an excellent day

I like today. So far anyway. Mom put lots of broccoli in my food, and I really chowed down. She was slow to get me out for our walk, but we got there. And instead of going around the block for my morning paper route (we take newspapers off wet grass and put them on dry porches ~ well, Mom does, while I give her a dirty look because I'd rather be walking), today we walked all the way up to the farm. No sidewalks, no papers, no porches ~ yay! I stood and looked around at all the brown, floppy plants while Mom picked broccoli. We had a close call. As I was sitting down in the garden, she noticed I was just about to plant my tooshie on a mooshie punkin, so she swooped me up in her arms real fast. Whew, I thought, I won't have to get a bath. But when we got home, I did have to have my paws washed. At least it wasn't a bath. On my walk I got to sniff two doggies, Sam and Spike. Sam was huge and black; Spike teensy and black. Now I'm snoozing on my chair in the kitchen. Mom put a birdie and lots of veggies into a big pot and I just hope the birdie wasn't one of the big white birdies I saw at the farm a few weeks ago. They walked jerky-like and had wavy red hats on their little white heads. They squawked with their beaks. Anyway, the pot smells real good so I think I'll stay right here.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Dirt smells real different than snow. Warm dirt smells different than cold dirt. Wet dirt smells different than dry dirt. Worms smell ... well, let's just say I'm not tempted to stick my nose right down on one. The air is warm out now, so I should get to spend more time outside, but Mom has to walk me between raindrops and lately there hasn't been much space between raindrops. After two weeks of raindumps and red wiggly worms and spongy grass, what can I say? Green grass smells different than brown grass ...

Snow Dog's Last Hurrah

What a surprise I had the other day. More snow! Lots of snow! Mom and I explored the prairie trails. I pranced on top of the tall snow, but Mom's feet went punch, punch into the snow.

I had so much fun sniffing and running. Mom tried to take my picture in what she called the last snow of the year, but I could not spare the time to pose and smile and all that silly stuff. There were squirrels to be barked at and birdies with big fat red tummies to be chased. We dogs have our priorities.

Snow Dog

Every week now, Daddy looks at a paper and uses his hopeful voice to say a bunch of numbers. "Wind chill today is 11, but temps'll be 52 by Wednesday, maybe 60 by Friday." And he wears his very frowny face when he sees snow out the window.

Me, I like snow. I am Snow Dog. The deeper the snow, the better to burrow my face in, although I can nose around pretty good in even a dusting. And Daddy's numbers don't mean much to me. My ears tell me how cold it is when I am out walking. In a recent snow-packed week, one day was a squeak-squeak day, another day was a squeak-crunch day, and another day my paws only made crunch-crunch sounds.

Today Mom and I heard a different sound. It was not from the snow under our feet. It was from someplace high up. Thump, crackle, thud. We both stopped and turned our faces up toward the sounds. Nothing moved. We couldn't see anything making the noises. But Mommy figured it out. "Icicles," she said. They were falling from the roof. I don't know if that means it's warmer or colder.

Barking at Bunnies

Bow-Wow, and Wow-Bow—Last week was worthy of that verbal back-flip …

First, I took at least two long walks in the snow every day. One day when I went exploring the prairie, I met a littler dog named Brady who smiled at me with only his bottom teeth, which didn’t look too friendly, so I trotted on. One day, two connected round brown balls with a long tail and teeny feet scuttled across the sidewalk right in front of me. Mommy seemed as surprised as I was to watch a mouse run into a hole in the snow. I had never sniffed a mouse before, so I pulled and pulled toward that hole until I was so slanted, my side was almost on the sidewalk But Mom picked me up and put me down later. Said she didn’t want me to choke myself. One day, Dad took me out after supper. I had to get all duded out in my neon yellow boots and amazing Technicolor dreamcoat, as Mom calls it. Puhleeze, couldn’t I just bound out the door like a normal dog? Dad and I went around two blocks—and then around again. By the end of the week, the snow was as tall as my shoulders, so I had to be a regular Lewis and Clark (or the doggie-hero-explorers Chew This and Bark) to tunnel my way through tall snowy mountain passes and forge paths through big, open, white, fluffy fields.

Last week had some indoor excitement too. One day the mailman stepped inside the front door and knelt down so I could put my paws up on his shoulders and slosh his entire face while he scratched me in all my favorite scratch-spots. Another day my Auntie Denise came over. The minute she sat down in a chair, I asked “cuddle time please?” by putting my paws up on her lap. She got the hint, lifted me up, and I got to snooze happily with my head on her shoulder.

The best indoor fun happened in the middle of the night on two different nights. I had been up sleeping on the bed for hours when I got thirsty, mewed, got placed on the floor, and padded downstairs to my water bowl. My water bowl is right next to the back door, which has a window low enough for me to see out of. So guess what, as long as I was there, I looked out the window. And guess what again, rabbits were right there. So you guessed it, I barked. And barked. And barked. Those rabbits did not even budge. I barked and barked and barked some more. My barks budged Mom, though, who picked me up, which generally shuts me up. She didn’t take me back up to bed right away. We sat by another window and watched two rabbits nibble branches for a long time. I whimpered a little because I wanted to be outside bounding over hill and dale after those pesky bunnies. But watching was better than nothing. The slate sky with its big white ball, black tree shapes, and bluish snow glow were all still. Other than a few diamond-y dots twinkling in the sky and sparkling on the ground, and the bunnies’ ears and noses, nothing moved. And even those movements were so tiny, I sat up alert as could be on Mom’s lap so as not to miss any important action. An ear flattened here, a nose twitch there, I wanted to see every one before we went back upstairs to bed.

Sure was a bow-wowy-kazowy week.