Snow on Jan. 25

The beagle isn't much for snow. About 1.5 inches on the ground.

Dog Update

My dog has lost 15 lbs in the past 3 months. She's got so much more energy!

Snow in February 2012

It's been a crazy warm winter, but today we got treated to a fluffy snow fall. The flakes are so big, that I measured a few spots of 2.5 inches. It's really more like 1.5 or so. Anyway, a good show!

Pongo

Molly

First Snowfall

The dogs are enjoying the snow this morning. This is the front yard at the house...


I took this picture earlier today. We have a fresh coating of snow, and the garden is covered.

2 Dogs, a Pig, and an Orchard Store

Today, I drove down to Butlers Orchard to pick up a pumpkin. Since the dog park is on the way, I decided to bring the dogs with me. On my way down there, I encountered a PIG wandering outside its enclosure. I thought I'd seen it all, but a PIG?!?

The Big Woods bridge is still not finished. If they keep working on it, I think it will be done by mid-December.

The dogs enjoyed running around the dog park.

Today's Route

My usual commuting route will be unavailable since RR track work is being done near the intersection of Ijamsville Road and Musseter Road. So, I decided to take MD 75 instead. But first, let's start at the house.

I left the house about 8:30 this morning. It was quite frosty, so I used my car starter before stepping into the vehicle. Pongo was apparently amused by the smell of his frosty gift pile, but we digress. I had forgotten to pick up the yard waste can from yesterday, so I'll have to put that on my to-do list this evening.

Up the street at the gazebo near the trail entrance, a dozen or so parents and kids await the school bus, which for some strange reason, stops at the end of a narrow street to the east, then has to make a painfully slow turn to go down to the gazebo and its nice HUGE parking area. This doesn't make much sense to me. Why is there a school bus that late any way? What time does school start, 9 am?

Down to Boyers Mill Road, and a young buck bounds from west to east across the street. That little spot could be dangerous as he was hidden from my view until the last second, and did I mention he was bounding?

Since I chose MD 75 today, I had to go all the way into town (New Market) on Old National Pike (MD 144). A jogger with 2 dogs and a school bus about to pull out from dropping off kids made it pretty interesting. It was pretty slow going through Monrovia, but once the huge moving trailer (for construction equipment?) turned left, I was moving nicely. An interesting little area is near the Green Valley Vet Center... there's some sort of animal farm with what looked like an ostrich. Now horses and cows are pretty typical along this route.

Everything was honky dory all the way to MD 355, with a poor little dead fox on the way. A quick little jaunt on MD 109 to get on I-270 and I was back up to speed. Nice flow to the traffic, fairly light although it was a bit after 9 by this point.

From there to the office, just typical navigating. I was hoping for a parking spot at the front side of the bldg today to avoid the construction and the new speed bumps, but like I said, it's after 9, so I get an okay spot on the sunny side. My car will be nice and warm when I go to lunch.

Molly, the dumb dog

Molly likes to go after flying insects of all kinds. Butterflies and moths like to hang out around the flowers around the house. Molly tries to capture them. This is all fine and dandy if it were just butterflies and moths. It's also a bunch of bees and wasps!

You'd think she would stop after getting stung. Either the bees aren't stinging her or she's the stupidest dog ever because she keeps going after the bumblebees! I keep yelling "Molly you don't want THAT one!!!".

Today's cool event was watching 2 hawks (I think) flying towards the lake. I kept hearing a loud squealing noise, and noticed one of the birds had a small animal in its talons.. Couldn't tell if it was a rabbit, squirrel or something similarly small in size.

Woof!

The dogs have figured out the yard and are really enjoying running around now. Pongo actually is down 5 pounds since his previous weigh in back in May. Haven't had the "Squirrel Test" yet, but they have passed the "Walking Dog Test".

I transferred the corn over to the garden on the south side of the house. All of them are looking good. Hopefully, they will get taller and produce real corn this time. I didn't get much of anything last time.

The tomatoes are producing now. Have 4 tomatoes so far. These tomatoes are bigger than I thought they'd be. Sort of like huge grapes.

Fence Progress

After seeing the dogs display shyness during Week 1 of "Correction Training", they seem to have recovered to understanding that only the flags are bad, not the whole yard. It's good to see them enjoying the yard to its fullest. Hopefully, they won't get shy again.

Meanwhile, the robins have flown the coop. And every time I fill the bird feeder, my "guests" empty it out in like one day. I actually saw a hummingbird the other morning at the other feeder out front. Maybe its time to refresh with fresh sweet water.

Only One Left

The dogs got a hold of another youngster yesterday. It flew towards the nest and landed on the patio. I tried to grab Molly to keep her from attacking, but wasn't able to get her in time. Pongo grabbed the bird too, so now only one young robin is left. Hopefully, it will be able to stay alive.

I can only do so much to keep my dogs away. Molly has that killer instinct in her when it comes to small animals like birds, rabbits, squirrels, etc. I was fairly surprised that Pongo joined in.

The dogs have begun to figure out the fence. They are close to being ready for off-leash supervision. To this point, I've let them run with leash attached just in case they did something. I just hope they learn to enjoy the yard without getting the correction. It's an Invisible Fence.

Molly & Pongo's Great Adventure - Part 2

So, I go to Pep Boys and they say I'm looking at 1.5-2 hours before being ready. It's about 5:00 pm, so it's looking like 6:30 - 7:00. I decide to walk the dogs over to the Pet Smart. We go waste about 1.5 hours over there, and then return to Pep Boys. I was able to watch my car getting serviced.

So, 7:15 rolls around, and I'm paying for the work on the car, but I have a softball game in Gaithersburg at 8:15pm. If I go back home to drop off the dogs, I miss all of game 1. So, I decide to grab some snacks at the gas station (trail mix rocks!) and drive down to the park with dogs in tow.

The games went well (we won both!), and the dogs behaved just great. They were beat from all the excitement, so not much energy left. I ended up getting home just past 11:00pm.

Did I mention I didn't get to sleep until about 10 til midnight and woke up this morning at 4:30 am? Ah yes, thank God the pets cooperated this morning.

Molly & Pongo's Great Adventure

Ever have one of those days? Yesterday was one for me. It all started when my foot started itching overnight, and I got woken up again by a ringing phone on my day off. So, I'm up early and not feeling well-rested.

A comical series of errors then unfolded. Hubby and I were going to drive separate cars to the office parking lot and then I drop him off at the Metro. Well, we dilly-dallied our way through lunch and ended up rushing. We ended up in one car. Oh, and the dogs came with us. I wanted to take the pups to the Ridge Road Dog Park after dropping him off.

So, everything is honky dory until I get to the park. That's when I notice a hissing noise on my back left tire. It's a jagged metal loop sticking into the rubber... a FLAT! So, here it is mid 90s with dewpoints near 70 and I have two dogs and a flat tire. So, I put the dogs inside the dog park fence so they don't get super hot while I try to take care of the tire.

I get the jack out and the donut tire and the piece you put into the edge of the jack to get it to go up/down is missing. I end up trying a small screwdriver. I got it high enough to get the flat off, but not high enough to put the donut on. I end up calling roadside assistance. So, I go inside the park to wait with the dogs and play with them, resuming my original plan. Might as well try to salvage the trip and get the dogs running around.

After about an hour, the donut's on the car and I need to find a place to patch the flat. I can't commute around here on a donut (50 mph limit). I end up going to Pep Boys.

Invisible Fence

We have started training the dogs on the Invisible Fence. Hopefully in about a month or so, we can just let them out in the morning and go do their business. It will be nice for the dogs to be able to run around in the yard. We just have to teach them to respect the boundary.