River Pictures

Finally. November is almost over and I get a chance to get back on the computer. (Laura is finished her 50K for NaNoWriMo already. She is supposed to be working on her term paper for class today, but instead she is making soup, so I get the computer!)

I want to show you some more pictures of the special place where Laura and I go hiking near our home. These are pictures from one of our fall trips there. (Once Laura is done her classes for this term, maybe we can go back and take some winter pictures.)

You all know how much my friend Laura loves the water. Well, look at where we can walk to, right from our home:



I like the river too, because it is a good place to have a drink. (Laura hikes very far, and that makes me thirsty!)



In some places, the river isn't so quiet.



I can do this.



I am so brave!



Hey! Don't laugh! That was a big stream for a little puppy like me to cross all by herself!



You're still laughing, aren't you. I can hear you naysayers, betting that I won't do it, that I won't cross the big river...



... well, I'll show you!



That's me in that picture. Me. Princess Kendal. Fording the rapids.

Come on in, Laura! The water's nice and cool and it tickles my feet!



That was fun!



Once you are done playing in the water, you should shake really hard to get dry. If your human was too afraid to go in the water with you, be sure to stand really close to her when you shake. That way, she will at least be able to enjoy the river's watery goodness second hand.



I think I'll lie here for a bit now and rest.

Bathroom Blessing

Here is another video from our new home Blessing Party.

Laura and my Mum and our friends Loretta and Tammy and my best friend Claire are all blessing the bathroom.



Now, if you are ever visiting us and you have occasion to use the bathroom, and you notice how great the energy is in there, you will know why!

Tee-Hee

Here is a funny video from the blessing party for Laura and my new home.

That little boy who is always coming around was at the party, and while he was here, he went poop in the toilet. Apparently, this is a big deal for humans. I'm not sure what the attraction is. Those toilet things look scary and not at all comfortable. Me, I prefer a nice piece of soft grass. Anyhow...

Using the toilet is, as I've said, a big deal for humans. This little boy was so proud of himself that he made John sing and dance to celebrate:

It's Back

You may not have been following my friend Laura's writing blog lately -- because she's not been too active on it since last November -- but she's back now. And you know why: That frightful NaNoWriMo thing is rearing its ugly head again.

Laura has been planning for almost two months now, scribbling down notes on little pieces of card. She's also been planning to leave me home alone while she goes out and about on the town, meeting up with other NaNo participants in our city. Isn't it bad enough that she spends every waking moment sitting at her computer in November? Does she really need to go out socializing too? (Last year Laura attended "write-ins" online. She didn't need to leave our home to go to them and I got to sit right beside her. This year, however, she says she is going to "real world" write-ins. She says they are better. Humph!)

Anyhow, Laura does as Laura will, and she's doing NaNo again, so I apologize if I don't get much time on the computer in the next month to update my blog!

She did at least take me to my favourite park tonight. We didn't go last weekend, because Laura had a major paper to write for school, but we went tonight once it was nice and quiet. It was dark too, but I didn't mind that. I have a good nose and can sniff out the good paths!

Before the nice park, however, Laura made me go to that puppy park again. She really wants me to be friends with those rambunctious little ankle-biters for some reason. I just don't see the attraction. They are always horsing around. And they poke at my bum. Somebody should teach them better manners! There are nice people in the puppy park though. They stroke my ears and say what a good dog I am, and they tell the puppies not to bother me. I don't mind going to the puppy park so much when I get to visit with my nice human friends there.

New Friend

Hi everybody!

This is just a quick update, because we have limited access to the Internet at the moment, and Laura needs to use it for her work, but I wanted to let you know that we have been exploring in our favourite park again, and Laura finally remembered to bring the camera!

I don't have time to show you all of the pictures today, but I wanted to introduce you to my new friend:



This is me and my new friend Tuque.

Laura and I were resting in a quiet place at the water's edge, when Tuque came running through the forest to meet us. I knew right away that she was a nice dog, so I ran straight up to her to say hello.

Tuque didn't bark at me or try to climb on top of me or run into me or do any of those other rude things that some of the dogs Laura wants me to be friends with do, and I wasn't afraid of her at all.

Tuque has her own page on the Web too! You can view it here.
I hope that I will get to play with Tuque again soon!

I will try to post more photos soon.
(If you want a sneak peak, you can view them here.)

Out and About

Last weekend Laura went to a concert that was twenty-five kilometres away.
She went there on her bicycle.

"Isn't it great that we live so close to all of these wonderful events now?" Laura said.

