Early and late

When I was putting the blog entry about the garage together, I realized that I didn't take any photos of the garage itself, so I am including a few photos that Freda took with her cell phone.

This photo was taken after the garage door frames were moved. We asked for 9'6" doors, which was the biggest that could fit in the space so that's what she drew on the plans.  The contractor realized that size of doors wouldn't fit because of the chimney, but he built it that way anyway, and then had to go and change it!  Doh!  Note that the window on the far side of the garage is not installed yet in this photo.

This is after the window was installed.

This is the view of the door to the back yard.  Tawny is standing on the steps to the new mud room.

Tawny enjoying sniffing at the Bruce Pit dog park.  A gorgeous day.

Taz and Tawny saying hello to another dog at Bruce Pit.  You would think their tails would get tired, because they are wagging constantly for the entire time that they are there.  Perhaps that's one reason why they are totally exhausted afterwards.

Christmas doggies

It was really nice to be home in Ottawa at Christmas.

Tawny often came and sat right in front of me.  Sometimes she laid down on my feet like she does.  She's a good girl.  It's hard to believe she's going to be 9 in March.  Time has flown by and now she's considered a senior dog.

Snow - Christmas Day
It seemed like the temperature plummeted and the snow started as soon as I got to Ottawa.   When I arrived from Regina, it was raining but it turned to snow on the drive home.

Taz, the big whiny cry baby, loves curling up in this chair, so Freda keeps a sheet on it to try to keep it clean...  Taz is a senior dog too, as he will be 9 in June.  He's been with us for four years now.

Waiting for Freda to come home
Freda was out, either at work or shopping or something, and the doggies were expecting her.

Pretty sights!

 
When I was getting the house ready for a showing, the Little Dickens and the Big Dickens jumped on the bed. You can tell that Tawny knows she wasn't supposed to be there because of the sheepish look on her face. (Oct 18th)
 
The gorgeous sunset was lighting up the bottom of the clouds. (Oct 18th)
 
We haven't had a hard frost yet! (Oct 20th)

A very British dog.

Taz is an unusual dog -- he loves tea!!! He doesn't like it hot though, so if we don't finish our tea, we pour the last bit out onto a plate or saucer, or a dog dish, for him to drink up. Here Taz is supremely concentrating - waiting for Freda say 'take it' as she has just poured some tea onto a plate for him.

Taz, the first coonhound to be a citizen of the Commonwealth.

Of course, I can't show you a photo of Taz without including one of Tawny. Here she is, goofing around and showing off that she found one of Taz's "bones" (rawhide rolls) that he dropped when we were out for a walk...

A Wet, Dirty Lab == A Happy Dog

We took the dogs out for a walk this afternoon. Tawny found a puddle. Well, more like a ditch with some water in it. She ran/splashed gleefully up and down the ditch (only about 5 feet long) and then lay down in it and used her nose to stir up the dirt and sediment. Why? Well, because she wasn't dirty enough before, obviously.

You can't see it in this photo, but the right side of her face is impressively filthy!

Deer in the back yard

It is supposed to get to 16C today! That will put an end to almost all of the snow, I think...

March 12, 2010
A nice photo of some deer in the neighbour's back yard. Freda took this photo from the car - it really turned out nicely. Maybe I'll post this one on the weather channel web site again.

I was in the back yard with the dogs, having lunch. And suddenly they went crazy - exploding towards the fence in a furious frenzy of barking and flying legs! Ah, of course - it's a deer! Fortunately I had the camera with me, and I even had it turned on also. Can you see the deer?

From where Tawny is, look left along the ground by the fence and you can see the deer. It is on our back property but is not in the fenced part. Taz is in mid stride, taking a sharp left turn as he reaches the fence!!

A follow-up photo of Taz and Tawny barking at the deer (marked). Their barking spooked it and it turned around and returned in the direction that it had come from.

I did a panorama photo of the back yard so you can see how much snow has melted. It's a nice clear day so you can see the Gatineau Hills in the distance.

Outdoor fun and yummy food!

We see these little birds frolicking in the snow every spring. We don't know what they are called. There actually must have been about a dozen or more of the birds, but I only managed to catch a couple in this photo (in the circles).

I tried to get an action shot of Tawny jumping the snow bank, and mostly succeeded!

After a hard afternoon of play, there is NOTHING better than a mouthful of nice, crunchy snow!

We had a special guest for supper, and so we barbecued salmon - with a maple chili glaze. I've made this before but this was the absolute best ever!! Lucky for our special guest!

Get out of bed, sleepyhead!!!

Get out of bed, Sleepy Head!!!

The dogs do love sleeping in on Monday! They had a hard weekend, all that excitement from watching the men's Olympic Gold Medal hockey game!!

Once we got outside, Tawny does love sniffing the air. She was playing with the stick that's just underneath her a moment before, but dropped it as soon as I got the camera out.

Weekend of nice weather and accomplishments

February 26, 2010 pano

You can see Tax and Tawny at the far left of the photo. One of Taz's ears looks funny - he must have been flipping his head around when I took this photo.

