The Joy of Spring: in which Bailey and Gracie practice their dance moves and destroy the newly-seeded lawn.

Introducing the Participants:

 

Miss Bailey, Dowager of the Estate

Duchess Gracie, Paragon of Propriety

Introduction to the Dance

 

Pas de Deux

 

Pirouette

Sacrifice of the Lamb

(That's a non sequitur)

Armageddon:  The Performance

(At least it was cheap grass seed!)

Gracie & the Blizzard of 2013

Friday night I went to sleep, confident in the certainty that certain things--like the landscape--generally stay the same.  I don't know why this makes me feel good, but I'm a dog.  A creature of habit.

Saturday morning, THIS is what I found:

Nothing was the same.  I may as well have awakened on a remote asteroid!

 

When I decided that I had to conduct my morning ritual, I couldn't even get through the door.  What is a diminutive, four-footed creature such as myself to do?

 

Groceries?  Dog food?  Forget it!  Nobody was going ANYWHERE!
 

I found myself in a sort of (Kerry) blue funk.  This was getting old very quickly!

 

Buster--never one to leave his feelings unknown--began to howl and bay at the moon.  Well, there wasn't a moon.  But if there had been, he would have bayed at it.  

 I thought I would walk over to the gate and look around.  Gate?

 Bailey put on her fashionable red sweater and strutted down the ramp, only to hit a wall.  Not elegant.

Winter is not to my liking.  My agent shall hear about this.

Your friend,


Gracie
 

Our Summer--by Buster, Bailey, & Gracie

This is Buster, returning after a long absence.  My human keyboarder with the opposable thumbs has again ignored my pleas and entreaties to keep our blog properly maintained.  So I threatened to allow the chipmunks to continue their excavation of the back yard.

Sigh....Summer's over, and it was much too brief! 

Our sojourn at Camp in the People's Republic of New Hampshire allowed me and Bailey and Gracie the Parvenu Mommy's-Favorite Usurper Diva-Pup to renew our acquaintance with our buddy, Big-Bird.

Bailey practiced her butt-poses while waiting for red squirrels to come within disembowelment-range.

I practiced my Synchronized Aerobic Napping, taking care to pace myself and not over-do it.

Silver-fringed Fritillaries feasted upon the rudbeckia...

The humming-gluttons arrived and tanked up on sugar-water, going into hyperglycemic frenzies.

I asked one little girl to pose for Dad's camera, so she froze her wings in position for a split-second.

These birds are certifiably crazy.  The feeder sometimes resembles a Roman arena with diminutive, usually-female gladiators fighting each other to exhaustion.

At times, we would just sit on the deck and count the sun-rays reflecting off the pond...

Momma's Darling, pampered Gracie-Come-Lately assumed a classic Bailey-pose on the deck.

Monsieur Loon took all the really good trout before Dad could get them!

The sunlight reflecting upon the bill was a nice touch.  He mocks lesser fishermen!

Autumn came, and the days grew shorter.

We started to put things away for the winter, and I began to dream of long nights under a warm quilt.

Although one more visit remains to take in the dock and secure the water pump and plumbing, we bade farewell to the Pond and its creatures.

There's some extraordinary news regarding Gracie the Favored One, but I'll let Mom relate that if I can convince her to HELP US MAINTAIN THIS BLOG (!!!!)

Your friend,

Buster

 

More Critters! by Buster

Buster here, reporting from Critter-Central, with news of more new friends who have the good fortune NOT to be primates!

 

 My very favorite, of course, is Ms. Mallard--who has constructed her nest among the daffodils, precisely two feet from the most trafficked sidewalk in the region!  The little ones are expected within a day or two.

This should be exciting when pedestrians find themselves assaulted by small, yellow quacking fuzz-balls.

Then there's the Crazed Goose Family.

Aggressive, noisy, ostentatious!

They chase each other around with seemingly murderous intent and much display.

 

The reason?

You guessed it.

They mate for life and defend their awkward, diminutive wee ones with every weapon in the arsenal.

Mr. and Ms. Barn Swallow are hard to capture--they will not stay still.  Most of the time, they're doing aerobatics and swooping down on hatching mayflies.

Then there's Yertle.  Quite proud of his paint-job.  And about as fast as a three-toed slot in deep REM sleep.

Finally, this morning, I found a new friend skulking about in my front yard...

