Smorgasbord

I filled this bird feeder the other day wondering why I had not filled it for a few years. Well, I pulled into the driveway the other day a few hours later and found this bold little thief chowing down.

Oh yeah, that's why I stopped filling it. My intent is not to provide an all you can eat buffet for the squirrels in our yard. We do enjoy watching the birds though so I put baffles on most of our other feeders.

This cute little guy certainly enjoyed the free meal. He at least got a little nervous when he realized I was taking pictures.

Not for long though. I guess I will have to go get one of those squirrel proof feeders my sister Dlyn talked about.

In the meantime I noticed this little guy's squirrel suit is a bit tighter than it was. Glutton!

Cutest puppy in the world!

I am sure you all agree!

Weigh in day!

Woohoo! I lost 1.6 this week. Go me!
So lets see that leaves me 19.6 pounds more to lose.
Right on track! I still have 2 months until my goal date June 1st.

I am exercising more and though I hate to admit it that is making me feel so much better. Come on back next week and see how I'm doing.
I found these little guys in my one of my flower beds this last weekend.

Spring clean-up

It was lovely here this last weekend. The temperatures were in the high 40's and 50's and Saturday was beautiful and sunny. We took advantage of the day and started our spring clean up.

I want to take this moment to tell you about one of my worst gardening faux pas. Several years ago we realized we had termites. One night as we sat quietly watching a movie, Jackaroo suddenly leaped onto the couch peering over the side alerting us that something was amiss. We realized the floor was moving with millions of termites. EEEWWWWWWWW! Extremely disconcerting to say the least. Apparently in the spring termites hatch and a swarm leaves the nest in search of a new place to start a colony. They just couldn't find a way out of our house.

We hired an exterminator and they got rid of the vermin. But, they told us we should not use mulch in the gardens next to the house because it might attract more termites. Who would want that to happen. Well certainly not us!

So we got some gravel and replaced the mulch. For a time I was ok with it but the honeymoon was short lived. So here is my upper garden with the ugly stones.

I hate the way it looks and it keeps my flowers from growing well. So Saturday I decided that was it. Termites be damned! They've been gone for years and this garden is next to the deck not against the house. The stones are history! I am also going to pull up that landscaping cloth and replace it with cardboard. Just my way of leaving less plastic behind in the world. And I am going to use mulch!

This is one of my favorite gardens. It's full of day lilies my sister dlyn gave me plus a really nice peonie that was here when we bought the house. My one rose bush is there too and I also have a bunch of daffodils and crocus growing there. I think while I am working this garden I am going to add a clematis too. I hope to have the finished garden for you to see in a couple months.In the meantime we will be continuing to clean up the winter and hopefully we will see the last of it soon. Its been a long one.

Babies gotta play!

Ok, I know I said I would do my Frontdoor/Backdoor meme today but I got busy training with Kindle and we went for a nice long walk in the woods. so, the meme will have to be tomorrow.
In the meantime I found this on YouTube and its so adorable I had to share it with you all.
Enjoy!

Almost me again

I am pretty much back among the land of the living. I even managed to get a layer of dog hair out of the house today.
Tomorrow, my Front door Back door meme.

Sick day!

I feel rotten today. I have been nursing a bad cold, cough thing since last Friday and I am not happy about it!
It's nice outside. I could be trimming things and raking or cleaning up the screen porch. But here I am on the couch.

Oh I have stuff to do, lesson plans to write, behavior clients who need their programs tweaked, and I can be productive even feeling like a zombie.

But....its St. Patrick's day and I am going to miss all the fun! We hang out at a little Irish pub in Ayer and of course today is a big day for them. It's called J.P. O'Hanlon's and it is our home away from home. I always joke if we don't show up on Friday night, they call the house to check on us.

No green beer here just good Irish music, food and awesome beers! It's always a fun time and we join our good friends Hal and Irene and pretend we're Irish for the day. Well, actually Hal is Irish, but the rest of us, just wannabes. Here they are last year decked out for the day.

