Awards:
I will never forget my first blogger Award. I was so thrilled and, since I was new to blogging, those early awards helped me feel more confident. After a few years, I decided to simplify my blogging experience, and making my blog award free was a part of that.
I recently got two new Awards, and though I can't accept them, it feels great to be appreciated by other bloggers. So I want to acknowledge the three friends who thought of me here.
First: Janie Junebug ~ Mom to Franklin the dog, film reviewer, writer, editor, grammar police, and all around loyal comment writer and wonderful blogger friend. Please check Janie's blog out here. Thank you Janie for thinking of me.
Juliet Bond and Regina Gort share a very special blog called City Muse Country Muse, which I was fortunate to discover during the latest A to Z Challenge. During the Challenge, they posted an original poem for each letter, each day! A sort of challenge within the challenge, to say the least. Their poems, as well as the guest poems they post, are thought-provoking, sometimes stunning, and always very, very good. There are many other fun things going on over at their blog, which you can check out here. Thank you Juliet and Regina for the award.
Dogs:
Samson is doing very well. He was thrilled that you missed him and we are now discussing his next post.
Samson
Soldier
Poor Soldier has been really sick to his stomach. Poor me, I have cleaned up after him, middle of the night, and so on ~ I will spare you the details. Of course his vet was on vacation, but I had a really informative discussion with a vet tech and learned some about the digestive systems of dogs. For example: You don't have to worry until about day four or so of zero poop after a diarrhea episode. Soldier was on day 3 1/2, and I was freaking out, when the long awaited poop finally arrived. At her suggestion, I also bought some probiotics for the dogs. Soldier is doing OK now.
Me:
I am feeling the best I have felt in the past three years. I walk the dogs early every morning. Samson and I walk around the barn as fast as I can manage, counting laps like true athletes. I'm getting pretty fast, tearing around there, while Samson is getting bored with walking in a circle, and is now picking up on how much fun it is to come to a dead stop right in front of me. I swear he's laughing. But he's gained even more weight, so I tell him this is something we both have to do.
A work in progress
While my husband is washing down walls, cleaning blinds, windows, and really deep-cleaning the whole house, I'm dusting books and not moving nearly as fast as he. But my bookcases are getting filled now and will soon be done. After that I need to wash my fine china, and ...no, I won't polish my silver, no one comes here to eat with silver, but I will wash the stuff before I put it back in the china cabinet.
Springtime in the Canyon:
As far as springtime in the canyon goes, well that's simple: We haven't had any. It looks like above, bone dry and boring. A little scary too. High winds for weeks, fire hazard already high. One day there was so much smoke from that fire north of Los Angeles, about 50 miles away from here, that I had to stay indoors. I couldn't see the mountains, it was that thick. And I couldn't even take the laundry off the line, it was so difficult to breathe. Record heat is expected for the weekend. But still, I'm glad I don't live where there are tornadoes and worry about my blogger friends who do.
Spring 2011
Same field, spring 2013
This was our front yard. We had to clear it for fire safety by June 15 every year, but it would always grow back the following spring. There is nothing but dirt there now.
Different colored flowers would appear each year here in our back yard. Up on the mountain, there were fields upon fields of all sorts of beautiful spring flowers. Nothing this year. And not a single bloom on our lilac bush.
I'm beginning to worry about the hundreds, if not thousands, of juniper trees on our property. Maybe I don't need to worry since they have survive for hundreds of years, but some of them are beginning to look a bit worse for wear.
At least we still get beautiful sunsets here.
Have a nice weekend!
