The Catrobat

After downloading a few images from the camera, I came across these, taken by Harold, of our catrobat showing off to an adoring audience:

Sorry, I can't seem to rotate this image

Do I hear applause?

Drink after the performance

Decibel the gardener

Decibel always expresses an interest in everything we do, so it is not surprising that gardening activities are high on her list. She delights in biting a spray from the garden hose, and she tries to understand the sense in our strawberry picking. Her big nose right where the action is, naturally she is a bit in the way. I will let her taste a berry, but she doesn’t like them.
She does like the wild strawberries out in the pasture, since they are much harder to find, and thus delicious. Still, in either case she must check things out.
When I sent her away, since her big paws seem to crush the ripe berries preferentially, she went over to the garden plot and after sniffing with high interest, very precisely dug up the seeds Harold had planted. I don’t know if she actually ate them or just unearthed them (I really don’t care all that much about the squash), but at least it kept her busy.

We had only a few cherries ripen this year a lot of them just dried up, so I was picking them along with the strawberries, since red is red. The sour cherry tree is really more of a bush, and of course Decibel needed to ‘help’. I told her ‘leave it’, since sour cherries are unlikely to be favored by dogs, but naturally that just spurred her on. Sure enough, there she was carefully selecting a red sour cherry on a branch, picking it gently and nibbling on it.
All the while picking the ‘forbidden fruit’ her eyes were on me. Such a tease.
She got the cherry in her mouth, then promptly spit it out, picked it back up, spit it out again, and pawed it.

What a goof.

The mulberry tree in the backyard has black berries on it, so many that the ground below it is covered, but of course those won’t do.
Oh no, Decibel sits pointedly in front of me, with big eyes, waiting for me to insert a ripe berry picked for her. I show her the ripe ones on the branches low enough for her to reach, but no that is not what she wants.

She pretends to be lost.  I want a berry, mom; please!

So I pick them for her. Forget the fact that her rear end is probably stained purple from sitting on the fallen ripe mulberries; Decibel gets what she wants. She is just a little spoiled.

The next gardening endeavor concerns the basil Harold planted in a pot for me. I don’t care much for the plants in the garden, but once in a pot, well, I know where they are, and tend to water them, and actually look forward to harvesting them. The basil is in front of the door by the rosemary, so there is some sort of consistency there, and I can’t forget it.
Only the basil was being grazed on.
A whiff of Decibel’s muzzle confirmed who the culprit was. Both Harold and I haven't actually caught her eating the basil, she is quick about it and does it on the way in or out the door.  We just shrug and think it is funny.

This morning we went through out usual morning routine of smooching with the dogs, and slowly waking up. My conversational range pre-coffee is limited to nonsense (I think it improves after coffee), and I was petting upside-down Decibel. She groans and sticks all her legs up in the air, rolling around on her back like a giant June bug. She wants her belly rubbed, her ears scratched and to lick a human ear, all while getting hugs, and being told how pretty she is. It is our routine.
This morning she had a glint in her eye, that was full of nonsense, and reminded me of her gardening skills.  Maybe I even smelled some basil on her beard.
So I said some nonsense about, “You must think we grow pot, since basil grows in pots…”

After all the dogs were cuddled, I headed for the bathroom, and Decibel came rumbling up the stairs, visiting me, carrying an empty flowerpot.

No kidding.

She had to go out in the backyard to get that one, and bring it upstairs, but after mentioning pot to her, she brought me one. It was a first.

What a clever dog!

Dogs and smiles

When Sassy, a Tibetan Terrier bitch still ruled our house, we learned to beware of smiling dogs.  Tibetan Terriers are shaggy little dogs, friendly and happy, and when you can see their smily teeth, it often actually means they are flashing those pearly whites because they are carrying contraband.  Sassy was a master of this technique.  I don't know how often I said, "Hi Sassy, good girl," only to have the coin drop a few seconds later that she was SMILING, and then rush after her to find out what she was carrying.

Sassy; this was a true smile... no hidden contraband.

Once it turned out to be a  travel alarm from a visiting guest.  Oh, she didn't chew it, and she DID find it on the floor, which makes it almost okay to take, but she snuck into the guest room, grabbed the treasure and was headed out the doggie door.  I got it back only slightly slimy.

Maggie is another dog that has a smile.  Most of the time she really is just smiling...  Except when she is carrying a bone or a turtle, or worse, much worse...

Maggie IS smiling

... sometimes with good reason

And now Decibel has joined the ranks of the smiling dogs.  I was playing with her at the pond, threw her a stick, and with a smile she went in to get it.  Only, she could not pick up the floating piece of wood.  She paddled back to shore, and between her pretty teeth she was carrying an only slightly dented turtle.  One of those painted ones, so I had her give it to me and let it go.  Now I have to watch for smiles with her as well.

And then the heavens opened...

June first it decided to rain.

We got nearly 10 inches in 24 hours.

Not exaggeration, not a typo, it just poured.  After the first 6 or 7 inches of rain Harold took these pictures.  I was too disgusted to go see, besides, I had blistered my hand badly over Memorial day pushing the lawnmower, so I am on the injured reserve list.
At night we got more rain.

This is the driveway to the chicken coop and the horse barn.  On either side the water is pretty deep.

This is usually a dry pipe, now draining what used to be the hay field

Looking north toward the shed

How do the dogs feel about this?

Ralph is surveying the raging stream, where previously we had a trickle in deep banks.  He's happy.

And our sweet Decibel?

Okay, she is clearly part frog.

The whirlpool:

This whirlpool formed over a 4 foot drainpipe that used to easily handle the overflow and run off from the pond.  Not so that day.  The water almost came over the drive, and washed out a big chunk of real estate.  When Barley was alive, we were in a drought.  The first time water flowed through that pipe he must have been five years old.  He barked and barked at this new thing!  

This is water coming around the pond, off the CRP ground.  The pond overflow is coming in from the right.

The swarm

At our house, honey is not a term of endearment.  Usually I curse, because working honey (getting the stuff out of the honey combs) is a back-ache inducing day-long sticky kitchen producing slave labor type job, and all it gains me is endless jars of honey that need to be stored somewhere.  I like honey now and then.  I could live without it.  I am allergic to bee sting.  The type allergic where I go into anaphylactic shock when I get stung, unless I get to my Benadryl in a hurry.  Massive doses of antihistamine will keep me alive, but very tired, very, very grumpy and not happily so, neither the 'alive' nor the 'tired' part.

Harold on the other hand keeps bees, names them (Emily, each one), likes hanging out with them, thinks the beekeeper's garb is dashing, and he makes me paint the darn bee boxes!

When there was a swarm in the orchard, all else was dropped, but the camera, and the bee stuff.  

A SWARM!

Yay!  It must be what he dreams of.

The branch with the swarm gets sacrificed (okay, we do have too many apples, so I won't complain about it), placed in the bee box (painted by yours truly) and the bees are rehoused.

At night the box was closed, and the new hive was moved in the back of the orchard, with the other bees.  If he got the queen, the hive will stay in the box and make brood and - more gosh darn honey.