A Squirrelly Surprise in the Heart of the Park

Well, folks, let me tell you about an unexpected encounter I had on one of my old morning strolls through my beloved local nature park. The kind of moment that leaves you scratching your head and thinking, "Did I really just see that?" And it involves one of my favorite subjects. Squirrels!

The morning was off to a great start. The air was crisp, the sunlight peeked through the trees in that magical way it does, and the world seemed to be humming along just right. I was lost in thought, admiring the beauty around me, when a sudden rustling caught my attention.

Right there in front of me stood a grand old tree, one that's probably seen more sunrises than any of us. And from this tree, would you believe it, hundreds of squirrels were making a dash for it! They scattered in every direction, their tails a flurry of motion, and the forest floor seemed alive with their energy. I was so taken aback by the sight, I just stood there staring, forgetting completely about my camera. The moment was so surreal, I forgot to even snap a picture.

As a side note, the picture below is the first view of what I look like without my fake rat suit on that I like to claim that I wear while hiking. Oh, that isn't really me, but it's remarkably close. I wore a brown jacket then, and mine had a hood.

This is also one of my old adventures that I've finally been able to bring to life in these new pictures. It really happened, but sadly I don't have the pictures to prove it this time. Even so, I'll remember it to the end of my days. How could I forget something like that?

So, if you're ever wandering through your local park and come across an old tree like that one, keep an eye out. Nature has a way of surprising us when we least expect it. And maybe, just maybe, you'll be luckier than me and capture your wild moment for posterity! 

Thank you to the few of you who remember me. I read all your comments. I'll talk to you later. 

 

The Legend of Ratty and the Raccoons

It was a day like any other as I embarked on a leisurely stroll through our local nature park. The chirping of the birds and the rustling of the leaves provided a calming soundtrack to my thoughts. Just as I was lost in the serene ambiance, a soft patter of footsteps caught my attention.

To my astonishment, a group of friendly raccoons emerged from the underbrush, their curious eyes locked onto mine. It wasn't just one or two, but a whole family! They approached slowly, their bushy tails swaying with each step, displaying a mix of caution and curiosity. I couldn't help but stand still, captivated by the unexpected encounter.

But here's where the story takes a twist. While these raccoons seemed friendly, my instinctual reaction was to make a swift exit. And by swift, I mean I channeled my inner Olympic sprinter and bolted for a solid two miles! Who knew the sight of fluffy raccoons could turn a leisurely walk into a full-blown marathon training session? As I caught my breath, I chuckled at my own antics, thinking, "Well, that's one way to get some cardio in!" Lesson learned: always expect the unexpected in nature, and maybe pack some running shoes, just in case.

You may think that I made all of this up because these aren't real pictures. But no! This all really happened to me several years ago. And I really do have the pictures to prove it. But you say, "Why don't you share them here?" Well, I did. You can find the pictures of the actual encounter in my blog archives right here on The Everyday Adventurer. I made these new pictures because I wanted to illustrate the actual chase scene. I hope you like it. I'll talk to you later.

Something To Post

I just wanted to post something, anything. I don't have much to say this time. I just wanted to let everyone know I'm here. I'll leave it at that this time, and I'll talk to you later.

Delilah The Mischief Maker

Here is something my dog Delilah likes to do. Let me tell you a story about my annoying dog.

Because of the current health situation, my mom has come to stay at my house with me. It's because I live out in the country away from most civilization and most people. It makes things a lot easier for her to stay safe and healthy.

I have everything set up nice for her. I bought her all the stuff for her new bedroom. She has a new bed and a big television in there so she can watch TV whenever she wants. I also made sure she has her own good chair in the living room. She also has a laptop she keeps on a little stand right by her chair. I got her hooked on the internet many years ago.

Because she doesn't see as well as she used to, my mom has a little light that plugs into the USB port on her laptop. This way she can see her keyboard when the light is a little dim. The light is an LED light that can be turned on or off by just touching it.