Today they will have to celebrate without me. I am sure they will not appreciate my spewing germs as I hack into my Guinness and really I don't even think I could taste it.

So Happy St. Paddie's day to ye. I wish ye all lots of craic, but not too much since I won't be there.

(Don't know what Craic is. Go look it up, and yes its legal!)

Our little Niagara Falls

Just around the corner from our house there is this beautiful waterfall. I love to go there and just watch the water.
We stopped by after our hike on Sunday. Look what a gorgeous day we had.

Now listen!

Weigh-in day!

Well folks it was bound to happen. I gained this week, .8 lbs. But not to worry I am back on the wagon. However if you want to encourage me, bring it on!

I have another commitment I am putting up here as of today. I am committing to exercising at least 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. I figure its the best way to speed-up this process. So I will update you all on my exercise progress as well as my weight loss.

Check back for my loss next week.
I'll leave with the cute puppy pic!

AAAHH! More snow!

Ok, I am really trying not to go stark raving mad but geez, how much snow do we have to have?

I officially have spring fever. I am so ready to plant something, put my agility equipment back in the yard. I want to de-winterize the camper and pack it up for a dog show. I want to grill burger and sit on the screen porch with a beer.

But not yet. Yesterday it was over 60 degrees and we trekked through the woods practically in shirt sleeves. But today it was snowing when I got up at 6:30 and continued for most of the day. So now we have about 4 new inches of snow that will have to melt. If my crocuses were coming up I can't tell now. Oh well, I keep telling myself this can't last forever!

Here are some pictures of our trek in the woods yesterday. I have been training Kindle to run off leash and she is doing really great. They all had a great run except Tyler who was looking a little too gimpy to go with us.

There was much running
Lots of play!

Arguments over the best sticks

A bit of resting now and again.

Even when we were done they wanted to go again!

Doesn't Scott look relaxed after our hike?

This is fun but I am looking forward to hikes with warm breezes and being able to shed all the winter layers.

Weigh-in day!

I know you have all been on the edge of your seats today just waiting to hear how I fared the last week.
I am happy to say I lost 1.6 lbs. woohoo!!!
So that leaves 20.4 lbs to go!

Tasha is happy for me too!

Jackaroo's games

The intensity with which Australian Cattle Dogs do everything is one of the things I love about the breed. They have an amazing ability to focus on the task at hand, sometimes to the detriment even of their own safety. It's what makes them so good at herding cattle. They go at it with a fearless verve that I find, well, fascinating. (You can picture me here with my eyebrow raised in Mr. Spock-like fashion.) It's also why our vet has become a friend. We have had to visit quite often.

I am sure Jackaroo is not all that special as cattle dogs go, but to me he is extremely special. He just lives life with wild abandon, well with as much abandon as he can manage anyway. I have to manage his wild abandon. For instance, the first week he lived with us, he figured out he could sit on the stairway in the living room and wait for an unsuspecting older dog to walk by, then he'd launch himself on top of them with joy and abandon. I ended this with the addition of a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs.

He has always played or worked with that same intensity, always. He also has invented some fascinating games (there goes that eyebrow again).

You see, we used to have a bunch of saplings in our back yard. If you look here next to Scott's workshop there is a little knoll and the yard slopes down behind it.
The saplings were there. Were being the operative word. Jackaroo systematically removed them. He figured out if he ran full tilt and launched himself in the air (practiced on the stairs as a pup) at the knoll he could "fly" a few feet and latch onto a small tree about 4 feet off the ground. He would hang there for a few seconds bending the tree and then drop to the ground. He repeated the whole exercise over and over until he broke the tree then joyously raced around the yard with the tree in his mouth dragging it leaves and all like a trophy. This activity resulted in a forest of spire-like trunks we had to cut down.

I only wish I had a video camera back then.
Now a days Jackaroo is waiting for new trees to grow so in the meantime he waits for branches to fall into the yard so he can annihilate them. I caught a little activity recently.

That dog knows how to live!