Hello! I'm Back! Are You?

I took these pictures 3 weeks ago. I was going to post them shortly after then but I got self conscious about it because I had been gone so long. I hope you enjoy these and my story if you're still here with me.

Before I start I noticed that Blogger has made a few changes. I like what I see in the first few minutes. I hope it is still a good experience as I go on with my edits to this post. Anyway, let's get on with it.

Any of you longer time readers may remember that my dog hates to ride in a vehicle. Well, she made a conscious effort shortly before this trip to ride just so she could stay with me. She actually asked to go in her doggy way.

The poor dog endured a long trip to one nature park near the river. I took lots of pictures there but for some reason they all ended up blurry and messed up. I didn't realize it until I got home and looked at everything. 

But after she took the trip to the first park so bravely I decided to continue on to this bigger nature park. It was an even farther distance away from home. She did great getting to this one. She was learning fast.

We got out of the truck and explored the edge of the river here for quite awhile. This is where I got all of the pictures. This is a beautiful place that only gets better every year I come here.

The dog, Delilah is always amazed by what she sees whenever she is brave enough to go. She has only ever been to a nature park a few times now. I'm going to change that now that she is getting better about riding. 

Honestly, that is part of what has been holding me back about blogging. I just felt bad about going to a nature park without my dog. I'm also still experimenting with how far I can walk now too. But the dog was the main thing. I think she'll be fine now.

After I was done wandering around near the river with my excited dog, I decided to wrap things up. Before I left though, I went to look at the forested area behind the restrooms. I never went over there the many times I've been here. I was amazed by what I found.

A nature trail! There it was calling to me to explore it just like I used to do with other trails. The only problem was that I was too tired by then to answer that call. I decided that it was going to have to wait for another time.

I think that other time is coming in a couple days from now. I'm all set to take my dog on a walk through a good old forested nature trail just like I used to do in years past. I'm going to be in heaven! I hope the dog feels the same about the trails as I do. I think she will.

And to anyone who is still here with me, thanks for reading my blog. I missed you. 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.

Robot Woes

While I'm still very distracted from my nature adventures I want to tell you the story of my vacuum cleaner misadventure. Let's get into it.

It started out wonderful. I bought a brand new robot vacuum cleaner to replace my old Roomba that wasn't quite as spry as it used to be. I told you about it here in this post. It was the Neato Botvac D4. And it ran wonderfully for the first 3 months.

Then one day it began acting kind of confused and was moving a little slowly. The main problem though was that it kept getting stuck and giving an error whenever it tried to return to its recharging base.

I have to admit that I panicked a little. I thought I had spent $500 on a lemon and it would never work right again. I needed that robot vacuum cleaner! I'm much too busy to vacuum the house every day myself. And it had been doing such a great job of cleaning up the dog hair! But not now. A house full of dog hair is a horrible thing.

After I calmed down a bit I followed the links to the chat with Neato Support. The guy was actually very helpful. He asked me to try a few tests, which I did, to see if the machine could fix itself. Which it didn't. At the end of the chat, there didn't seem to be a solution. I was not very happy.

But then the support person followed up on my case through email the next day. He asked me if the machine had improved. I said no. And after a little back and forth he set me up with the information to send my vacuum cleaner in for the company to look at.

I took my machine to FedEx where I paid them about $20 to package the machine securely for me. I could have done it myself for free, but I figured they'd do it better. And they knew exactly what to do. And so my precious investment was sent off for servicing.

After about a week I got a large package delivered to me by FedEx. It was my vacuum cleaner! The great thing was that I didn't have to pay a dime for them to fix it for me. I wasn't sure about that part when I began the process.

I got it all unboxed and took the time to charge it back up, and then I started it up on a good test run to make sure it was okay. It wasn't! The robot acted confused and then errored when it tried to return to the charging base. After a closer examination I saw that they had replaced the filter, and maybe the brush, but they had done absolutely no repair on it. Again, I was not happy. It was time to try the chat support again.

After quite a lot of time and frustration talking to this new person who seemed kind of skeptical about my situation, I finally got it through to them that this machine really needed to be repaired. I learned during the chat that they could monitor the machine over the internet. I'm not so sure how much I like that. But it was time to send the machine back to the company for them to service it one more time. Would they actually fix it this time?

This time I just packed it back into the box it came in. No extra charges for me. I made the trip back to Sioux City to the FedEx Store and sent it off again. Again, they knew exactly what to do. The woman there even knew right away when I walked in that I had a robot vacuum in the box. Impressive.

And so, after another week I got my machine back again. I wasn't exactly encouraged about a successful repair this time because of my previous experience, but I was still hopeful. So, what do you think happened when I was able to do the test run?