Delilah likes my mom a lot but she also likes to irritate her as much as she can. I constantly have to yell at the dog to stay away from my mom for the many things she does to bother her. Some of it is accidental, but some of it is clearly on purpose. Delilah loves mischief.

My mom isn't afraid of dogs or anything like that. On the contrary, most dogs are a little intimidated by her and always try to be friends with her. Delilah is no exception. My mom is mostly indifferent to dogs, but she says she thinks Delilah is kind of amusing.

Anyway, one of the things Delilah likes to do to irritate my mom involves that computer light. Delilah is very intelligent and she observes things whenever she can. She watched my mom and figured out that the computer light can be turned on by touching it.

So Delilah waits until my mom isn't looking and will sneak over and turn that light on whenever she thinks nobody will notice. She is definitely sneaking. I've seen her to it many times now. She seems to think it's funny because of the reaction she gets. My mom usually thinks she turned it on herself by accident.

I also can't keep Delilah in her kennel cage by herself anymore either. She figured out how to open the latch and get out. I thought at first she just got lucky but I've seen her open it several times now. It's okay though because I don't really need to keep her in there anymore anyway. She's usually pretty safe roaming the house by herself if nobody is home.

And that's all I really have this time. There are plenty of Delilah stories because she's a weird dog. But I don't think you don't want to read them all. I mostly just needed to write another post to let you know I'm still here. I keep hoping to get something from a nature park soon. One of these next few times I'll do it.

I'll talk to you later.

Delilah And Her New Clothes

It's pretty difficult to get anything new to post right now, but I have something for you anyway. This is Delilah in her Thundershirt. This thing is to calm a dog that has anxiety problems. It does it by squeezing them a little. Delilah is a pretty happy dog normally, but she still has a terrible time while riding in the truck. That's why I got this Thundershirt for her.

I wish I could say that it works great but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. She doesn't really like wearing it but she also doesn't mind it much. I think of she wore it enough she'd come to think of it like she does her collar. She gets very upset if I remove her collar. All of my dogs have been like that. I think the dogs think of their collar as part of them or that it is their clothes.

I would have gotten Delilah another color of this Thundershirt, probably blue, but I forgot to choose the color. I usually assign my dog a color when I first get them. Delilah has a blue collar. Isabella had black. And Tilly before them had pink.

Anyway, I live in the country, so I can still go out to places like a hiking park if I want to. So maybe I'll try to get some halfway decent pictures from a place like that soon if it doesn't flood too much here. I really need to post a little more often if I can. I'll talk to you later.

Merry Christmas Everyone! 2019

Here's a special Christmas present from me to you. This picture is for all of you who have decided to visit me on Christmas Eve, even though I haven't posted nearly enough this year. I share this same picture for most years, but the post is a little new. I encountered this scene several years ago. I really did take the picture. It was at a place called Carpenter Lake.

Click on the picture to make it bigger for the best effect. Take a close look at Santa's reindeer. There's something very strange about them. Santa is a little different than normal too, but I'll never tell how.

Maybe Santa will think of using turkeys or bison one of these upcoming years, but he still likes the squirrels. I wonder what happened to those reindeer. Maybe these guys are for alternate days. You will probably have trouble seeing it, but the lead squirrel has a red nose.

I keep promising to post more often, and one of these days I'll surprise you. I'm still getting my hiking skills back so maybe 2020 will be my year. Until then it's time to take a little break and to say...

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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.

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.

Surprise! I'm Still Here, And So Is Delilah!

I bet you thought I was gone. I will tell you now that I'll never leave. I have watched so many of my blogging friends disappear, some very good ones this year, but I'll be here even after everyone else is gone. It's because I'm here for a better reason than most people. It's because I truly like why I'm here. No more explanation can be given in one post. Read all of them.

So let's get to my post today. What's been going on and why am I posting today? And why not before? I'm mostly posting today to check in because I haven't done it in so long. But I also have a tiny bit of an update for you.

