It's Snow Nice

It snowed! It finally snowed! On Friday we got 4 inches of snow, an inch of slush that froze into a hard crust, and another half inch of snow on top of the crust. Boss Lady managed to schedule a mini-adventure to the Rugby Field on Sunday so we could play in the snow. It was grand fun. I dug in the snow. I chewed on frozen sticks. And then Boss Lady threw snow for me!

A few times there were disappearing snow chunks. Which, I must tell you, was most annoying.


Poor Boss Lady doesn't have very good aim, and I ended up missing more than I caught.



Aaaaalmoooooost!


Aha! Caught one.


Ooops. This one caught me.

Who Says I Don't Contribute?

One of Boss Lady's most frequent complaints about me is that I fail to contribute monetarily to the household income, while at the same time demanding a certain not so small chunk of the household budget for my upkeep. She has contrived several different options to generate some sort of income from me, ranging from dog powered electricity for the house, to renting me out as a lumberjack. None of her options have been realistic, and thus all have remained unattempted. After the other day, though, Boss Lady will no longer be able to say that I never contribute monetarily to the household income.

On the same day that we adventured the mini-adventure at the Rugby Field/Swamp, which provided the entertaining videos from my previous post, I found 4 returnable bottles. At five cents per bottle, I am proud to report to the IRS twenty cents of income. Had Boss Lady not been forced, under threat of physical damage to the house, to take me for an energy expending adventure, I would not have been able to find these bottles, and she would not have been able to carry the bottles home and add them to the nickel bottle barrel. Thus, we have my not insignificant contribution to the household income.

And, just to be sure she didn't at some future point fail to recall this instance, I made sure to create photographic evidence, which I will share here with you.


Just in case you were wondering, I prefer Labbatt's Blue over Michelob Ultra.

Here I am totally destroying the Labbatt's Blue can in order to fully enjoy each drop of liquid left in the can.


Here you can see, up close and personal, how thoroughly I damaged the can in my quest for yumminess.



As the first picture showed, I did not similarly attack and destroy the Michelob Ultra can. It just didn't taste as good.

Finally, because Boss Lady was unable to produce a post that fluidly included the following picture, I will allow it to be posted here. It is one more picture from the recent mini-adventure to the Rugby Field. Yes, that is a leaf hanging off my chin. I allowed it to hang there for quite awhile, actually. Five or ten minutes to be exact. I would like to point out that my willingness to allow a dead leaf to hang from my chin is in no way suggestive of a non-studly dog. Once again, Boss Lady is tarnishing my image as a handsome, studly dog.

I Will Kill You!

This will be a short post, wordwise, today. Boss Lady and I had a mini-adventure a couple days ago and she brought along her camera. She always brings along her camera. You never know what kind of foolishness I might exhibit. The fun thing about her camera, though, is that it not only takes pictures, but it also takes videos. She decided to use the video feature quite a bit during our mini-adventure. She thought she might show everybody how thorough my obsession with sticks is. My apologies for the video quality. It's not like I can afford a professional, you know.

First, we have a fairly straight forward video of me battling a stick. Notice how the stick keeps trying to knock me in the head, but I'm always too quick and manage to duck out of the way.



Next, we have me battling the stick again, this time with Boss Lady pretending she's a matador or something. Boss Lady asks that you please disregard the part at the end where I ignore her. *Note: No Boss Ladies were injured in the making of these videos. At least, not gravely.*



Finally, we have an illustration of how quickly I can dispatch a stick. Boss Lady kindly kept track of how many branches I broke off this stick. Again, Boss Lady requests that you disregard the part where I ignore her. Mostly, I don't ignore her, but sometimes I do. Which is why I have to run around on a leash.

Now This Is What I'm Talking About

What ever happened to the good ol’ evening walk? Huh? That’s what I want to know. We did just fine with a nice evening walk after supper. I never complained about it. So, why is it the evening walk was supplanted by the evening Bike ride? Really, I’d like to know.

If, however, I’m to be forced to endure (even enjoy) Bike rides, then more of them should be like this evening’s. It started out quite normal. Walk down the hill, at the bottom of the hill Boss Lady mounts up and we head out. I lag and crowd and generally try to dissuade her from the evening’s adventure. I fail to dissuade her and we head out Marble Street towards the Boardwalk. Except this evening, we paused near the Rugby Field entrance.

I like the Rugby Field; it’s lots of fun. Obviously, it is big and open. There are also other short random trails going off the Rugby Field. These trails are very wide, and mowed, but don’t lead anywhere. We can follow all of them in less than an hour. If I’m feeling particularly obedient, and Boss Lady is feeling particularly confident, she sometimes lets me drag the leash so I’m sort of able to run around and play. We play fetch. I sniff animal trails. We investigate deer paths. Boss Lady always promises that One Of These Days we will devote some unspecified length of time to fully investigating these deer trails. We never have yet.

So, back to this evening. The Boss Lady was taking stock of my complete disinterest in the evening’s adventure and was trying to devise a way to excite me. Which is when she lit upon the idea of biking out through the Rugby Field. It’s flat enough for the bike. And while it is just a field, it’s not too rough. Much to my delight, Boss Lady steered the bike towards the Rugby Field, navigated the big marble blocks blocking the entrance (it’s sort of kind of private, but not really) and off we went.

It went ok at first. Then Boss Lady realized that she really needed to shift to an easier gear. She did so and continued peddling. I was romping and trotting and generally very much enjoying myself. Except I was moving a little too fast for Boss Lady. She couldn’t keep up. She shifted to an even easier gear and peddled and peddled and peddled. She still couldn’t keep up. By this point, we had reached an open area with a small stream and the rail road tracks not too far away. Boss Lady’s legs were burning. She decided we had to turn around. I was forced to slow down to maintain the same speed as Boss Lady on the bike. It felt rather peculiar; our roles were reversed. Normally Boss Lady is ahead of me constantly encouraging me to keep up or go faster. She is sometimes forced to slow down just a little so as not to drag me along. Suddenly she was the one going slow and I was encouraging her to hurry up.

When we got back to the road, we continued toward the boardwalk. We had to turn around early because the sun was setting. On our way back, we encountered a fellow with two dogs. He was just pulling up to the Rugby Field to let his dogs run around. He had a Great Dane and a Pug. The Great Dane and Pug were well behaved and allowed off leash. The Great Dane came over to say hi. I got excited. We kind of sniffed, grumbled, bounced around and she trotted off. Boss Lady and this fellow exchanged pleasantries and then parted ways. I’m thinking Bike Rides that involve the Rugby Field should be our new evening adventures.