Tawny doing 'frog dog' in the snow and enjoying the sniffs. She really likes laying in the snow in the spring.

Tawny panorama - February 26, 2010

We cleaned up the basement this weekend. We took the bed upstairs after this photo was taken.

Yep, had to wear shorts today when we took the dogs out for their afternoon walk as it was so warm. No gloves, and didn't zip up my coat either. I had Taz on the leash because it took off for a big run in the morning and strained his leg.

We were dogsitting Max (little black schnauzer) this weekend. I tried to get a photo of Tawny catching the Kong, and this is as close as I could get. She did just catch it in this photo, and it's a great one of Max running too.

February 28, 2010

This plane flew really low overhead when we were out with the dogs.

When I was trying to turn the flash off so I could take a photo of the plane, I somehow got this pre-made border set up. That's why the photo of the plane shows it flying away from us. Anyway, after all that excitement, I took a photo to see what it looks like.

Caution: Dogs at Play

Photo taken February 17, 2010

On the way back from our morning walk, Tawny decided she wanted to lay in the snow. Of course, that was after she buried her nose in the snow trying to sniff something out.

Pano February 18, 2010

This is a small pano in the back 40, looking towards the house. Taz and Tawny are sniffing up a storm, of course.

Here Toffee is enjoying a taste of fresh snow - yum yum yummy!!! And in the background, Tawny is running around like a fool, of course.

I tried to get a photo of Tawny catching the Kong, but this was as close as I could get... It's harder to do that than you might think, if you are the person who is throwing the Kong as well as trying to take the picture.

Of course, after a hard morning of play, you have to have a reward!!! Here the dogs are all sitting pretty, with a very tasty treat of dried chicken in front of them. They are certainly all well behaved --- good doggies!!

Strange things

This entry is updated - see blue text below.

I had the misfortune of having to take a sudden trip to Edmonton. Actually, it was a misfortune for my whole family as the reason for the trip was my dad had a massive heart attack and passed away. That is the reason for the change of colour scheme on this blog - to indicate that the world has changed for us. We miss you Dad!!

February 11, 2010

When I was away, Freda was walking the dogs and noticed this strange alien looking claw sticking out of the snow. Freda had to use my old camera, which doesn't really work that well anymore, and this is what it captured. This 'claw' reminded me of ET, from the movie of that name.

Strangely, on the flight home from Calgary, I watched an old episode of Dick Tracy from the 1930s or so, and had a villain who was called The Claw. I am just guessing at the year of the movie as it was listed as 2009, which clearly it was not.

Yesterday we went and looked for The Claw and took another photo. I put my winter glove in the photo for scale, and you can see that the claw is huge!! It also looks a lot like it's from a large bird. Freda was talking with a friend Isabelle who said that it is a red-tailed hawk wild turkey. Apparently foxes bury their food for later consumption.


Red Tailed Hawk - photo taken August 8, 2009

I did take a photo of a pair of red-tailed hawks last August, unfortunately they were almost all fuzzy. This is the best photo that I have of a Red Tailed Hawk, it's only one of the pair because the other photos are blurry (sorry). As you can see from this photo, they are quite large birds. Yes, it is true that Red Tailed Hawks are large birds, but they are still too small for The Claw... (I should have thought of that before...)

We are dog sitting this week. Toffee joined us for a week in mid-February last year, and is visiting us again this year. Toffee is a yellow lab but has very different colouration from Tawny. It was a beautiful temperature this morning, so I got the dogs to sit at the end of our walk and pose for a picture. Aren't they cute?


Panorama February 16, 2010

I got the dogs to sit while I took 11 photos for a panorama, and this is the full panorama. As you can see, we haven't had much snow since January 1st, and of course the heavy rains that we had melted quite a bit of snow. Edmonton actually has more snow than we do here in Ottawa.

The dogs were very tired this evening, because we had a long walk this afternoon. As a result, they were all quite well-behaved. Freda wasn't though, as she's having some fun at Toffee's expense!!! haha :) But Toffee is a dog and doesn't mind at all.

Little Red Riding Hood

Our very own Little Red Riding Hood.

Well, maybe not red so much as fuschia... And maybe not a Riding Hood so much as a throw blanket... But Taz is ours, or are we his? or something like that....

Still cold

It was really cold yesterday (Tuesday, Dec 29th) and the dogs did not want to stay out too long. I didn't either, so I didn't take the camera out. It was starting to get milder today, although it was still quite cold this morning. This is a close up of the brush that is still encased in the ice from the freezing rain. The ice decorations tinkled lightly in the breeze, like glass wind chimes, and as the dogs ran around, brushing by them.

This afternoon, Tawny sat by the fence watching for Freda to return. You can see the virtually all of the ice has falled off the sugar maple.

While Tawny was outside waiting for Freda, Taz was inside trying to nap on the couch. Taz feels the cold a lot more than Tawny so he doesn't stay out when it is chilly. I am fascinated by how he can curl his huge body up into such a small space.

This is just a photo of a pear. But what a pear - look how huge it is!