Last Squirrel Patrol For Me For Awhile... :(

Tuesday, we all went out for squirrel patrol because I begged Grammy really hard. She wasn’t sure I should go out, but I told her I’m fine and she knows that some exercise is good for me, so she said I could go, but this would be the last time for a full squirrel patrol for me for a while. I DON’T think I like the sound of THAT!

We took our usual route, which included a good check of the Old Dart. I got there first, and then ran and told the others that I REALLY felt there was something around there!

The others came and agreed… something was in or around that car!



I even insisted that my Dad open the hood…





I don’t know where it went, but whatever it was, I KNOW it had been hiding there!




We did our check of the ditch and side pasture…




...then headed for the front pasture. Mama OC and Sadie found some yummy fresh horse apples and stopped for a snack on the way.

We checked all the holes and bushes there, and then Grammy said I’d had enough and we needed to head in.


We did go by the water barrels and make sure there weren’t any swimmers. You can never tell when one of the horses will knock out the squirrel ladder and a squirrel will decide to take a chance anyway!

By the way, I checked out that box bed they made for me, and it’s not half bad! Grammy put a big towel over it and made it into my own little cave. I really kind of like it in there now that I’ve scratched it and arranged the blankets the way I like. (Mom says to tell you that it was dark and so the vids from in there had to be lightened…)

The towel can flap down and really make it cozy. Last night, Grammy forgot to put it down, so I got out, grabbed it with my teeth and pulled it shut. I even told everyone else that they had to stay out of my room and AWAY from MY BOX. Grammy told me, though, that I still have to let BG and Mama OC use the ramp in front of it to get on her bed.

MY BOX gives me a little privacy, and I kind of like that, too. Sometimes I wish everyone would quit petting my belly. Grammy pinched me today a little and said I had milk now, and she also said something about dropping and starting to look like I was getting ready in a few other ways too… I hope so, though I don’t FEEL ready to be a Mommy… I just want these little kickers OUT!

Busy Couple of Days…

Sunday, we went into town so our people could go to church, and we could visit with our half-sisters. After church, Little Bear, and his mom and dad surprised Mom at Mimi’s house for a small birthday party. I heard Robert joke that Mom was “older than dirt.” She laughed and smacked him. I didn’t know you COULD be older than DIRT! What was on the ground before dirt?

Mimi had made two really pretty cakes. One with fruit, that was “Lite”… I guess that means that it was white, which it was, but I don’t know why they didn’t just call it “White,” and another that was chocolate with chocolate frosting. Unfortunately, WE only got a little taste of each.

We had to leave pretty early for a Sunday, because Robert and Dad had to make the monster finish up burying the trench it had dug before. Robert had to get up early Monday morning to haul it back to it’s home in the big town, while Dad went back to work. They sure didn’t get a very good rest this weekend, and WE didn’t get to spend much time with them either! I hope that old monster doesn’t come back and hog more time from US any time soon!

They had to let the glue dry on some of the fittings and tighten a few others before they could try to turn on the water. Mom was almost afraid to hope because that waterline runs over a mile and a half across several people’s back pastures (for those that are fairly new to this blog) and one of those people has big equipment. They sometimes break our waterline when they aren’t careful and run over it. Since it’s been off for so long, we won’t know if they have caused a problem until we turn on the water and let it run for a while.

Robert is still making water barrel runs. With Dad at work and Robert running to the Big Town, doing water runs and then our people going to their Monday night Bible Study, they couldn’t test the line Monday. Robert tried to turn on the water Tuesday evening, but there were some big leaks around some “fittings.”

He had to go and get some kind of tool they needed to tighten them up. If they are “fittings,” why don’t they fit without extra tighteners. People call things such weird names. He DID bring me a present when he came home, though. Now, I have a squeaky squirrel, too!

The leak from the first test made the hole fill with water, so now they have to wait again for it to drain/dry out so they can dig out the mud enough to redo the “fittings.” That was good anyway because we’ve had to run into Mimi’s town the past couple of days for appointments and work Robert had to do at the church. Dad also got an extra fitting in case the other fitting had it’s own problems or was made wrong. It's been a PAIN for them!

We DID get a little water up to the house during that first test, and got Mom pretty excited, but then Robert called on his cell phone and said he had to turn it off again because of that leak, so she cried a little. We felt bad that she was upset, but she says that when the time is right, it will happen. Maybe the next time they turn it on, Mom will be able to do her “Happy Dance…”

There is another big fire on the other side of the small mountains from us and it is putting out a lot of smoke in the air. It made the sun look dark red Monday night and last night. Robert tried to take some pictures, but by the time he got the camera out, the angle had changed so it’s not as red in the pictures as it was when we were looking at it. It made Mom think about what the Bible says about the sun turning blood red during the end times. Interesting how smoke makes it do that…

We are just glad that the wind hasn’t blown a lot of it this way because Dott HATES smoke and always gets all nervous and shaky when she smells it. Last year when they had a big fire and the smoke blew our way the first night, she went in and woke Mom up and wouldn’t let her go back to bed until she checked out the whole house and went outside and found out that it was on the wind. Mom says Dott is a good smoke detector.