I told you a while back at the beginning of the summer that we were going to have a lot of flooding around here. It wasn't supposed to let up for the whole summer, which would keep me from posting much of anything because there would just be nowhere for me to go.

That is exactly what has happened. The river is overflowing right now and might even get worse in the immediate future. All of my good nature parks are along the river. Not a recipe for fun. This will have to end someday though.

Another thing that has stopped me from posting is something I've been sort of hiding from you.

I couldn't walk.

I was in a car accident several years ago and my back was injured. It happened at the height of my blogging about my long nature hikes. Everything was abruptly stopped. I slowly tried to get back into it, but it has been mostly painful ever since. In the past few years, the pain had gotten to the point where I could only walk for very short distances, like from one room of my house to another.

Every once in a while I tried to go out to a nature park and struggle through a very short hike. I would usually barely make it back to my truck after only going a very short distance. I hoped I could get better with some exercise. It never worked. Most of my pictures these past few years came from the window of my truck.

I kept telling doctors about my problem, but none of them had any answers for me. The only thing I could do was to hope that one day I would somehow get better. I wasn't sure it was ever going to happen. But then recently something happened.

It began happening around June, but I was feeling less and less pain when I stood or walked. I was actually starting to feel better! After a while, I was able to go short distances without much pain at all. But I was afraid to go much farther for fear that I couldn't make it back.

And finally this week I decided to take a chance. I walked the distance through my small town to the post office. I was sure I would be exhausted when and if I made it back home. But I was just fine. My back hurt a little, but I wasn't very tired at all. I think I might finally be better.

I may need to take things slow and show a little care, but I'm going to try a little walk through whichever nature park is the dryest. I'm not sure how soon I can manage it, but I'll hopefully be back in one of my next few posts with pictures of a new short hike. I'll talk to you later.

Delilah And My Sister

As you can see, I have finally come back for an update. It's been quite some time, hasn't it? I think last time I said I'd be posting more often. That turned out to be a whopper of a lie, didn't it? All I can say this time is that I'll be back whenever I can. So let's get to today's post.

This one is going to be a rambling two-parter. First I'll tell you about the pictures. Then I have an amusing story about my little sister. So about the pictures.

I took Delilah back out to the nearest nature park recently. She really loves to go, but she still has a hard time getting there. She's about 8 months old now and you are finally seeing the way she looks mostly grown up. She looks like a skinny German Shepherd. She's the same size as any normal German Shepherd but she is skinny looking compared to a full-bred dog of that kind.

That was a short update, so let's get to the story about my sister. She has a full-blooded German Shepherd and it's a huge one. My sister goes on Facebook, and everywhere else, constantly bragging about how big her dog, much bigger than all other dogs. She's one of those kind of people that has to have the biggest and best of everything, especially compared to yours.

So I decided to tweak her nose a bit about it. She, like you, has also only seen my dog in a few pictures. So I went on Facebook and began bragging about how it is actually my dog that is the biggest.

I didn't tell her this information specifically, but it got the desired results. Her whole family got angry at me for daring to say that my dog was the biggest. Maybe a little childish? Maybe I'm being childish as well, but I'm also having fun. And since I got the desired reaction I decided to add a little more to my puppy's story.

I went back on Facebook and posted that I got one of those doggy DNA tests to find out why my dog is just so huge, much bigger than all other German Shepherds. I said the results came back that the reason is that my dog is part German Shepherd and part Dire Wolf. Of course, Dire Wolves are long ago extinct.

My sister immediately got on my posts feed to inform me of that pesky extinction problem. She usually ignores me. She informed me that her oldest son told her about that knowledgable super-fact. Then she proceeded to comment on this same post about a dozen times with all of her knowledge on the subject and how superior she was for informing me of my lowly error.

