I was playing fetch with the dogs, when I held the ball over Barclay’s head and he gave me this hilareous look, with his eyes rolled back and his tounge lolling out to one side, and I thought – that would make an awesome picture, I’ll go get my camera!
Just having a little fun on a sunny morning, laying on my tummy in the grass taking pictures of the bees visiting the clover. Of course the dogs kept wandering by and interrupting the bees, or trying to eat them (now that would have been a great picture) or licking me on the head while I was busy looking through the camera, but it wouldn’t be the same without dogs helping, now would it 🙂
I took a LOT of shots, but none were quite what I was looking for. Bees have a tendancy to be facing the wrong way, or fly away just as you hit the shutter!
And with so many clover flowers, it’s hard to get the shot where you can make the bee stand out in the field.
This turned out to bee my favorite of the lot…
I got this shot of a rose, straight out of the camera without any messing with the colors – wow!
And our big locust tree against the cloudy sky.
And these tiny, tiny little flowers, hidden in the grass – these flowers are about a quarter inch across – so tiny!
Barclay, hanging out by the fence. They are so happy to have access to the backyard now that the blackberry vines are gone and I’m not as worried about coyotes hanging out back there, lying in wait.
Navi, digging a hole. She stuffs her face down in the hole and snorts 🙂
She’s happiest when she’s getting dirty!
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So the other day I heard some barking, looked out the office window, and grabbed my camera – because I saw this…
I had left a wheelbarrow full of planting soil on the front deck after I finished repotting my tomato plants, and Navi was in it, and Barclay wanted in on that action, but she was hogging it! I went to the front door to watch.
Yup, nothing unusual here. No sir-ee, just business as usual.
Barclay tried some barking…
A little bitey-face…
Then he tried his passive stare-down technique…
That did the trick, Navi jumped out and the went back to racing around the yard!
Crazy dogs!
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Until he’s had his breakfast! Until then he tries to distract me with tricks in a blatant display of passive resistance. Clever boy!
Sunny days mean going out into the pasture to enjoy the grass and the cool water in the swale, which means…
This morning the dogs were hogging the bed, trying to push us off. I got fed up and said in my most stern voice ‘Enough! Both of you OFF the bed right now!’ and Navi sat up real tall, with her ears back, and gave me the most shocked look! Then she squinted and bent over for a good look at me like ‘Are you ok? You never talk like that!’ then both her and Barclay pounced on me with waggy tails and tried to lick me to death! Then they settled right back where they were in the first place! Intimidation FAIL on my part! I’ve told people that alpha-dog BS doesn’t work on Eskimos 🙂
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The next morning we all had a great breakfast together (I brought fresh eggs from our chickens) and afterwards someone had the brilliant idea to bring out a puzzle – which quickly became a community effort! I wasn’t too keen on puzzles, but I found a piece and then it was addictive, I had to hang around and find a few more.
The dogs spent most of the time with us on leash, but occasionally they had to hang out in the yard while we were at meals.
I distracted them by giving them chewies to work on while we were having meals.
After lunch Dave got into a card game.
Eventually the dogs got so comfortable in their yard they started wrestling and playing – it was nice they had enough room to run around a little bit off leash!
Our van, along with several other large tow vehicles, were recruited as ‘wind breaks’ to help shelter the gathering area from the chill winds that were blowing through pretty much all weekend. That actually worked pretty well, and when someone had to move a truck to drive into town, we really missed it!
This was Navi’s first camping trip, and she did great. We gave her dramamine before leaving, but she still threw up on the trip down. She was a bit nervous about all the attention, even though Barclay was setting a great example of how to schmooze people for treats and lovin’, so she went with a ‘bark first, ask questions later’ policy. She did pretty good though, she just needs to get out more. For the trip home we gave her extra dramamine, and she still threw up. Poor pup! But she was such a good sport about the whole thing.
Soon, another great long weekend in our Airstream was over. Everything in the trailer worked fine. It’s so nice that the trailer has finally gotten most of the bugs worked out. Once we got home it gave us a little trouble emptying the black tank, and the last night there we ran out of battery power, but all in all, it did really good, and like always, it was a comfortable place to call home base.
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Steff Does Stuff! 