wiener woes

The weather has been so incredibly nice this past week...70s!  Low humidity!  We had a bit of smoke from the Canadian wildfires, but so many blue-sky days.

Crews have been hard at work, clearing the debris from the recent tornado at our park.

We see their daily progress.  Pepita, however, is not watching.  She's pulling...toward the car.

She is not a fan of our daily routine.  She sometimes slips her harness and makes a run for it...

...or balks until Todd carries her.

I've never had a dog that doesn't LOVE to go on walks.  We might have to let a professional handle this problem!  She's definitely the most stubborn and opinionated dog ever.  Her dachshund % is front and center!

This means bona fide access to an endless assortment of slightly off-color "wiener dog" bumper stickers.  I am all in! I may or may not have both of these...

...and a few more that I haven't gotten the nerve to use yet!  :)  

More beautiful moths...

virgin tiger moth

...and caterpillars this week.

virginia creeper sphinx moth caterpillar

And just-missed butterflies!

empty pipevine swallowtail chrysalis 

I loved seeing this ringed assassin bug too.

Other goodies...a big pile of chanterelle mushrooms, which are a delicacy (we left them alone)!

And more surprises!  I saw this "pile of leaves" against a back fence.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was a newborn fawn...with its leg caught in the fencing?

This had to be remedied, but carefully.  Deer can be really violent with those hooves, and I had no idea where the mother was...but probably close.  I didn't want to get between her and her baby.  But when I got closer in my attempt to free him...

...he jumped up and fled.  Not caught after all!  There are so many newborns around, more than I've ever seen in a single season.  I saw a different mother and fawn pair yesterday in the park, too, and I see these two...or another couple...every day or so in the back field.  

Now the weather's getting hot again, though, and more time inside.  Trying to get work done...

trying to work on my computer with a sleeping cat on my arm...

 trying to get some eBay photography done with a"helper"

...and even finishing a couple of puzzles in my spare time!

I'm really going to get back into more creative projects soon, but in the heat of summer with little motivation, a good podcast and a good puzzle make a nearly unbeatable pair.  

Here's hoping for more cooler weather soon!

the upper crust

The temperature has not yet risen above freezing, so the snow remains. We actually had a bit more!

Freezing fog, too.

Looked so pretty with the sunrise!

Rabbit tracks in the snow.  And...those lumps to the left of the track are from moles!  They're trying to poke through the frozen earth and snow layer because they're looking for food.  They aren't hibernating, like many other small creatures.

Lots of sun.

A lot of these photos are from the same vantage points, because, well, we just can't go hiking yet!  The (unplowed) trails have over a foot of snow, and it's been cold. We've got to wait for some melt before we venture too far.  The snow has formed a crust, which means that Pepita can be outside for short periods.  Sometimes she falls through the crust, and I'm reminded of a section of Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter:

Pa often said that he could not have managed without David. “He is such a good horse,” Pa said. “I did not know a horse could be so good and patient.” When David fell through the snow, he always stood still until Pa shoveled him out. Then quickly and patiently he hauled the sled around the hole and went on until he fell through the snow crust again. “I wish I had some oats or corn to give him,” Pa said.

I never really experienced snow crust before.  It snowed, it was wet, and it melted.  But this crust is really firm...until you fall through it.  Pepita isn't a fan.  She's still mostly indoors, until the snow melts.

Her relationship with the cats is progressing.  It's a battle to see who wins the coveted spot at the edge of the couch back.  If The Barnacle wins, Pepita respects his victory, and hangs forlornly over the armrest.

see The Barnacle on the couch back?

There is frequent cohabitation on the bed.

They mostly get along...although Pepita's no-exercise restless energy and her natural nosiness are a bad combination.  She loves to follow the cats around, her nose pressed into any available bottom.  She never snaps, barks, or growls at them, but she can be persistently annoying and sometimes get a smack to the face.  I think things will continue to calm down as she gets older.  

Calliope doesn't like having Pepita in her space (upstairs) at all...

...so they remain separated.

The weather is supposed to warm up this week, and we might lose all the snow by the weekend!  Then we'll be able to get out again.  Right now (besides work), there's mostly puzzles...

(when the cats allow it)

...and a few personal projects that I'm not ready to post yet.  Lots of reading, with MORE cat assistance (current book is The Will of the Many, which is really good so far!).

