Always waiting...

Oh, Babe. The poor dog's day is spent waiting for Mom to get home. Staring out the window...waiting.

Bob-catting skills...

So, it's been awhile since I've reported on my dad doing something completely ridiculous. Usually there's an everyday display of his outstanding mental capabilities, but this one, ladies and gents, takes the cake.

He called me out of a deep sleep to come take a picture of something.
"Bring your camera!"
Knowing his track record I asked, "Did you find a snake?"
In a bashful little voice he goes,
"Quit asking questions and get out here!"
As I walked out my eyes were still trying to focus, so I wasn't sure what I was seeing, but when they finally did focus, I found this:

We're building a new shed out back for which we needed to rent a bobcat. Dad figured while the builders weren't using it he might as well get some long awaited work done, aka, pulling fence posts that have been in the ground 30 years. Only, the fence post didn't want to budge for the bobcat, so as he was trying to pull up, the wheels slid back and he came within a few feet of being on his face...Excellent!

Look, even Sophie's like, "Really? Really?"

Excellent bob-catting skills, right? Right?!

Happy April!

Here's a moon rise picture from a couple of nights ago.
And Sophie was behind me coming out of the pond. The water was so still it was like glass, until of course, she disrupted the calm. I like the ripples. ANYway.

I was also able to go down and take pictures of the UT tower being lit with the number one.

Honk if you like Canadian Geese!

A couple hundred Canadian Geese flew over my house today! Three separate flocks over the course of the day. I'm glad they keep the same flight path every year because I love hearing the mix of honking they make. I think it's neat because I'll be outside, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I hear them faintly, then a little more clear, and then it's game on for, "Find the Flock of Geese!". For real. I have to look up into the bright sky, which hurts my eyes, and try and find the little buggers. You'd think they'd be easy to spot, but not so, my friends, not so, because all they look like is tiny black specks. And once you've got a fix on them, should you lose sight, it's hard to find them again. Unless, of course, like today, there's a one-hundred and seventy count flock (yes, I counted them in this picture) flying in a triple V. It's kind of hard to miss a giant flock of birds floating through the sky. Jealous?
To get the entire "v" in the shot I couldn't zoom in that much, but if you look hard enough you can see the triple "v" I'm talkin' 'bout. 170 of them! And the crazy part is they can fly in the thousands. Now THAT would be something awesome to see.

Only 62 in this bunch.

And in between geese sightings the dogs and the Mom and I hung out today.

Sophie's ear taking flight.

Sophie being bored while we were doing yard work.

Babe's ears taking flight during a JD Gator ride. Ahhhhh BAT dog!!!

Babe doing her best Scrat impression. You know, the little critter out of Ice Age? I think she looks like him sometimes. The scar on her face is where a snake bit her a few years ago.

Though it doesn't look like it, we're moving, and Babe is helping mom drive.

Yay for fun on the farm!

Insert captions here...

No, really. If you could insert a caption, what would it say?

She got very angry when I tried to take it away from her. Apparently she had not licked every last drop.

The Turtle and the Hound

Babe and I found a turtle in the yard. He/She didn't want to come out to play.

chasing rats

Babe was chasing rats again. In our dirty storage room. I thought I'd share how this goes down:

Babe enters the store room. Babe catches scent of a rat. Babe pin points rat's location. Babe shrieks (barks) for rat to come out. Woofer and Sophie stare at Babe wondering what's going on. Babe continues her sad excuse for a bark. The rat sits in it's hiding spot refusing to come out. Babe shrieks some more. Babe hyperventilates.

Sometimes the rat wins. Sometimes she does.

Today the rat eluded her, but only because I dragged her away from it so she wouldn't have a doggy heart attack.

Sophie was only hunting a rabbit...

She was sniffing around in the woodpile trying to force out the rabbit that resides there, but she found a poisonous snake instead. Her snout is puffy and there's this drainage stuff collecting around her neck. I took her to the vet, he gave her a shot, she seems to be in good spirits, so I suppose she will be fine. The size of her swelling makes me nervous, though. The picture doesn't do it justice. See the two prick marks to the left of her nose? Snake bite, baby.

poor Babe

My dad has been in the hospital a week now. Babe is going crazy, she misses him so much. Whenever Mom leaves in the morning, Babe wakes me up with a round of despondent howling...that lasts for hours. Why?
(1) She thinks she's all alone.
(2) She misses Mom.
(3) She misses Dad.
(4) She REALLY misses Dad.
She jumps at every noise that could be the door opening, or that could be a car pulling in the garage, any noise that could mean Dad's finally coming back.
My only refuge from the howling is to get up from bed and groggily stumble around the house in the early morning to find her and bring her back to bed with me where she will stay at peace for 30 minutes until she pricks her ears up and listens for any sound that could belong to Dad, thinks she hears something, begs me to let her go, and upon the moment she leaves my room finds he is not there, commences another round of howling.
He should come home this weekend. I pray for her sake that this is true.

Over the rainbow!

It hailed the other day when a storm cell that used to have a tornado in it moved over the area. Here's a video of it! Shoestring is the white cow that didn't know to go to the barn, and Hershey is the black calf following his mom. You can't tell, but when I'm talking about Babe, she's shaking like a leaf she's so scared. Then my dog, Woofer, just hyperventilates whenever it even begins to sprinkle, so he was on the verge of a heart attack. Then after all of that a lovely double rainbow appeared! I didn't have a wide enough lense to get a picture of the whole thing, and even then it was only there for a couple of minutes before it went back to a single...

I like the fog

It makes for awesome pictures! Too bad I didn't have time to go around photographing all day. I just had time to catch a few pictures of the farm in the morning.

It's nerve-racking to drive through though. Yet strangely awesome! It was kind of strange for me today as I was driving because there was no one on the highway, the road was the only thing I could see, and the signs and other objects along the way would emerge from the mist only seconds before I came upon them. It seemed kind of post-apocalyptic or something. I'm glad I'd driven that road a hundred times otherwise I would have had a hard time of knowing where I was. The fog was so thick I couldn't tell what my surroundings were, buildings, signs and the like.

Here's Sophie blending in with the grass among the fog.

Oh my...

This is what happens when you leave an angry dachshund tied up in the garage with a forgotten box of recently purchased milk-bones. I think she did all the work herself and then let other two big dogs treat themselves to a buffet...after she stuffed her gut. Silly dog.