That is the most she has spoken to me in the past year. She had no idea I did it all just to get her going and I was laughing at her the whole time. It's still pretty funny. I'm not sure if she has caught on to the joke yet. I do think she did finally begin to feel foolish towards her last comment or two. Next, I'll Photoshop a picture of me standing in front of my giant dog.

Just to finish today's post off, I want to say my sister and I get along just fine. I just thought it would be amusing to exploit this little vanity(insecurity) she has. And I had to tell a few people some of the kinds of things I do to make a person angry with me. And with that, hopefull sooner this time, I'll talk to you later.

Delilah And A New Camera

It's been a little while since my last post. I'm sure you've noticed. Like I said in my last post, it's because I've had nothing to post about. I wasn't going out because of the flooding and because of my dog's behavior. I'm going to try to change some of these problems now though.

But for now, let's talk about what's been happening since my last post.

I've been trying out a different camera than my usual one. My current camera is getting kind of old, even though there's still a lot of life left in it. It's a top of the line point and shoot camera. It looks like a DSLR but it's still just a point and shoot so it has some limitations.

Now I have a new DSLR I'm trying out for business. I won't use it for my personal photography. But after using this new one for a couple of weeks now, I'm seeing a huge difference in photo quality and ease in some cases.

The pictures on the DSLR seem so much smoother than with my point and shoot. And the manual settings are so much easier to work with. I can adjust so many things that I couldn't dream of before. I sometimes want to get a white background with some things, but that's unthinkable with my camera. The business camera can get it easily.

I'm not sure whether I'll get something like this for personal use yet, but it's a thought. One thing a point and shoot like mine is good for though is that I don't have to ever change lenses. That makes nature photography easy. So we'll see what happens.

Let's change the subject a little bit (a lot).

I took Delilah to the vet to get her nails clipped. She took the vet visit well, as usual. It's the rides that she hates. She was actually eager to go. She jumped up into the back of my Jeep and into her cage all by herself. She was very excited.

The big thing is that she didn't use the Jeep as a toilet, not even a little. I said before that I'd have to wait a while to take her on trips because of this little problem, but now maybe it is solved. So I'm going to take her on a trip to a nature park very soon to check her progress. Let's hope she is better.

Here's something good Delilah is doing at home. I have taught her to pick up any object that's not too heavy and bring it to me. I've been telling everyone that she can now help me keep the house clean because of this. She's a smart dog.

She's now much bigger than she was the last time you saw her. She's not the biggest dog in the world, but she's standard German Shepherd size, maybe a little skinnier. She may fill out later, but I'm not sure she'll be as widely built as a normal German Shepherd. We'll see. She's still only about 7 months old.

So we come to the end of my long update. Next time I'll have a little story about Delilah and a toad, with some toady pictures. I'll talk to you later.

Scrappy Delilah

It's Scrappy Doo! I have no idea why the camera gave Delilah a big head and a tiny little body. She's actually a big dog now, not a deformed Scrappy dog. I'll have to share a better picture sometime soon to show what she looks like now. If I can catch up to her.

I took lots of pictures of Delilah and they all turned out like this. She looks like a weirdo. I figured I'd post what I have right now just because I'm bored. I have absolutely nothing to do. Everything is closed up around here because of all the flooding. It's supposed to last throughout the summer. I'll show some of it in my next post.

Meanwhile, there hasn't been anything new with Delilah, except for her growth into a big dog. She's much bigger now than you last saw her. This bottom picture gives a small preview of that. This is her in mid-attack.

Mostly what she does is run throughout the house, and she only slows down to attack and play. She'll pick up one of her toys and run at top speed from one end of the house to the other. And unlike Isabella, she likes to attack and play with my robot vacuum cleaner. She thinks that's a great game. She has figured out how to turn it on all by herself.

This post explains my lack of posting recently. There's just nothing of much interest from me. There aren't even any interesting weeds on my property. I've had them all chopped down. Maybe I should have posted that event. Hmm, maybe next time. I'll talk to you later. 