Success! It was working! My vacuum cleaner was repaired this time, and it was back to its old great working self. My dog still thinks this second robot is a jerk, but it works just fine now. My dog doesn't like this one because she was kinda best pals with the old one. She loved playing with it while it cleaned. She thinks this one stole its job.

In the end, (and after this long post), I'm happy with the support I received from the company. It took a little too long to figure out that the machine should get fixed, but they did fix it and they did it for free. Free is all I could ask for.

And that's my story. Maybe you don't want to read another one like this, but I think my next post is going to be about the new computer I just built. I'm going to whine a bit about that one too. I hope you can stand it.

I'll talk to you later.

My Internet Is Finally Back

It seems like circumstances and just my own laziness are conspiring to drive away any blog friends I have left here. The last update I gave was about my lack of internet. I'm glad to say that those problems have been finally solved. It actually only took about a week to get things settled. I really need to tell you about it. This might be a slightly longer story than usual. I hope you can last till the end.

On a Monday I had two appointments with my internet company to see about getting my internet sorted out.

The first appointment was to survey my situation to see about getting high-speed fiber optic cable put in here in the future. The government gave my service provider a lot of money to provide this new stuff for all of us in the surrounding rural area.

They only came out to assess the situation this time. They'll lay down the cable sometime around the middle of summer. Then hopefully by the end of the year, they'll connect everything up to the houses.

My internet speed at the time they came out was about 3mbps. Once they're finished they tell me my new speed will be 1gbps. That's well over 300 times as fast as my original speed. I'll finally be as fast as the modern civilized world when they're done.

But that's almost a year away from now. What happened in the second appointment?

The second appointment was so they could come out and replace my old non-working internet equipment with some new stuff that should fix me up just fine. They also said the new stuff will work with the fiber optic internet when it comes.

When the guys got there they came in and looked at the old box. The guy immediately told me that everyone who still had that old box was complaining. He also said that box was miserably outdated and they couldn't even update it anymore.

I wondered why they didn't send me a letter or something to upgrade me in the first place. They should have come out a long time ago. I should not have had to call them to tell them there was a problem. Even so, they were here now to fix it.

They did a quick unplug of the old box and plugged in the two new boxes that I have now. The guy said everything should be fine now.

As we were talking, the guy incidentally asked me about what I was currently paying for their service. I told him and, even though he tried to hide it, he looked a little shocked. He then assumed I was also getting phone service too. I told him no, that I was only getting internet. I was not happy. I now knew I was paying way too much and had been for years.

He then asked me what my internet speed was. I told him the 3mbps. He then informed me that I could get 10mbps right now. All I had to do is call and they would just flip a switch. Well, why didn't they just do it automatically? He said it would cost a little extra. That's fine. I'd just like to get out of the stone age!

Let me explain something. Before I moved here from Michigan, internet wasn't as fast as it is today anywhere. 10mbps is probably the fastest internet I've ever had. I was now as happy as can be and I forgot about my problem with them not taking care of this easier for me.

Then when I called them to get that switch flipped, they told me the cost would be different. Can you guess what the difference might be?

Not only did they upgrade my current internet speed, but I now pay only half the price I was paying before. I'm finally feeling good about my internet here. I can even watch HD video content now. And the only thing holding me back from posting new stuff here is my own laziness and the weather you see in today's pictures. I'll talk to you later, hopefully sooner.

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.

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.

Robot Vacuum Cleaners

This one's going to be a little different. I haven't tried to go on a hiking trip yet, mostly because it's been raining and I also want to watch the last few games of baseball season. But this post is because I have many interests. One of those interests is technology. So today I'm talking about robot vacuum cleaners.

I've had an iRobot Roomba for years. It is from the 600 series of cleaners. I have loved this thing because it keeps my floors much cleaner than I'm willing to do myself. All I have to do is empty it sometime after most cleanings. And my house looks okay.

But there have been a few problems with it. The first one is that it gets stuck in places kind of easily. I end up having to go move it and restart it quite frequently. The second problem is that I had to stick it's recharging base to the wall because it kept knocking it out of position. So it had trouble recharging after it was done.

And it still has trouble finding the base properly. It usually takes several times for it to dock itself. It also doesn't have very strong suction in the vacuum, and since I got my new dog it has been having trouble with the dog hair. And this Roomba is getting kind of old, so I finally decided to replace it.

My new robot vacuum cleaner is the Neato Botvac D4. It's a mid-range cleaner as far as cost, but it has more features than most Roombas. It cost me $400. The Roomba cost more when I got it years ago. This one maps out my house instead of vacuuming randomly, so it is much more efficient than the old one, and it is finished much quicker.

