Are You Ready?

Are you ready for some football???  We are VERY ready for the football season at our house.  For Daddy, this means Saturdays screaming at the television if things don't go as planned.  For Mommy, this means not only football, but cooler temps (doubtful in our new location, but a girl can hope), sweater weather (see last set of parentheses), and her favorite colors of red, brown, and orange (don't tell Daddy about that last one).

We've been gearing up for this weekend's opening day of college football season for a while.  We've even been to football camp!  We are fully prepared to help out our Georgia Dawgs should they need us.

We even posed for our team photos.

Crossing our paws for a great season!

GOOOOOOO  DAWGS!!!!!!!

Put me in coach,
Jenna


PS: Happy Birthday to both Grandma and Cousin C!  We hope you enjoy your day with each other (as well as work and school too. Ick!)

Sniffing Out Trouble

We took a detour recently on our morning walk.  While waiting to cross a fairly busy road, something caught Mommy's attention out of the corner of her eye.  She decided we needed to have an adventure.  We went to sniff out PRAIRIE DOGS!!

 

We were so excited to be in a new field that at first we didn't pay any attention to the prairie dogs running around everywhere.   And there were at least a couple dozen!  Mommy took us right up to the closest burrow and we had a good sniff.  The burrows are a network of tunnels, so just when you think you're getting close, they disappear and pop up in another location.

Mommy thought I was going to be the one who would be most interested, but it was actually Dixie who was! She spotted the prairie dogs first.  There was one who wanted to play peek-a-boo with her.  It kept popping up from the same hole and "talking" to Dixie.  Prairie dogs tend to chat it up when you get close to them.  They like to send out the alert to each other.  Mommy tried her best to get a picture of that critter, but between two leashes, the cars on the busy road, and trying to operate her cell phone camera, it was tough.

It was after we had walked over to the empty lot that Mommy realized there could be other dangers here as well . . . rattle snakes, scorpions, prairie dogs with rabies, etc, etc.  You name the danger, we have it in our area!

Thankfully there were no dangers this time.  Maybe we'll have better luck sniffing out prairie dogs another day!
Jenna

Sizzlin Summer

We aren't used to having such HOT weather all the time, and this summer has been a scorcher for us.  It's also been a scorcher for the grass.  We're used to having nice, beautiful, lush, green grass.  Not any more.  Mommy REALLY misses her yard from the previous house.  We do too.  We're trying to make the best of what little yard we have here, but it's ruff. 

Some days Mommy will turn on the sprinkler before we leave on our morning walk.  We don't mean an actual built-in sprinkler system.  We mean the entire process where Mommy has to drag out the hose, put the sprinkler in just the right location, and then adjust it so the yard receives maximum water coverage without wasting too much water.  We're on city water here, so it's important we aren't watering the street.  Talk about money down the drain!

When we return from our walk, we enjoy cooling off in the sprinkler.  It's so much fun trying to catch the water in our mouths!  WE LOVE IT!!!

 

That's Dixie (aka Jaws of Life) going NUTS with the water!

It's tough getting Dixie to back away from the sprinkler to give me a chance.

 Mommy took this cool photo of Dixie as Dix tried to decide if she should go for it one more time . . .

Once the sprinkler is turned off, we do our part to dry off!

 

And then it's time to relax.

(Mommy took this pic of me which unfortunately puts my facial highlights in the spotlight!  

I look like an old woman here.  NOT cool Mommy.  Not cool.)

Hopefully you're lucky enough to have green grass.  If not, we hope you're lucky enough to have fun in the sprinkler!

Jenna

Dawg Daze

How HOT as it been at your house this summer?  A good portion of the country has had fairly high temps this season.  We are in the dawg days of summer now and it's been boiling here all summer long.  Mommy doesn't even check the forecast anymore since she knows the highs are going to be somewhere between 96 and 103!  This is such a change from our previous location where we enjoyed summers in the mid 80s most of the time.  [sigh]  And once you reach a hundred, does it really matter how much higher the temp climbs??

We've also had very little rain this summer compared to what we're used to.  The sky will turn a dark gray, we can even have thunder and lightning, and it still won't rain!  Very frustrating!

Most days it's very sunny and HOT as hades!  We tend to go outside for short periods of time.  That heat can really wear a girl out!

We usually stay outside until we are HOT (easy to do with our black fur coats), and then we come inside and collapse on the cool tile floor! 

 Sometimes we share a bed . . .

 

. . . and other times, we each take a bed.  Mommy was kind enough to move one of the beds into the shade of the patio.  Whew!

We hope you've stayed cool this summer.
Dixie and Jenna

Birdseed Anyone?

Jenna has renewed one of her passions since we've been in our new home.  She loved to watch Mommy replenish the birdseed for the feeder at our old house.  Why you might ask?  Because she LOVES to eat the birdseed!!!  (I've told you plenty of times how weird she is.)  At the old house she generally stuck to the seeds on the deck and rarely went around to the ground below the feeder to see what goodies were waiting on her there.

Here at this house, we don't have a deck.  Instead we have a patio.  One of the first things Daddy purchased when he was living here by himself (and we were stuck far, far away so Mommy could finish up the school year) was a bird feeder.  We all love bird watching.  I would venture to say Jenna and I love watching the birds more than our parents.  Well, we watch them for different reasons.  Jenna and I see them as a potential food source (remote, but still possible) and at the very least a source of immense pleasure to chase and torture.  Our parents like to spot new species and identify them in their National Audubon Society bird book.  (Just call them Bird Nerds.)

When the bird feeder is full, it looks like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds:

Seriously, there are doves and sparrows of all types everywhere!  We must have the only feeder within a hundred mile radius.

