First sandy nose ever!

Running errands this afternoon, we stopped by Grandma's place, and since she wasn't home yet, we took a little walk by the beach.  Yes, no dogs on the beach in summer, but that's ok, it's too hot today anyhow, but we took a look, and on the way back, stopped to rest under the bridge, because shade.  He discovered sand.  And how lovely it is to dig holes in sand, and to stick your snout in it.  Now we can't wait for cooler weather!  Next time we might even get near the water, and maybe try that if we're feeling bold.

Keep in mind that Bandit is a dog who thinks his backyard doggie pool is a very large water bowl. 

Learning new things is fun!

Red lilies have opened!

These are the ones that never got a chance to bloom, when they were in the front yard.  Moved them to the back yard when the roses went in, and voila!

And as a bonus, the daylilies are starting to open.  We're just full of lilies this week. 

To balance, something came along last night and ate the flowers off the orange ones in front.  Hope they enjoyed the snack!

I guess the saying is right - if something isn't eating your landscape, it's not part of the ecosystem.

That flowery time of year

Must be all the rain, I have flowers all over the place.  Everything is blooming, even the stuff that the deer usually eat before the flowers get a chance. 

Yeah, I like dandelions, too.  And my yard full of clover, which has a lovely scent to it.  And I just laugh at the landscaper types who want to remove the moss from between my patio stones.  Leave my moss alone!

Flower power!

Bandit missed this one!

Bandit is a hunter, or so he thinks.  He always scopes out the yard before he goes down the stairs, to see what's out there that he can chase.  I'm glad that so far, he hasn't actually caught anything.

But he follows his nose everywhere, searching for scents to things he thinks he'd like to chase, and maybe even catch.

We went to the nature trail at our local park, the park where Pablo loved to go, because of the smells.  And the wildlife.  It was Pablo's favorite park, so we'll call it Pablo's Park, or PP.  Apt description, I'm sure a lot of the smells are from pee, of various critters.

A lot of the squeamish people I know would never set foot outdoors if they ever thought about who and what pees and poops on the outdoors.  A lot of them live near me.

Anyhow, the one that bandit missed.  We had just squished through a very muddy section of the trail, and I was making noise at the dog because he barely missed landing me head first in the deepest part of the mud, when we came around a corner and guess who's looking at us?

 
She, I think it's a she, was just standing there, giving us the eye.  Very still.  Very quiet.  She never moved, just stood there.  I got a couple of pics, not very good ones, because I'm still not in sufficient control of the dog to use a real camera when I'm walking him, so I took them with the phone, which, truth be told, takes lousy pictures.  Good enuf for small applications, but they really suck if you look at them full screen, and don't even waste ink trying to print them.  Samsung S9, I highly dis-recommend it if you like to use your phone for pictures.

I know she was real, she did turn her head at one point.  And I spoke to her, very softly, so she wouldn't run away (which likely would have resulted in Bandit making chase, and dragging me thru all sorts of muddy stuff). 

All this, and doggo, the great hunter, didn't see or smell the deer.  Amazing.  So I now know that not only is there no retriever of any sort in him, he's also faking the great hunter thing.  Cheaper than a DNA test.

She's probably out in the park, still laughing about it. 

What kind of bird am I?

I'm puzzled.  This bird looks like some kind of finch, except...it's as big as one of those smaller type crows you see around, or the huge blue jay who hangs around here.  Seriously oversized.  I ran him thru Merlin (Cornell Ornithology app that ids birds), and they suggested three options, none of which even came close.  So if there's actually anyone out there reading this, and if you know what kind of bird this might be, could you please tell me?

That's a standard sized suet cage he or she is standing on.  He's been hanging around my yard for a few days now, just the one bird, no friends of a feather in his own size category.  Pretty pattern on the feathers, and a very stubby tail, compared to the size of the body.  So about the size of the blue jay, but with a much shorter tail.

Any ideas are most welcome. 

Tennis, anyone?

Back in the day, Cid was on a walk along the splash pad, in Sea Bright, and found a bush along the side of the walkway that had french fries spilled under it.  Of course, Cid being a dog, he gobbled up the fallen fries before you could shake your tail.  On every succeeding walk in that direction, he had to be sure to check under that particular bush, which we called the french fry bush, to see if there were any more fries ripe for the gobbling.  I don't think we ever found another batch, but not because we weren't looking.