This one also doesn't get stuck anywhere in my house and it has much greater suction in the vacuum. The pet hair is gone from the carpet. It also gets back to the base much better and doesn't ever ram into it and move it.

The disadvantages of the new one are first that you have to connect it to the internet. It's a slightly rough setup at first because of that. It also needs a bigger area where the dock can be placed. But other than those problems it has been wonderful.

The internet connection is actually an advantage because I can control the robot with my phone and I can do voice commands with Amazon Alexa. Overall, this newer technology robot is worth the price for me. I really like this new robot.

Oh, one more thing. Does Delilah like it? The answer is unfortunately no. She liked the old Roomba. It had been there with her for most of her life. She thought it was a playmate of hers. She considers the new Botvac to be a hated enemy, even though it's quieter than the old robot. Hopefully, she'll get used to it.

That's about all. 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. 

Ratty And The Nature Park

This was my first trip to a nature park in quite some time. Luckily, this one is only about 5 miles away from me. This is a small walking park that sits between the highway and the railroad tracks. Beyond those tracks is the Big Sioux River, which has been flooded since winter.

For those of you who might wonder, the word Sioux is pronounced like Soo or the name Sue. It is the name of Sioux City, Iowa, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and the Sioux Indian Nation. Isn't it great that we have the habit of naming places like these to commemorate certain people?

This park is small but it has several different features to keep a person occupied. This swampy looking area isn't usually quite so wet. It's usually a small creek that you could step across after going down into the gulley. It looks like this because it connects to the bigger river, so it's also flooded here.

Up on the top left of the picture is what appears to be a deer hunter's tree stand or maybe just an observation stand. I've never seen a deer here, but I'm sure they are here. I'm not sure how old this stand is, but I don't remember it from my other trips here.

You can see the river beyond the railroad tracks in the picture above. I can't get any closer than this because there are no passable trails that go near there. There used to be two trails that crossed the tracks and went to the edge of the river. Those have been purposely blocked off for a few years now. That's a shame. I liked those trails a lot.

And finally, you can see my first bird in flight picture in many years. This was directly above me. I just barely got this one. I'm very out of practice. I tried to get other bird pictures but they weren't coming out for me this time. Maybe on my next trip here.

Any of you who are missing The Everyday Adventurer Dog Blog shouldn't worry too much. Even though I'm going to try to start posting my good old nature stuff, Delilah will be back from time to time. She's too insistent in everything she does to ignore her all the time. But I really like posting about nature more than anything else, so that's the way it should be most of the time. I'll talk to you later.

Delilah And The Nature Park

I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to load Delilah in the back of my truck and take her to the nature park yet, but I felt like I had no choice now. This is a story that will shock and amaze some of you, and maybe just put the rest of you to sleep. So let's get it over with.

It was a normal routine day when I let Delilah outside to do what she does in the yard. But then something very strange happened. Delilah came to the door scratching frantically wanting to be let in. Usually, it's not such an animated event. Of course, I wondered what the problem could be.

I watched her closely the next time I let her out. She wandered around the yard, as usual. But then I saw it! It was a little rabbit on the other side of the yard. Delilah saw it too. And she ran at full speed to the door wanting in the house again!

Yup, my growing German Shepherd was afraid of a soft little bunny rabbit! I couldn't let this problem stand. I tried to convince her that the rabbit was afraid of her too, but it didn't convince her. The rabbit didn't even care about her. It was busy collecting grass for a nest. And it seemed to know that the dog wouldn't harm it.

I had to toughen her up, and I figured the only way to do it was to get her a little life experience. So I decided to take her to the nearest nature park where there are lots more rabbits and many other animals.

The good thing is this seems to have worked a little bit. Being on the leash and close to me also seemed to help. She was stalking any birds that decided to show themselves to us. Of course, that was very few. But they certainly made lots of noise, and she was very curious about that.

Overall, she had a very good time at the nature park. She's still not the best truck rider, but she'll improve now that she'll get to go to some place that she loves. She also has a brand new cage she rides in. That helps a lot.

I had more pictures from the nature park other than just these of Delilah. I'll share some of them soon. Maybe even in less than a week. That will be my first non-Delilah post in quite a while. Finally, we'll be getting back to normal here.

I haven't had a post in a couple of weeks simply because I had nothing to write about. There wasn't really even any fun stuff with the dog, though I had lots of good pictures of her. As you can see, she's growing rapidly. She's beginning to look like a grown-up dog, even though she's only about five months old.

I'll share more Delilah posts, but let's get back to nature around here now. I'll talk to you later.