Loss g45: Boston terrier

Showing posts with label Boston terrier. Show all posts

Showing posts with label Boston terrier. Show all posts

In a Vacant House: Wilding with Jen

Ever
see two dogs running loose, getting into trouble? It really takes two.
Tongues lolling, tails high, they go looking for adventure. A dog on its
own just isn't as inquisitive or fearless. When it comes to going
through old houses, I'm definitely a dog. I'm not a fearful person; not
given to the heebie-jeebies. I just want to have someone with me. Maybe
it's to share the fun and

My Funky Valentine

I heard a little voice this morning. It said, "Get out and hike before it rains."

I listened. Good things happen when I listen to the little voice.

Sure enough, when I looked at the radar, there was a sludge of green coming up out of the southwest that was going to make things, already saturated, even wetter. Hurry.

I threw on a raincoat, bitchin' waxed cowboy hat, ear warmers, and I

Liam is 18!

At eight months, he was spherical, and not always as jolly as he appears here; fussy he was much of the time, thanks to his tiny Eustachian tubes. We eventually got those fixed.

Fussiness aside, there was a sweetness about that baby boy that I could not walk by. I just had to kiss him, every time.

All those kisses added up and soaked in, I think, and the older he got, the sweeter

Little Bat, Lost

Friday, September 1, was an awful day. I'd pushed through August 30 and 31 thinking, oh, this isn't so bad, I'm relieved, actually. I've got work to do. I got up that day and gathered up all the trappings of a dog's life: the two nice clean beds, the funky bed, the food, the treats...couldn't touch the collars and leashes yet, so I left them in the drawers. I wanted to get all the obvious stuff

The Enchanted Garden

This is a post I wrote in August, before a lot of other stuff happened. I stuffed it away and saved it for a time when I wouldn't feel like writing. Which turns out to be now. I keep checking: still got nothing.

I took the enchanted basil forest down in early August.

Best basil I've ever grown. I had little to do with it. It was the rain that made the leaves big and tender. Wow, what

Chet Baker's Last Run

For the past week, I've had a song running through my head, Carol Burnett's farewell.

I'm so glad we've had this time together

Just to have a laugh or sing a song

Seems we just get started and before you know it

Comes the time we have to say "So long."

Over and over. I hear her voice and see her tugging her earlobe. I wondered why. Now I know. I honestly think it was Ida, a great Carol

The Best Day Ever

Eclipse morning, August 21, started off partly cloudy and warm and beautiful. I went out to document the "Flying Saucer" morning glories that are giving me such a charge as more and more open.

Pearly soft against the pearly soft sky.

The amount of blue on them seems to vary by plant. Two of the plants have flowers with more blue. This is an hypothesis I need to test. I had thought that

August Rocks: Garden Tour 1

The August cooldown is here. A Canadian air mass is holding sway and the air smells of hay and sweet wine.

I took a garden tour last night after spending much of the day mowing, raking, weeding, and preening my flower beds. I don't do a lot of preening. There's too much of the other stuff to be done.

I'm celebrating right now because I am no longer in pain. I returned home from New

Jemima Jay Comes Home

There are some stories that are too big, too sweet, too wonderful to tell. I've been so busy living these blue jay days, these rare and unrepeatable Jemima days, that I haven't had time to write about her or share it all. I've given myself and my time over to nurturing her and recording her every new behavior with video and photos. She's too big, her story too good, to be passed over, and it's

When May Comes...

I awoke on a May morning to birdsong, as I always do this time of year. April is tough. My brain has to transition from no song to a sudden chorus coming in the window. And early May is worse, but better too; worse in the sense that my brain starts processing and sifting all those songs and winds up yammering to me so that I wake up thinking about what I'm hearing in my "sleep." Better in that

The Way It Is

You getting up? Because I'm getting up. Yup. We're up.

Chet Baker, on second wakeup at 7 AM. He gets up at about 5:40 AM to pee, then we come back and he goes back to sleep for an hour, and I don't. Pills (=treats) at 7. No ifs, ands or buts. Good thing he's so cute. I did not know when I started him on his first thing in the morning pill routine about 15 months ago that I was in fact

Hidden Miracles on Dean's Fork: Spring 2016

I never tire of shooting this girl and this place.

All through the winter of 2015-2016, the pond held in there, tiny but present. Spring 2016 came. Chet and I took a long Dean's walk with Phoebe on a freakishly warm March day during her spring break from Bowdoin. We were practically bare, and reveling in early spring beauties, already abloom.

Abundant, lush summer 2016 came on, and

Reflections on a Beaver Pond

I've loved this beaver pond and the beavers who made it for a long, long time.

I've loved it since the dog was young, shiny, musclebound and springy, and given to standing up on any tree with a squirrel in it

and leaping up to trot smartly down the trunk of every fallen tree just to flaunt his good balance

like the Little Cat-Dog he is.

I've loved that pond since Phoebe was an

Foggy Day, Fiddle Tune

Every once in a great while we go down to the river just to look for birds. We used to do that a lot. Now we seem to need an excuse, like having Corey here for a New Year's visit. But when we do, we find the birds were out there waiting for us, anyway.

Whipple Flats produced a young red-shouldered hawk. I know, it doesn't look identifiable, but there are obvious clues that might not

What Gets Me Through

Over the years, I've come to realize that this blog is not just my journal. It's my family's journal.

I don't write as many posts as I used to, and when I'm otherwise occupied, I may not be able to get three posts out in a week (always the goal). I try to make what I do manage to post worth reading: for me, for my family, and for you. There is a good bit of perfectionism going on, because a

New Year's Walk

No matter what the weather, we go out in nature on New Year's Day. Often we'll go birding. Well, we're always birding.

This year we chose a good hike down Dean's Fork. The added attraction is that we can get there from our front door. I love a hike that starts and ends at the front door. It makes me feel like the richest person in the world, to have a good hike I can take that doesn't require

Chet Baker, Alpha Dog

Homecoming night for Phoebe. Chet Baker's 12th birfday, December 12, 2016. She puts him through his tricks. Or tries to. Prepare to be amazed! For me, the highlight of this video is not Chet's prowess at tricks.

It's the oinking. Turn your volume up. He oinks when he sits up (0:17) and again when he flops down to play dead (0:45).

The dog whisperers among you will note that Chet is not the

Chet Baker is Twelve! His Present is Phoebe.

It's been awhile. There's just something about a ten-day trip, putting 2010 miles on the Subaru, giving three book talks in three states, driving home in one 14-hour go, having one day to unpack, then driving two hours to the airport to pick up Phoebe (YAYYYYYY) after not having seen her for six months, while trying to pick up the house (forget actually cleaning it), getting a handle on