A couple of days ago, Bandit discovered the much fabled tennis ball ivy.  A couple of the yards up the block, that are very steep in front, have ivy where ordinarily you might expect grass, because of the steep slope, and the impossibility of finding anyone crazy enough to mow a 45 degree hill every week.  Normally, we've been walking past these yards without taking much notice.  Sunday morning, tho, all of a sudden Bandit stuck his nose right into the ivy, to the point where his whole head was covered by it.  It's English ivy, not the poison type.  A couple of minutes of rustling around, and out he popped, with a fresh from the can tennis ball in his mouth.  First time he's ever tried to carry a tennis ball with us on a walk, so when he finally dropped it, a few houses up, I picked it up and carried it home for him.

We pass tennis balls on our walks pretty regularly, generally slightly used ones, left by dogs or kids or whoever drops that sort of thing.  We've never carried one home before.

So the new tennis ball joined our collection of tennis balls of all vintages, because it's a dog thing.

Next day, same walk in the morning, and there he goes, diving into the ivy again, in almost the same spot.  And guess what?  He came up with another fresh from the can tennis ball.  Which he carried away with him, so when he finally put it down, I picked it up and brought it home, too.

I expect we'll find the third tennis ball on a future walk, because they still come in cans of three, don't they?

Hiding here because FB makes me sick

And one person said she gives a damn whether I'm here or not.  Thanks, you know who you are.

Lots of things have happened since I last posted.  One, I left my job in the city.  My choice.  I chose to not be bullied and threatened by the niece of the owner of the company.  Who is about 400 pounds and thinks she's an actress, but the only way she knows to act is like a bully, and threatening.  (Not meaning to be fat-shaming here, just know that I am rather short and about 1/3 of her body mass, so yes, I felt physically threatened.)  After she had intentionally sprayed me with Lysol, back in January, making me deathly ill (I am allergic to something in that poison, and hey, folks, it's not intended to be sprayed in the air, read the label, duh), she came back with a new plot in July, to get me to quit.  She messed with something I was working on, without leaving any notes about what or why she had done what she did.  When I questioned where the info came from, she raced into my office, fists flying, screaming.  That was the last straw.  I don't care about the money so much, I care about my health, and my life. 

Yeah, and both times, her uncle was the only witness, so nothing I could do.  Never work for a family owned business, or a very small company.  It's not safe.

On the up side, leaving the job meant I was able to spend the last few months of his life with my Pablo.  He left me on October 30.  Thinking about it still makes me cry.  And when I cry, my new best friend comes to lick me until I can't stop laughing.  I worry, tho, when he gets under the wheels of my chair.  I'm afraid to hurt him.

Before I introduce my new best friend, let me fill in the other positive effects of leaving that job.  I've lost 12 pounds.  My stress induced skin issues have mostly cleared up.  My blood pressure is normal or below normal for the first time in living memory.  I haven't missed a meal yet, tho on occasion I get so busy doing something that I forget to eat.  I walked away with some of his clients, but only good ones, not the kind you take because "the money."  Which is about the only reason he ever took a new client.  I will not sell out my principles for "the money."

There's an ethics thing that says you don't take on work you know nothing about, you need to understand the client's business.  Some people don't do their CPE, tho, and never look at the required ethics course, apparently.  (He has one of the grunts in the office do the CPE for him, online self-study, because he can't read.)  But that's a whole other discussion.

I waited till after busy season to get a new pup, tho I was looking the whole time.  And on April 20, Bandit came to live with me.  He's almost 9 months old now, and came from a shelter in North Carolina, was brought up here and put in a foster home by a local rescue.  25 pounds of mush, with a silky coat and stand up ears.  No clue what kind of dog he is, but everybody has ideas about that.  Some of them are kind of funny.  I can tell he probably has no retriever at all in him, I had to teach him what to do about a tennis ball.  He plays hard, and likes to lick and nip (we're working on the nip part), and he's learning to walk nicely on leash.  He gets excited, tho, about stuff like birds and bunnies and people.  He is a little bit afraid of kids with wheels (bikes, scooters, skate boards, etc).  And he loves other dogs. 

He came with the name, and since he occasionally answers to it, I guess it can stay.  I call him all kinds of things, but never late to dinner.  And he'll eat anything that isn't tied down, especially if I'm not watching.

So here he is....Bandit!

 

And no, he's not really black.  He's dark brown, like extra dark chocolate, and has black edges, and a black stripe down his back.  He's also got a little white figure on his chest, which you can't see in this pic.   Long tail, thicker than a whip, not as thick as a brush.  One of my neighbors said he has a terrier snout.  He's got a very nose-oriented way of exploring the world, so that's probably the terrier part.

I guess he's a mix of whatever was in the neighborhood that particular week, and got lucky.  They found the puppies (he and his brother, at least) on a road, and brought them into the shelter.  So nobody even knows what his mom looks like.