WABBIT!

Bailey tells me that my eyes lit up as though I were reading a dinner menu.

I LIKE wabbits!

Those are today's critters.  I'll have more soon!

Your friend,

Buster

Springtime--and another edition of "My Critters" --by Buster

Ah, Spring!  Buster the Amateur Zoologist at your service, with the latest report on new critters I've discovered in the neighborhood of Chez Buster. 

First, we have Mr. Redtail.  Every morning, there would be a pile of dove feathers--but no dove!  A mystery, to my thinking!  What could be separating doves from dove-feathers with such efficiency?

Then, the dove-feather-separator made his appearance in person!  Or rather, in raptor...

Cute little guy, don't you think?  I love his fuzzy feet.

Okay--one more picture!  Just to demonstrate Mr. Redtail's total disdain for table manners...

Next, we have Mr. Wood Duck.  I was disturbed by the sound of quacking from a tree above me.  Ducks are not supposed to perch.  Then Bailey told me that there's one duck that does. 

 

 These guys are kind of "designer ducks."  They're just too darned pretty to have evolved in typical fashion.  I like to think that a mad Celtic Child-Goddess began playing one day and came up with the design.

Finally, I present that rare accompanying species to the three-toed sloth, Bailibeastus somnolensis.

 

In its natural habitat, this creature is a formidable night-time competitor.  The Olympic-class sleeping organism of the animal world.  The REM Master of dogdom.

That's all for today!

I'll have more to report after Dad and I go shark-fishing in the Farmington River.

Your friend,

Buster

 

Happy St Patty's Day from the Old Sod of Cheshire-on-Quinnipiac, in the Land of the Algonquian Bards!  I, Bailey, am honoring the day with a Don O'Ho-style Shamrock Lei.  The style was perfected by Sean O'Kitsch during a performance at Foxwoods Casino.

Buster, having imbibed an adequate supply of the Nectar of the Gods, is busy cleaning his ample muzzle.

And in the spirit of Green Things, let me introduce Buster's new buddies--the Wood Ducks!

These little guys are pure emerald, with flashes of orange, white, and grey.  Like the Wee Ones took out a paintbrush and designed a duck, just to be pretty.

Cheers,

Bailey

 

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot

Hi, folks!  Buster, the Chronicler of New Lands, at your service, with an account of an extraordinary find:  a new world right in my back yard!

I was innocently walking down the street with my faithful manservant, seeking the usual three hundred places to leave my autograph for adoring fans, when we came upon a sign...

Beyond the sign lay a path.  It had not been there before.  So I decided that this was an opportunity to display decisive leadership!  I began towing my reluctant valet forward to see where it led.

Someone had placed markers along the route.  Markers!  Plainly, for the purpose of Marking!  I set to work!

The trail soon reached a river.  Perhaps the Styx?  It did look a little gloomy!

 

There were concrete structures placed here and there.  I surmised that these liths must be either objects of aboriginal worship or perhaps the  Tomb of the Unknown Terrier!

My lackey muttered something about sitting down, and I assured him that such an act would be viewed as sacrilege by the natives.

We set off again and followed the river, rather like Dr. David Livingstone's search for the ultimate source of the Nile.   

U

I do confess, it turned out to be a surprisingly beautiful river!  My squire suggested that this might be the legendary Quinnipiac, named after a now-extinct tribe of the Algonquian people.  The name itself means “original people,” and they inhabited the Wampanoki or “Dawnland.”

I summoned my manservant to find the courage to go further.

Undiscovered species of lichen beckoned.  The lackey scribbled in his notebook, and I urged him forward.

Hmmmmmm....  Another sign!  Remarkably, it must have been constructed by the same tribe that built the first. 

I think we have discovered the mythical civilization of Terrier Incognita Australis!  I shall mark the occasion and plant the flag for Queen and Country!

Plainly, this appears to be an advanced civilization.  Their dwellings bear a remarkable resemblance to those of civilized people!

Strangely, the trip home took all of five minutes!  I can only conclude that we felicitously came upon a rare, space-time anomaly--a Black Hole--and transported ourselves across the Known Universe to our very own back door!  Quantum Entanglement.  Superposition of States.  I will leave the details to Her Majesty's Mathematicians to explain for future generations...

Your faithful correspondent,

Buster