Say No To Drugs

Today I got my dog off of drugs. After she was spayed her evil drug dealer the vet gave her some stuff that turned her into a psycho, aggressive and hyper lunatic. He called the pills "pain medication." I call them crazy pills. But let me tell you how all of this happened.

After Delilah was spayed the vet gave me three pills to give to Delilah to ease the pain. I was to give her one a day for three days. I had no idea what the awful results would be, but I wanted the best for my gentle little puppy.

The second day she was home, her first pill day, I gave her the first pill. In a little while, Delilah seemed to get a big boost of energy. She began running through the house at top speed. I was kind of surprised that she was feeling so much better already.

For the rest of the day, Delilah acted in her most obnoxious manner. She kept biting me and jumping on me much more than usual. This was much more aggressive than her usual playing. I had to push her away many times, but she insisted on attacking me, coming back each time. I just figured it was a bad day for her.

The second pill day, she went outside after her pill. I thought all was normal. Why would I not? But when I went outside I discovered that she had pulled a lot of the cable TV wire off of the side of the house! I caught her before she actually disconnected it or tore it apart. She was able to do this even though I always watch her closely when she's outside.

She was still being hyper-aggressive in everything she did for the whole day. She acted like this all day and much of the night. I got very little sleep because she kept me up almost till morning. She was just in a complete violent frenzy.

On the third pill day, I began to suspect that something wasn't quite right, but she was still behaving mostly like herself, just very much more so. It was just that all of her bad habits were greatly amplified. But then it got stranger.

After she had been outside for a little while, I went to the door to check on her. I looked down to discover that she had gathered her old poop into a pile on the porch! I suspected it was for snacks. Yuck! I quickly disposed of all of this.

I was pretty sure by now that the pills were somehow causing all of this behavior because it was only after giving her a pill that she acted crazy. I was glad they were now all gone.

And finally, the day after the pills, when they were all gone, she went back to behaving like her normal old self. The intense crazy behavior was gone. She still has some bad habits. All creatures do. But she's not so aggressively crazy and obnoxious.

I would still want her to have less pain after an operation like that, but I think I would be more prepared for the effects of pain pills now. This was not fun to deal with. She's still obnoxious sometimes, but in a normal way. I like normal.

I got her off the drugs. Say no to drugs, unless they're prescribed by a doctor. And even then, be prepared for the results. I'll talk to you later.

Spayed!

Delilah went back to the vet Tuesday to get spayed and get her adult shots. I had to take her in at about 7:30 in the morning and leave her there until 4:00. She didn't like it one bit, but it had to be done.

I spent the rest of the day worrying about my little puppy. I worried that she might think I had abandoned her. I worried that the vet might mess up the operation. And I worried that I would not have my dog anymore because of it.

But when I went back right at 4 o'clock to pick her up, Delilah was just fine. They told me everything was good, and she'd have to come back in two weeks to get her stitches removed.

I mentioned that I'd like to have her super sharp nails clipped, but I didn't want to do it yet because the bill for all this was huge. I needed a little money break. The woman told me that it would only be another $10 and they could do it right then, so I said sure.

So we took Delilah into the other room and got her nails clipped. This would be a huge relief to my arms, which Delilah had scratched bloody many many times. Like I said, super sharp. But not anymore!

The final bill came to about $250. Not too bad for what all was done, I guess. I also paid for some pain relief medication to take home. I was sure she needed it.

After I got her home, Delilah was out of it for several more hours. She was conscious but very tired. She also had a shaved belly and a row of white stitches there.

I want to keep this as only one little episode of the Delilah Chronicles so I'll wait till my next post to tell you what happened the next day when I gave her the pain pills. You'll appreciate that I separated these stories. I'll have this next episode of Days Of Delilah's Life up as soon as possible. I'll talk to you later.

Doggy Jail!