Very happy pup.  He's starting to calm down and get used to how things go around here.  We're working on the behaviour things (but he was already house trained at the foster!), and we found a nice, safe place for him to be when I have to go into the city for various events.  He's too big and strong and not trained enough for my Mom to sit him.  Maybe when he calms down some.  We'll see.

The tradeoff of not being able to go to a couple of out of state things I had thought to attend, as opposed to not being so horribly lonely all the time....

So yeah, we're good here.  Hope you all are, too.

Thinking of discontinuing this blog

I rarely get here anymore.  And I'm trying to reduce my online footprint in general.

Yet this does give me a place to put my birds.  Not that anyone actually looks at it.  Amazingly few views in all the time it's been in existence.

So.  I don't know.  I'm thinking about it.

Is there anyone out there?  Does anyone give a damn?

Spring has sprung - at least for the moment

This little guy was sitting on my front porch this morning.  He's a House Sparrow.  I also think he's a sign that spring is either here or not too far off.

The temperature this afternoon is in the 70s.  It's still February.

We went to the DP this afternoon, because Pablo is bored with the Same Old Walkies.  I was happy to see that it was not muddy, and jam packed with dogs.  He chose his love of the day, and had fun chasing him around, as well as chasing other dogs away so he could enjoy his exclusive claim on the Mini-Pin, who is just a bit bigger than Pablo.  This is his thing, he latches onto one dog and bugs him (always a him) until he's too tired, at which point we get back in the car and head for home.

For the readers who have been wondering where I've been, I'm here.  No promises how often.  It's been difficult, with Pablo's heart condition, to get him thru the extremely cold weather, of which we've had a lot; and get him thru the snow, which has been not plentiful but a pain when it did come; and keep him taking his meds even when he doesn't want to.  We won't discuss the fights with the vet and the pharmacy about filling his prescriptions correctly and on time.

The times that make me nuts are days like today, when just last night Pablo got up to go outside to pee, but wasn't able to walk straight, and his head was bent around to the right and he couldn't look forward, so he was limping around making right turns.  I thought he had had a stroke.  And here he was this afternoon, charging around the dog park like a much younger dog.  I think the thing last nite was from having slept on his right front paw funny, and maybe it went to sleep on him or something.  His circulation isn't the best these days.  The ups and downs are maddening.  I spend so much time getting ready to put him down, then give him another chance because it's the middle of the night, or a weekend, and I'm not taking him to RBVH because they'll rip me off for exorbitant fees, why can't we do this when our regular vet is open....and then he's fine, or as close to fine as he gets these days, and I'm trying to get over the whole thing again.

Because it's not just about me.  It's also about my Mom, and it's about her neighbors, who Pablo loves like family and has to drop in on every day he can, and check to make sure they're ok and feeling good.  He has other people he looks after, too.  So there's a whole mob of people who love him, and it's not just my convenience that keeps him here, he has work to do.  And I can't stop that just because he's being a pain in the tuchas for me.  I'm his Mom, where else would he let it all hang out but at home?

So here's a pic of him a couple of weeks ago, before our woodsy park melted and turned into a mud hole.  It was still chilly out, and this was the first time in a while he had been out and walking with his tail up, like his old self. 

Rather here than there

I was thinking of posting this on Facebook, but then ran into some issues with loading multiple pictures, inserting descriptions, etc, etc, so I said to myself, "Self, why don't you go post this stuff on your blog, it's been too long since you posted there, and it's easier to do the pictures bit on the blog than on that wretched mess they call Facebook."  So here we go.

These are some wildlife pictures I have been lucky enough to capture in the last couple of days/weeks/whenever.  Thought someone might enjoy them, so.  Descriptive info appears below each picture.

 

Cultured pigeons, Lincoln Center, NYC

 "You lookin' at ME????"  Pablo in the back yard, acting like a wild dog or something.

Bambi in the park.  She heard us, stopped, and posed.

This one's a little fuzzy, because it was almost dark out.   Cat bird sitting in the bush outside my bedroom window, munching berries off the bush, meowing his or her head off.  The bird is attitudinal.

Sunday afternoon, we heard a very loud, weird honking kind of noise.  Took the camera out to the back yard, and this is what I saw....the biggest freaking swan on the planet!  I didn't want to get too close, I might spook it, and then if it pooped when it was taking off (from fear, you know), I bet it could wipe out my whole house, or a good part of the neighborhood.

And so go my adventures with wildlife.  Pretty awesome, right?  Now I understand why so many people are so into wildlife photography.