need-to-know-vernal-or-spring-equinox