Helen
Tonight is the full moon of Aquarius. It’s a good night for meditating. Especially if you have a headache and don’t care to do anything else.
Luigi oftentimes will hide outside when I’m bringing everyone in. So does Baby, but she does it for reasons of wanting to stalk possum or other night time critters. She only catches Bufos. She’s not fast enough to catch anything else,which is why I don’t like leaving her out there unattended anymore. Luigi waits for me to come back out to play ball. That doesn’t always work for him because I’m not always aware of his plan. Like just now when I started writing this piece. I heard a bark. Then another. So I went to the back door, and there was Luigi, on the other side of the door, lying down in wait. Next to him was his blue Dino Cuz ball. We just played ball till the timer shut the light out in the back yard. Surprisingly, or miraculously, Raven kept her temper tantrum throwing to the last seconds when we were coming inside anyway. Now he’s happy, except for the fact that Ginger is trying to swipe his beloved blue Cuz. He had to move off the futon because Raven was trying to swipe that same ball. Luigi has such responsibilities to his Cuz friends, and he doesn’t take them lightly.
I got a few seeds from a seed pod off a yellow poinciana tree I see going to and from work last week. I planted one in this pot. That is the only yellow poinciana I have seen in these parts. There are an abundance of red ones, though. This poinciana is a new growth and it is growing fast and right under the utility lines. I already had FPL over here and they aren’t concerned, so why should I be? Because I am the one who’s going to be without power when that tree grows up and into those lines!
The three Amigos came back for a visit today. They hung around in the pine tree for a while, and so did a beautiful dove. There was another bird in the tree at the same time. I only have one bird tree left in my yard. 🙁
The red roses have been prolific this summer. Here’s another flock of them. The lilac colored roses have not produced any flowers recently. And here is a picture of my air palm that Jude gave me in 2005. This picture taken today is of it in bloom. You have to look hard, but you will see a bloom in the middle of the plant. I’d never seen an air palm bloom before, so this was a very pleasant surprise!
Here’s a yellow butterfly. Butterflies have been happily flapping around the FD campus for a few days. They are attracted to several of my plants, this one being the popcorn plant. It smells like popcorn!
There may be a slight weather disturbance coming up here on Monday. Her name is Fay. We’re not sure yet which direction she’s going, but this sort of thing seems to get my sinuses irritated enough to give whopper headaches. Thank goodness for Ibuprofen! Though today there was no building on the high jump. No dog training. I went to stock up on a few supplies and that was about the extent of “fun” we had. Lots of naps, which is usually enjoyable, except when Pippin gets penned out of the bedroom and she whines the entire time. But fear not! Luigi and his big snout usually pushes the ex-pen out of the way, so the whining stops and my spot on the bed lessens in size.
We are going to enjoy that full moon once more before lights out!
Helen
Today I drove really fast within reason going home from work, so I could mow my lawn before it was too late. I wanted to get that out of the way, so I could finish my high jump this weekend. The first thing I needed in order to mow the lawn, was the lawn mower. I pulled it out of the shed, all the way down three steps and do you know what peeked out at the bottom of the steps? A possum! Cute little thing. I was wondering where all the dried leaves were from as I know I didn’t leave them in that shed. She went back under the mower, and I had a time getting her out, but she finally agreed to leave, and I got to mowing. I did sweep out the nesting materials. I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to have a possum using my lawnmower as a place to sack out, but it’s certainly better than having rats in there!
Speaking of rats, when I dropped off the newspapers and some shoe boxes at the Wildlife Center at lunch time, I found that the green lizard that the Fedex driver brought to the center last week and which had been stuck to the glue trap for rats had been released. This was amazing to me. They said they could help little lizards stuck, too. Incredible! I’m glad that came to a happy ending.
Baby ate grass today. I didn’t mow all of it away, so she picked up the slack.
There is a mostly full moon out tonight. Absolutely beautiful! Tomorrow night will be the total full moon. We will be there.