No, Delilah didn't really do anything wrong. I just thought it looked funny for her to be in there looking kind of sad. Actually, she just likes it in there. And the door is open. If you look to the left in the picture you can see the open door a little bit. She goes in and out of there all the time.

I will confess that I do sometimes lock her in there. This is where she stays when I have to go somewhere without her. She really hates that. I'm not sure if she cries the whole time I'm gone, but she starts when I put on my coat, and I hear her when I get back from my trip. Poor puppy!

Isabella had the run of the house whenever I went away. But she was an older dog and she had learned much more discipline than Delilah has had a chance to learn yet. This is for Delilah's own safety. And it's a big cage. It originally belonged to Isabella who was half Great Dane.
 

Delilah is very intelligent. I house trained her in 3 days. Also in that time, I taught her to sit on command, and also to sit patiently at the door to get her chain put on her so she can go outside. That is what she's doing in the picture above. It also took me about 5 minutes to teach her to give me her paw on command. She does all of these things almost every time.

I'm currently working on teaching her to lie down on command. This one is a little harder because she is so active. She never wants to stop. She'll eventually get it though. I teach her all of these things without giving her treats of any kind. I just use kindness and praise. Treats are the cheap way of teaching. And I think ordinary repetition works better in the end.

Okay, since this has temporarily become a dog blog, I'll share Delilah's first trip to the vet in my next post. No pictures from there though. There is a very good reason we haven't gone to a nature park yet. My next post will reveal that reason. I will talk to you later!

One Week With Delilah

I still haven't gotten out on any nature adventures, but I've been very busy with my new puppy Delilah. Maybe you want to know about it, or maybe you don't. Either way, I'm still going to tell you about it. So let's go.

It took me exactly three days to house train Delilah. She now asks to go outside whenever she needs to do her stuff. There is a small problem though. She still has had a few accidents because she is going a little too often and too much, even for a puppy. I got that checked out at the vet, and he gave her some medicine which should fix her up.

Her visit to the vet was to get the last shots a puppy needs. She took it very well. She didn't even flinch. Her next visit will be for her adult shots and to get spayed so there won't be any more puppies in her line.

Just like the picture says, she is highly intelligent. I have already taught her to sit on command and to give me her paw. She performs well almost every time. I've also taught her to sit patiently while I attach her chain to go outside. Remember, I've only had her one week.

This is all pretty good for such a spirited and energetic dog like her. I finalized my choice for her when I saw her curiosity and energy. I could have taken her sister, but she was more docile than Delilah.

Overall, Delilah has had a very successful first week. She loves it here, and she hasn't shown that she misses her old home at all.

I'm still working on getting back out to the nature parks. The snow is still too deep, and it's too cold out. That all should change before next weekend. We'll see. Delilah isn't quite up to riding in the truck yet to go. She can't hold her bowels long enough. The medicine should help.

She isn't as short and squat looking as she looks in this last picture. It's just a bad picture. She moves around too much for me to get a good one so far. I'll keep trying.

Since I took this picture, her ears now stand straight up most of the time. First, the left one popped up and then the right one followed.

Okay, I think I'll finish this right here. You've agonized through this enough. As you might be able to tell, I love my new dog. This post is what happens when somebody gets a rough case of cabin fever. I'll talk to you later.

Delilah

I want to introduce you to my new dog. Her name is Delilah. I've had her for just a few days. She is 3 months old right now. She is part German Shepherd and part mutsky. I wanted her as soon as I saw a picture of her on the internet. Yup, I shopped for my pet on the internet. And she is a good little dog.

Her sisters have the same markings and coloration as my old dog Isabella had. I liked them, but they would have reminded me too much of her. I want my dog to be an individual and not a replacement for another. And I saw Delilah first and wanted her more anyway.

The ones who had Delilah and her family before took very good care of them. The only thing they didn't do was house train them. I'm working on that right now with Delilah. There have been some accidents but she is coming along very well already. She is a very smart little girl.

