Delilah's Birthday

Today is Delilah's birthday. She is 1 year old today. She was born on November 20, 2018. I keep telling her she's not going to be a puppy anymore, but I think she'll be a puppy forever. She still acts like a puppy.

Here she is a few weeks after I got her. Her ears were beginning to pop up. She only had one ear up for a few more weeks.

This last one is the first known picture of Delilah. I didn't take this one. This was the picture that made me go and get her. I had a choice between her and one of her sisters. I chose her all the way. She was the little lunatic that didn't conform to the standards of the rest of the dogs at the shelter. The other dogs constantly scolded her for her unruly behavior. She's still the same.

Delilah's life started out very difficult. She almost froze to death when she was only days old. Some in her litter didn't make it. I know of only her and two sisters that were lucky.

The rest of Delilah's life has been the easiest most pleasant life a dog could ever have. The only thing that needs to change is that I need to teach her that she doesn't run the house, I do.

So that summarizes Delilah. For her birthday, I bought her a huge box of dog biscuits, several rope toys, and a new kennel for riding in the truck. She loves them all already.

And with that, I'll talk to you later.

Here We Go! We're Off!

Okay, this is going to be my first try at posting a record of my travels. I almost forgot to do it this time. I put the camera on the dashboard and took pictures of scenes I thought looked good or were interesting in some way. I moved the camera sometimes to get some pictures from the side. They weren't usually very good.

I have way too many pictures this first time, so I'll try to keep my comments shorter than usual. Sometimes, as usual, my comments will be unrelated to the pictures. Let's go.

I had just finished up at the doctor so that was still on my mind. These first two pictures were where I remembered to turn on the camera. These are just outside the city.

This picture above is a terrible shot of my old family farm. My family doesn't live here anymore, but the surrounding countryside is officially named after us because we were here for so long. There are stories written about us in the local history books.

I tried to get a picture of the hills here in this one. I'll try to give a better look in future pictures. This road travels through the heart of the Loess Hills.

This one shows how driving along here is up and down the hills. These hills are as big as mountains but they are classified as hills because they are made of dirt and not rock.

To the left in the picture above is a snow-covered field. I don't know how it looks in the pictures, but the snow made it look like the surface of the water. This was actually our first snow of the year.

On the left of this road is all flat land up to the river. On the right are the steep hills. Outside of the Loess Hills, the land is mostly flat. This area floods very easily when they let too much water out of the dam north of us. This road is routinely underwater.

And now for the last one. This area of the road goes right up against the hills. The river is just to the left. It's kind of a tight squeeze, but this area doesn't flood as much. I left the truck in the picture because that's what I mostly see along this road.

You'll see some strange anomalies in these pictures. They are just reflections on the windshield.

I hope this first post was at least a little bit interesting. I'll try to show some animals and other more specific things in future posts. I'll fine-tune things as I go along. I'll have lots of posts of this nature. I'll mix them with some hiking posts when I get the time, and Delilah will be back too. I hope you liked this one. I'll talk to you later.

Delilah The Thief

Delilah has turned to thievery to satisfy her need for new toys. I always suspected she was an evil twin or something like that. I would have been sure of that theory if any of the rest of her sisters looked like her. The rest were black. So, she's the evil oddball of the bunch.

Let me tell you of her thievery as one example of her evil ways. I'll start from the beginning, naturally.

I've been letting Delilah go outside with me without her leash or without her being on a chain. I do this because she obsessively follows me wherever I go. She almost never leaves my side so I felt as if I could trust her outside. I'm mostly correct.

Whenever I need to go out to my garage I've been taking her out there with me. It's a fun little adventure for her. The last few times while I was distracted she decided to explore the garage just a bit. I didn't pay much attention.

By the time I got out the door with Delilah hot on my heels, I noticed she had something in her mouth. It was one of Isabella's old toys. The little thief found out where I was keeping them, and she snatched one for herself. Honestly, they kind of belong to Delilah now, but she knew they weren't exactly hers quite yet.

When I got to the front door of the house Delilah held back. I motioned for her to come with me but she backed away. I then stepped toward her to let her know she had to come, but she dodged me again. It was then that I realized she was protecting that toy from me. She knew she technically stole it and she thought I would take it from her.

After a few seconds, I decided to just go into the house hoping she would follow. She did follow me, but she left the toy outside. She did not want me to take it away. So then I went back outside and retrieved the toy and gave it to her inside. She was then happy and it was all over.

Delilah now sneaks a toy whenever I go out there. I really don't mind, but I don't want her to think she can disobey me. Still, I let her get away with this one. An evil twin has to get away with being at least a little evil sometimes.

Let's change the subject while I wrap this up. I think I may have come up with a good idea so I can post a little more often now. We'll see. I haven't had much time to try hiking again yet, but I drive around the countryside quite a bit. I see lots of cool naturey stuff but I can't get pictures while I'm in the truck. Until now.

I'm going to rig my camera up to my dashboard and get a remote shutter button to take the pictures. I can just press the button whenever I see something interesting. Hopefully, this works out very well. We'll see how it works. I'm hoping it can help me post much more often. My next post should be of this type. Until then, I'll talk to you later.