I'm not complaining, though.  I love spending time with the animals!  :)  I miss seeing what "our" outdoor animals are doing...the snow is too deep between us and the trail cams to access them.  Hopefully soon...although I'll miss the snow.  

Have a great week!

history mysteries

(Sorry for republish...had to fix the video links!)

Really cold, but not much snow.  We did had a mini blizzard blow in last week!  I hastily shot a video (sound on!), but unfortunately, this only lasted for about ten minutes.  What a bluster, though!

Extremely low morning temperatures (7 degrees anticipated tomorrow) mean that Pepita isn't getting her regular walks...and she's become a little monster!  She has quite a lot of energy and spends a lot of time pestering the cats and invading their space...

"WHY is she HERE?!"

...and playing loudly with her toys.  She has a habit of dropping her toys off the couch and generally being too lazy to retrieve them, so she flops and grunts/howls until one of us obliges her, or she finally gives in and gets it herself.  This is a MINOR episode...she's usually much louder!

Meanwhile, the cats are being their usual rambunctious selves...

So these quiet winter days can actually be quite noisy!  Well...sometimes they're peaceful.

It's been so cold that I've been fretting about our outdoor animals.  We're keeping cat food in multiple locations outside for not just cats, but raccoons and other friends.

Bird feeders are full, drawing the usual crowd, including an unusual amount of cardinals!  A nice bit of color on grey days.

In my free time, I finished a puzzle this week...another one by Charley Harper.  I really enjoyed it and plan to get the whole series...eventually!  Right now, this is my only one.

I finished that embroidery project from a couple of years ago.  Regrettably, it is a little bit rough, but I'm pleased to have it finished and move on to something else.  Practice makes perfect!

I've been knitting again, slowly working on a sweater sleeve, and doing quite a bit of reading.  With Todd being sick/work flow interrupted, I've had so much more free time and have actually finished eight books so far this year!  The best has been I, Medusa, but my current book (The Buffalo Hunter Hunter) is pretty promising too (two thumbs down for the much-ballyhooed Theo of Golden).  I'm busting through podcasts and feeling very productive in general in 2026!

The old photo of Ruth last week reminded me of some other photos that I received in that batch of unwanted things from her son after her death.  Photos like this one, of my great grandparents, displaying their well-known love of animals and flowers.  I spent a lot of my childhood at their house and well remember the rose arch, the weeping willow, the hundreds of irises that my great grandma cultivated, and the big backyard, plowed up into rows for vegetables and flowers.

I have this letter from their son, who was my grandpa's brother.  He was a crew chief on a B-17 and a technical sergeant.  Many of his letters and telegrams were in this box.  Really evocative.  "I've toured England - seen all the things I studied in history etc. - and I've seen the horrors of war.  Death, destruction beyond comprehension, evacuees by the thousands, poor homeless kids and hundreds of things I never wanted to see hear or think again as long as life goes on."

I've read a lot about World War II and this is interesting on a broader level, but more specifically, it made me curious about family dynamics.  I was raised by my grandparents, with my great-grandparents just down the street, but my grandpa's brother Lawrence - "Lonnie" - was never around.  A rift had developed between the two brothers and Lonnie moved to Florida, never to return to Indiana.  I wondered at this letter.  Lonnie, the beloved older brother, had a rather glamorous role in World War II, living in England for years and working with war planes.  My grandpa joined the Navy as soon as he was old enough, but he was mustered out after basic training.  He had a heart murmur from a childhood illness, and he was deemed unfit, medically, to continue.  It must have been a crushing blow to the little brother who wanted to be a war hero.  Surely he was jealous.  Could this have led to the rift?  It's too late to find out...but I love these little clues.  This box of old family documents and photos is a real gift!  

I feel that even in these quiet months with many fewer wild creatures moving around, you can still be a bit of a "historian" about their past movements, just by seeing what was left behind.  Poking around the back barn while feeding the feral cats, I noticed a few interesting things.  Old wasp nests...

...and groundhog holes, although they weren't very visible this year.

Old barn swallow nests...

...and remnants of a hornet nest.

This was a pretty lively place last summer.  I'll have to pay more attention to it this year.

Have a great week!