I'll give more details on Delilah as time passes. I think she will inspire me to get back out to my nature adventures more often now. It had gotten very difficult to do with poor old Isabella for the last couple of years. And I have been very busy with other things recently. But maybe now Delilah will help me get back to doing the thing I love so much.

Hopefully, my next post will be a little sooner than this one was. It just snowed a lot and it's very deep. I'll be back at a nature park as soon as it's not over this little puppy's head. She's going to need a lot of exercise. I'll talk to you later.

Delilah, Delilah, oh my, oh my, oh my, you're irresistible. - Freddie Mercury

Merry Christmas 2018

Here's a special Christmas present from me to you. This picture is for all of you who have decided to visit me on Christmas Eve. I share this same picture on most years, but the post is new. I encountered this scene several years ago. I really did take the picture. It was at a place called Carpenter Lake.

Click on the picture to make it bigger for the best effect. Take a close look at Santa's reindeer. There's something very strange about them. Santa is a little different than normal too, but I'll never tell how.

Maybe Santa will think of using turkeys or bison one of these upcoming years, but he still likes the squirrels. I wonder what happened to those reindeer. Maybe these guys are for alternate days. You will probably have trouble seeing it, but the lead squirrel has a red nose.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

JDG

Good ol' JDG. I think maybe that's this cow's name. Is it? Is it maybe the name of the owner? Do we really care?

Well, I kind of care. I care because I like to imagine that these are the cow's initials to its real name. Maybe it's a really good name. I won't guess a name. I want you to do it.

Maybe this cow is one of those talking cows I've heard so much about.

What? You haven't heard of any talking cows? You're not from around hear, are you? Neither am I.

Okay, that's enough. I was just trying to have a bit of fun. That's what blogs are for. I sometimes forget that. And I sometimes get busy with everyday life and forget to take care of my blog. At those times I don't have much fun. But today is fun because I'm here and I brought JDG with me.

I will leave this as kind of a short post because I want to ease back into things. I made a ton of money while I was away. It was the reason for my absence.  Was that fun? Maybe a little bit. But the blog is my true fun. It's good to be here. But I needed to brag a little. I won't add to that. I'll talk to you later.

Spy Horse

I went out on an adventure this week with the hopes of changing the whole internet with the sheer force of the spectacular pictures I was going to get. It was a few miles down the road that a tragically unfortunate event happened.

That's right. I got a flat tire. Now, you might think that's just a temporary setback. It's not at all the tragedy that I'm describing. You might think. But to my dramatic brain, it's practically the end of the world. My adventure of all adventures was over!

But then something happened. As I got out of the truck to examine the damage of my ravaged tire, I smelled something horribly bad. Yup, it was the pig farm where I had stopped to fix the tire. But that's not really what happened. I was expecting the horrible smell. It was something else. There were eyes on me!

As I looked up, there across the road was a lone horse staring right at me. It was examining me very closely as if it was gathering information to take back to all the other horses so they could laugh at me, or maybe even to its evil master. It was going to reveal my tire changing secrets to the world. Noooo!

I wasn't going to put up with this intrusive examination from this all too obvious spy horse. So I whipped out my camera in dramatic fashion, and I began taking pictures of this way too interested creature.

Of course, the examiner didn't like being the examined, so it decided to make itself scarce. It quit staring and turned around to make a speedy escape.

I haven't been taking enough nature pictures recently to be able to keep up well with all of this fast movement, so the pictures didn't exactly turn out quite like I wanted. I had lots of chances for great pictures, but my lack of practice blew pretty much all of them.

After this little incident, it took me some time to fix my tire. My all-time greatest adventure was over before it really began, but I did get some pictures of this one lone horse.

As I drove a short way down the road, I found this evil spy horse conversing with another. I just know they were laughing at me because of my recent unfortunate situation. In my humiliation, I took no more pictures. I just slunk on down the road toward the bigger town 20 miles away so I could forget this tragic event ever happened while eating a bunch of tacos. I'll talk to you later.