Jenna loves it when Mommy or Daddy refills the feeder.  She watches the process with an eagle eye.  (Didn't Daddy do a great job picking out a terrific looking feeder?)

It's inevitable that a few seeds fall to the ground during this process.  That's when Jenna goes to work!  She is great at cleaning up.

As quickly as possible, the bird feeder goes back up to await the birds.

Jenna then proceeds to pretend she's a Hoover and starts sucking up whatever seeds and hulls hit the ground below.  She loves to ring the bell to go out in order to eat the seeds.

Fortunately for me, Jenna's love of bird seed recently showed her guilt.  On the second morning we were in the new house, Mommy was walking by one of the guest rooms and noticed something that did NOT make her happy!  Remember our belongings hadn't arrived yet and so there was supposed to be nothing in the guest rooms.  Mommy saw that one of us had decided to make not one, but TWO of the guest rooms our new potty!  Upon further inspection during the clean up process, it was a no brainer (more like bird brainer) as to which of us was to blame.  Mommy and Jenna had a very long heart to heart during the clean up.  We aren't sure if Jenna rang the bell and Mommy slept right through it or if Jenna was protesting our new location.  Either way, at least I didn't have to take the blame!

Thankfully, there have been no other accidents since then.  Hopefully Jenna learned her lesson: if you're going to eat bird seed, don't be a bird brain!

Dixie

Duck, Duck, JENNA!

We have a small park near our house that we walk by every morning.  We've been hoping to take a swim in the pond and Mommy finally allowed us to do so.  We call this body of water a POND.  The locals call it a playa lake.  NOTHING about the size of this says LAKE to us.  It's way too small by our definition.  Wouldn't you agree?

Our vocabulary is really expanding in our new home.  The word playa is Spanish for beach.  These playa lakes collect run off water and sometimes dry up in the drier months leaving the playa below.  But we still think we should call this a playa POND instead!  And who thinks this looks anything like a beach?  Not us!

Mommy chose a morning when there weren't many other people around and when she had time to give us a bath afterwards.  We had a GREAT time!

Jenna thought she could WALK across the entire pond.  She wanted to go far out into the pond, but she'd turn right around when she realized she was sinking.  She wasn't crazy about swimming too far.  Mommy said she'd be sure to take a few floating toys next time to encourage Jenna to swim out farther.  I had fun with Jenna in the water, but I also preferred to watch from the safety of the shore.

Jenna played and played.  She'd run out into the water, swim back, chase me around the grass like a mad woman, and then do it all over again!

Until she saw the DUCKS . . .

There are usually several ducks on the pond in the mornings.  Mommy tried to choose a spot where we wouldn't see them, but they heard us and started moving around.  Jenna tried to walk out as far as she could to "get" them, but of course she could only walk so deep.  She then decided to use her deductive reasoning skills and run around the entire pond to get closer to them!  That was awfully smart of her, but the ducks were smarter.  They realized if they stayed in the middle of the pond Jenna could only "walk" out so far!

Usually Jenna listens really well to commands, but she was very distracted by the DUCKS!  She was in BIG trouble when Mommy got a hold of her!

I hope she had fun!  Actually, we both had fun.   The real question is, was it worth what we had to go through upon our return? 

Neither of us is a big fan of BATHS!

I guess all good things must come to an end . . .  [sigh]
Dixie

Belated Birthday Greetings

We slipped up and forgot to wish someone in the family a special birthday a month ago!  We've been quite forgetful lately (Happy belated anniversary to Uncle W and Aunt C).

Our dear sweet cousin Hank turned ONE!  He's gone from this . . .

to this . . .

He's quite handsome, don't you think?  We personally like the way he perpetually looks like he's been standing in the mud.  That would come in handy when we've actually been standing in the mud!  Of course Mommy stops us from getting in mud that deep, but still . . .

We haven't heard any "good" Hank stories lately, so he must be pretty well settled in with my grandparents.  He does like to keep an eye and ear on the wildlife in the neighborhood and let them know who's boss of the area.  Good boy, Hank!

We knew you'd want to join us in wishing Hank a belated birthday too!  Happy Birthday, Hank!

Love,
Dixie and Jenna

Goat Heads

Previously we mentioned our yard has goat heads in it.  Yes, we've moved to a wild, foreign land within our own country, but we aren't raising livestock.  Mommy says Jenna and I are enough!

What we have is a weed called Puncturevine and puncture it does!  This little pain in the paw is also called a sandbur, sticker bur, sand spur, and what one of Daddy's co-workers called it, a goat head.  If you look closely, you might see the resemblance?

Mommy stepped on a couple of these hiding out in our carpet shortly after we moved in!  She said they hurt like the dickens.  And she was right!  She's hoping the vacuum has sucked them all up by now, but you never know. 

See that lovely flower?  It's the weed that produces those horrible pesky critters.  (Can you call it a critter if it's a plant?)  This isn't in our yard, but it's probably only a matter of time before it blows our way!

We've told you we're out walking every morning bright and early.  We kind of have to since we can't get much exercise in our back yard.  One morning right after we left the house, Mommy noticed I had a piece of dead grass attached to my foot.  She pulled me over to help me be rid of it and noticed this wasn't just any piece of dead grass.  It was this horrible weed.  I had FIVE spurs stuck to my paw!  She helped me pull them out and then noticed one had broken off in one of my pads.  [sigh]  Sweet Mommy suffered through until she had every last piece pulled out of my foot.  It was awful, but thankfully over quickly.

I hope I don't have to encounter another goat head, but I have the feeling that won't be the last of 'em!
Dixie