I don't know about that. I liked it when we lived in the middle of nowhere so there was nowhere to go and Laura stayed home with me all the time. I mean, I'm sure the concert was fun. My friend Tannis was there. I would have liked to see her. And Katherine. I've never met her, but I like her music. And Wendell was there too. Remember how Ashton wanted to be a cowdog in Wendell's band? Poor Ashton never got to realize that dream, but maybe if I get to meet Wendell someday I could at least tell him what a big fan Ashton was. But twenty-five kilometres is a bit far for me. I mean, I could walk that far, but then I would be too tired to walk home again afterwards. And no way am I getting on one of those scary bicycle things. They look dangerous!

Laura doesn't ride her bicycle everyday though. Some days she stays closer to home, and there are lots of nice places we can walk to together. (Not like the last place we lived where the only places to walk were on the road with the cars or in that marsh with the scary bullfrogs!)

My favourite place to walk here is the woods. It is quiet there, and there are fields full of pretty flowers and a river you can drink from and lots of interesting paths. And no bicycles!

Well, there is that one bicycle that was abandoned, but it doesn't move, and I stay well away from it. Usually it is the only one. But today, when we got to the park, there were two children there, right at the entrance, on a bicycle! Those are the scariest bicycles of all, the ones with children on them, so I suggested to Laura that we enter the park by a different route.

Laura agreed, and I bet she's glad she did because we found lots of new paths to explore today. I even found a secret path that Laura wouldn't have seen if I hadn't shown it to her. It was a really nice path, covered in a thick layer of rich black mud that felt so good between my toes! It led to a babbling brook where I had a nice long drink and a mud bath. Hmm-mmm! That was fun! Also, we saw a deer! I bet we wouldn't have seen a deer in the part of the park where the children were playing on that bicycle.

I want to post some pictures of how pretty our woods are, but Laura keeps forgetting to bring the camera.

When she got there the cupboard was bare!

Sorry I haven't written in so long. It's been a crazy summer.

Laura and I have been trying to move house. That meant that Laura was away a lot, looking for a new place to live and getting things ready so that we could move there and when she was home she was packing all of our stuff and loading it up into a big van and then she was gone again. I have to use Laura's computer to post these blog entries and I need Laura's help to do that and she wasn't available much. Anyhow... we are in our new place now, so I'm back.

Laura says this is a good place to live, but I'm not so sure yet.

Yesterday I ate up the last of my nice lamb and rice kibble for my dinner. Laura said not to worry because this is such a good place to live, there is a 24 hour A&P really close by and they sell my yummy dinner there. She said she would pick up a new bag on her way home from class.

Well, Laura went off to her class, and I was a very good dog and guarded the sofa while she was out so no monsters could come and carry it off, and then Laura came back home again -- without any food. They had a sale at the A&P and people had bought up all of my nice dinner.

Laura says this is a good place to live because we have nice neighbours here, but I don't think it was very neighbourly to buy up all of the lamb and rice kibble for themselves and leave none for me!

I try not to be greedy. I don't ask for a lot. But moving house is hard work. I burned up many calories watching Laura carry all of that stuff around. I need to eat something and I'm not so polyphagous as Laura. I'm just a little puppy dog with a sensitive stomach and I need my lamb and rice.

Laura said not to worry. She said she would go back to the store today. Maybe they would have some more food in before dinner time. Then she let me help her make chicken curry, so I wouldn't feel so bad.

I love to help Laura cook, and I am a good helper! Especially when she makes dishes with mango in them.

Mango is very yummy and it smells so good and the squirrels think so too. Mangoes also have a big stone in the middle of them, which you cannot eat. It's difficult to get all of the nice mango flesh off of the stone, but if you put the stone out in the compost with some of the yummy part still on it, the squirrels will smell it and dig through your compost to get it and make a big mess all over the lawn. So I always help Laura when she is cooking with mangoes by making sure that stone is very clean before it goes in the compost. Sometimes it takes a long time to get the stone clean, but I don't mind. Like I said before, I am a good helper, and I always try to do my best.



This morning Laura had some of the yummy chicken curry that I helped her make for her breakfast. Laura said the curry was very good, and I knew she was happy I had helped her because there was no compost on our lawn. Then, this afternoon, Laura went back to the store, just like she had promised, to get some dinner for me.

They still didn't have any of my dinner at the A&P, so Laura went on to Zellers, but they were all sold out too. So Laura went to Canadian Tire. Still no luck. Everywhere had lots of other kinds of dog food, but nobody had my lamb and rice. Laura even hiked out to the No Frills, which is far away for carrying home my big bag of dinner, but Laura loves me so she went the distance. Alas, they didn't have any there either.

Meanwhile, my tummy was starting to get very grumbly. It was seven o'clock and the sky was getting dark and menacing and Laura still wasn't home.

Finally Laura came back with a big huge bag. It didn't look like my dinner, but Laura said it was still lamb and rice, just a different kind. A more expensive kind -- which is hard right now because we don't have very much income -- but Laura said I am worth it. (And I am!)

So I had my new, special, princess food for dinner tonight -- and it was very yummy!
Maybe this will be a good place to live after all.