Helen
Yesterday was bulk trash day, and the trash men gave me a hard time about the two piles of green refuse that my tree guys left in the swale. They were saying it was too much blah blah blah. The bottom line is if the professional tree guys would have put all that in one pile, then we would have been all right. But because there were two piles, the trash men had attitude. Besides the fact that I hardly ever leave out bulk trash, there was not much going on with bulk trash on my block. It was another city worker pushing around his policy power. He finally did take both piles, but it was not a pleasant experience. However, being that they took the first pile and left a pamphlet on my door and left, and I came home to this half-done job at lunch, I was very happy that it turned out the way it did.
After I got the pamphlet, I drove down the street to where I saw a bulk trash man picking up debris. He was very nice and I will say that trash man went out of his way to help me by phoning in the problem – half my bulk trash was left behind – and getting the message they will be back for the second pile, but had left because their truck had been filled. I called into the trash company to give kudos to this man for going above and beyond. It was the fact that the pamphlet and attitude wasn’t enough from the leaf trash man that got me riled up. He had to knock on my door and give me a lecture over the entire thing before he picked up the second pile. Then he tried to turn it into a personal conversation while the clock was ticking away on my precious lunch break. I’d much rather have been spending it with my dogs than being lectured to or chit-chatting. Eeegads!
Let me just say that I’m glad that whole tree business is done. Now I’m facing a very hairy front yard and swale, which needs some mowing. This weekend will be mowing weekend. Call me a dud, but I’m not looking forward to that.
In between running back and forth to talk with the trash men, I was watching the flight of the Dragon Flies in my back yard. I had taken a few pictures of them, but not enough due to time constraints. I’d never seen such a swarm of Dragon Flies enjoying the day before. It was quite an event. The FDSP didn’t notice them being they flew a few too many feet above their heads for noticing. A good thing.
I worked more on Raven’s sit staying Tuesday night, but last night I let it slide. She is also learning to pay attention to the dumbbell. Her favorite part of all this is getting treats.
I’d also worked a little with Bunny Butt on her sit stay Tuesday night. She’s got such a spastic behind that getting 10 seconds of it staying planted on the floor was next to impossible. So we worked on half that time.
Luigi worked on scent discrimination. He had been practicing on the FDSP Budha Dog. We are both learning this process of scent discrimination exercises using clicker training – me how to teach it that way and him how to learn it that way. Anytime he doesn’t get it, it’s my fault. He and I both determined that. I found a how-to article on training scent discrimination on line. It’s written by Morgan Spector.
He also wrote an entire book on obedience training using the clicker. It’s very good, and if you’d like to order it, CLICK HERE.
I see some of his ideas on the process of training scent using clicker have changed. Mainly in the book he makes comment about people who put the scent articles they want to be cold in the fridge over night. He thought it un-necessary. But the article, which is newer, mentions to do both:
“There are various ways to make sure that there is a clear difference between the “hot” and “cold” articles when you practice with your dog. You can put the “unscented” articles in a refrigerator before practice; the cold will essentially neutralize scent and will retard incidental scenting. You can put the “hot” article in a Ziploc bag, which will intensify your scent.”
Growth is a good thing, and I highly recommend the book. It’s a great price and teaches the trainer a humane and fun-for-the dog way to learn the commands to compete in obedience and get those titles!
Meanwhile, last night Uigi and I by-passed working scent till I could get my brain and the theory and my actions to coincide with the right process, but we did work on the go-out and touch-the-pole exercise. Well, basically, Uigi brought me his red Cuz ball, and I wouldn’t throw it till he touched the pole. He gets so excited about the game, he thinks he has to grab the pole in his mouth, and I’m sure he’d pull it out of the ground if he didn’t get his click fast enough. But so far, I am fast enough, and I throw the ball, he gets it and we start all over again. He’s a brainiac, my boy is.
Meanwhile, Bouchard and Ollie have very nice sun tans. They work hard on maintaining that sun-tanned look daily. If sun bathing were an Olympic event, you could count Bouchard and Oliver in as a prize-winning team.
The synchronized sun bathing team!
Helen