A Bumble Bee

I was lucky and found a bumble bee working on the bush by our front door. Maybe it is a honey bee, I don't really know the difference.



But he or she was really just bumbling around, gathering something from the dull little flowers on that bush.



Every once in a while, a wasp type bee came and bonked right into the bumble bee!



But the bumble bee just kept on bumbling along, going from flower to flower, minding his/her own business.

Flora and Fauna

While I was outside taking pictures of Wineberry today, I took some other pictures of flora and fauna in the yard.

Mushroom growing up high in a tree



A butterfly



Leaves of three, let them be



Maple tree keys



A pinecone. I need to dig up a picture that I took of the pinecones forming earlier in the spring.

Wineberry

While I was in the backyard with the dogs this afternoon, I saw a bunch of yellow/orange color. Stepped closer and found a strange looking plant with, what looked like, some kind of raspberry.


When I came inside, I did some research online (gotta love the internets!!) and found that they were wineberries - related to the raspberry. It is an asian plant that is considered invasive here in the States.


It has very prickly stems, or canes I guess they are really called.


They are apparently edible and make good wine. They are just starting, so I will have to make sure I keep watch on them to see them get really ripe.

Agility

While we work on Blaze reacting STRONGLY to being near other dogs doing agility, we are working on agility at home.

One of the first things he learned was the table. USDAA is my favorite venue, so he is learning an auto-down on the table. Gotta work on getting BOTH elbows down on the table.


I don't have any jumping pictures ... hard to take pictures while directing him to jump :-)

His weave poles are really coming along.


He does 12 poles now and we are working on entrances ... and distractions.


We started on contacts during the winter. I decided to go with 2on/2off. Instead of 2on/2off, Blaze offered a down at the end of the contact. I've decided that is fine with me as it he will shift his body weight in order to get the down and stop.


We still need to work on jumping foundation skills, tire, chute and getting him on a real aframe and real dogwalk.

Maybe by the time he can sort of control himself at agility class or at a trial, he will have learned all of the obstacles at home.

College

This is a non-dog post. But it IS about one of my kids, so the mom part of my name comes into play :-)

My younger son, Son #2, is going to go to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA this fall. We drove out there (5 hours!) on Wednesday for a pre-orientation thing on Thursday. He opened up his bank account, got his picture taken for his student card, bought used books for his courses at the bookstore and we sat through some presentations.

I hadn't been to the school before, so it was nice to see it. My older son, Son #1, came along as well. He just graduated college in May, so he wanted to see where his brother would be going to school. It was also nice to have someone along who could tell us what was important and what wasn't.

This is the view from his dorm:


Well, it isn't exactly his room .... same room number, but we got to see the rooms on the 12th floor and he will be on the 4th.

He thinks he lucked out with the view with this dorm.

Water

Blaze loves the water


Luce is a little more lady like. She wallows in shallow creeks and pools


Maybe taking a few delicate sips of water


Blaze not only wallows in the shallows


But will whole heartedly WALLOW



He doesn't sip at the water, he BITES the water


All that water play then leads to a whole lotta shaking



Right down to the tip of his stumpy little tail


That felt good!


Meanwhile, Luce is thinking "what the heck?"

Both dogs

Wow, 4 posts in one day. Well, we'll see how long that lasts ... it's just new now :-)

So, did a post first about Luce, then about Blaze. Now about Luce AND Blaze together! Woohoo!

So.

Both Luce and Blaze get along with each other. When Blaze first came here, he was about 1 year old and wanted to PLAY. Luce was having none of that and told him so. But Blaze is a persistent dog and he won her over. Took a few months, but he did it.

And now they play HARD every day.


(I wish that was our pool, but it's not)

So hard that I had to buy them breakaway collars as Luce got her bottom canines stuck in Blazes collar. Very scary. Good thing I was there. Blaze ripped off Luce's tags with one of his teeth. Could have broken his teeth but he didn't. So, now, the breakaway collars with no dangling tags. Got them tags that are flat on their collars instead.


(Apparently we are also working on synchronized running)

Blaze LOVES to go after The Ball. And Luce LOVES to run after Blaze who is running after The Ball. So it really works out!

After Blaze gets The Ball, he then brings it back ... well, almost back. He feels it needs to be placed on the ground and then he needs to hide behind something until I pick it up again. And Luce hovers nearby, waiting for him to move again so that she can start her outrun to head him off at the pass. Or something like that.


(you can see his stumpy tail!)

I'm not really sure why all this happens, but it does, over and over again.



So, if I get this -



Blaze waiting for The Ball to be launched again, you can be sure that you will see this -



Luce waiting for Blaze who is waiting for The Ball.



Sometimes Luce decides that Blaze needs to be under some sort of control



which usually some "interference" on Luce's part.

By and large, however, they do get along which is great.



Playing, getting "The Ball" and interference is hard work!




(sorry about all the different fonts and stuff ... having trouble with formatting!)