Frivolous Friday

Glamour shot

What's that stuff?

On Sunday, just a couple of minutes after I was looking at this

and this (actually I was cleaning gutters)

this happened.

This is the biggest, fastest hail we get around here. The ground was white within five minutes. The sound of it hitting the roof was almost as loud as the thunder that followed a few minutes later.

It melted nearly as quickly as it came and we were left with more of these

again.

"Well, don't look at me; it's not my fault if I am naturally attractive

to mud."



Awards!

Ruby Airedale gave us a sweet blog award and asked us to pass it along to five other blogs. If those are real cupcakes in the photo, someone is an incredible cake-decorator. Now to tear myself away from thoughts of cupcakes and on to the award.

We want to share with The Teacher's Pets 'cause the Silly Saturday photo caption contest is so much fun. (Not to mention that I, without the help of Alanis and Miro, won yesterday.)

Next comes Animal Shelter Volunteer Life because they do important work and you can enjoy cats on their blog.

At this blog Little House in Paradise you will sometimes find real sweets and links to crazy-good deals on magazines.

If you visit Violet at East Plus 4 and More, you'll find a really sweet Airedale.

Check out the venerable Bentley at Everything nothing and dogs too.

Thanks, Ruby!

Waking to rain

Last week, some people said they were tired of our months of unusually dry, sunny weather. They were eager for fall. I wanted to hit them. Both yesterday and today, I woke to rain. The word dreary--for the next five months--comes to mind and nobody does dreary like Poe.

Once upon a morning dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
Over many a quaint and curious dog toy of forgotten form
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some Airedale," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door:
Wanting breakfast, nothing more."

Verbless Vednesday

Kitchen nightmares  dreams

Mastication

I gave each dog a carrot chunk measuring about an inch around and half an inch thick. Miró crunched his; Alanis swallowed hers whole. Carrots go out of dogs in the same shape they went in. You have to wonder—or I have to—how Alanis will feel when that chunk of carrot works its way through.  She swallows whole just about any food that will fit down her throat.  Chew treats designed to clean teeth are wasted on her, as are breath tablets designed for dogs.  In nearly twelve years, she hasn’t figured out that what goes around, comes around, or out.

Dogs must trust us to feed them the right stuff because, it seems to me, a dog will eat just about anything. Who hasn’t lost a pair of bunny slippers*, a plant, a sock or a rock to the family dog? If the bunny slippers feel disagreeable later (they did not), the dog cheerfully barfs them up, preferably on the living room carpet. If the dog can’t barf up the offending food or non-food item, we hurry the dog to the vet for some expensive X-rays, sometimes followed by surgery, usually on the weekend. We are happy and grateful when all goes well, even if we have thoughts of murdering the dog on whom we’ve expended so much emotional and financial coin to save. But who’s counting? Certainly not the dog.

*My second-favorite childhood dog, Silver the Poodle, ate the fuzzy bunnies off my prized slippers. I felt betrayed.

Terse Tursday

Seen this before? Project Noah.

I finally figured out how to set the comments so that I can reply. We is slow but we gets there.

39 horses taken from hoarder

You've heard of puppy mills. You've heard about cases of a few starving, neglected horses found in a field. How about 39 horses--thin, living in filth, with untreated wounds, skittish and unused to handling? Stallions and mares, many of them Arabians. Thirty-nine. Pierce County Animal Control took the horses from a property in Graham, Washington this week. According to the Tacoma News-Tribune "some stalls contained compacted manure and urine a foot thick."

Pierce County Animal Control Officer Brian Boman leads a horse from a transport trailer to a stall at Frontier Park in Graham, September 26, 2012. It is one of thirty neglected horses were seized from a Graham-area home. (PETER HALEY/THE NEWS TRIBUNE)

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/09/28/2313562/graham-area-man-to-fight-for-return.html#storylink=mostpopular#storylink=cpy

The owner cooperated with authorities when the horses were being taken. That seems to be "official talk" that means he didn't cause obstructions or get in the way. Now he has lawyered up and intends to fight to get the horses back. Isn't that a typical hoarder attitude? "I'm taking care of those animals; the abuse has been exaggerated; my animals are well fed; I spend every cent I've got taking care of them." Tell me the horse in that photo is healthy and fit.

This was the largest horse rescue Pierce County has ever undertaken and funds are needed for the $40,000 cost of rehabilitating the horses. If lots of people (yes, me too) each send a little, they'll raise the money in no time. The address for donations is Pierce County Auditor's Office, 2401 South 35th St., Room 200, Tacoma, WA 98409. They'll probably have to spend all their budget-allotted money on the legal case.

The world is full of pseudo-intellectuals

Airedales don't observe Yom Kippur because they never atone for anything.



Alanis plays hide and seek

In camo

No one can see me.