Big Clawed Monster

Friday, Dad came home very early from work, and he and Robert took off for the really big town about an hour away. They came back with a bunch of black pipe all curled up like a humongous snake. Mom said it is called “Poly pipe.” Then, they turned around and took off again to the big town.

They came back hauling a trailer with a huge clawed monster on it!

Robert got in its weird saddle, and made the monster back off of the trailer and then he rode it into the back of the side pasture. That was a really noisy, stinky monster! We had to stay in the yard and watch while Robert and the monster got used to each other. Unfortunately, Mom doesn’t know how to use Robert’s camera right, and didn’t realize it was on some strange setting she isn’t used to, so all her vids and some pics came out terribly fuzzy! She was so MAD!

The monster had a tag with it’s name on it… Kubota. Mom said she thinks maybe it is a Japanese name when we asked her. I wonder if maybe it isn’t some kind of weird Japanese dragon? Robert made it dig a big hole and then pick up and/or push a bunch of weeds into it. Sheesh, WE get in trouble for digging, and our holes aren’t NEARLY as HUGE as the ones that monster dug!

Robert told Dott, later, that it felt like it was bucking like a bull, and he was a little sore Friday night. (Little Bear’s dad, who came down with L.B. for Mom’s birthday, said that it was bucking because Robert didn’t know how to make it mind very well. He used to work with them, and knows how to make them behave, but he couldn’t come down on Saturday when they needed to use it) Dad says he thinks Robert did a good job since he’s never worked with one before!

When it started to get dark, Robert put it to sleep and then he let us out so we could get a good look.

Mom took pictures of me and Dott taking turns in the saddle.

When we got close, we could see that it was a different kind of machine. A dirt eating or moving machine!

Saturday morning, Dad got up very early and went into Mimi’s town and got some “fittings” and their other son, Manuel, that lives there. The three of them (with Robert) took the Kubota out and spent all day clearing and digging a trench, and then they took that big, black snaky coil of poly pipe and pulled it out and made it lay in the trench. They attached the ends with the fittings to our old broken water pipe.

About halfway through the day, Manuel came to the house to pick up a couple of things they needed and say hi to Mom. She was at the computer and heard him coming to the door, so she called to him to “Come on in…” I knew who it was as he came through the door, but apparently my dumb sister didn’t recognize him.

I guess, though, that I HAD lived with him for several months before I came to live back at home, but she hasn’t been around him very much and wondered what the stranger was doing just walking on in. Anyway, she snuck up behind him as he walked toward Mom, and NIPPED him just above his ankle! Mom was HORRIFIED! Dott has never done ANYTHING like that before, and boy did SHE get “what for!”

Mom caught her and held her still while Manuel came up to her and petted her. Dott was still a bit huffy because SHE claims she was only doing her job and protecting Mom from a stranger. She just pinched him a little bit on the calf above his ankle. The were so busy with working on THAT mess, that I didn’t get much attention AT ALL from Manuel, and we ALWAYS do a lot of hugging and happy talk whenever I see him. THAT just wasn’t fair!

Dott has gotten pretty moody the past several weeks, even with Mama OC, me and Auntie Sadie. She’s sort of tired all the time and sleeps in her recliner with her arms around her “squirrel.” She says it really ISN”T a SQUIRREL, and to “SHUT UP!” I TOLD you she was moody!

She is also getting a little belly and other girl's fixtures are growing too! She is REALLY touchy when I mention those things. Mom says she’s pretty sure that she is either pregnant or having a false pregnancy. I gather that means she might be having puppies. Mom has had other dogs that have had false pregnancies and they get fat, moody and even get milk, so she is still watching and waiting.

The guys were so tired, they were about to drop Saturday night when they finally brought the monster back to the house. They took Manuel home and went to Mimi’s to take showers (Remember, our water line has been broken for 6 months) They came home, ate and went to bed, with only a few minutes of loving on us. I don’t know what Mom was so excited about! It was a pretty boring day for US, and Saturday’s are supposed to be our big day with Dad! This is getting long again, so I’ll fill you in on our Sunday the next time, ok?

Tarantula Hawks

BG here: When we did our blog on horehound plants and the nasty burrs they produce, we mentioned Tarantula Hawks. We had a few people that asked us what they are, so we decided to write this blog to let you know about them. I talked with Mom about it and she gave me a lot of interesting info to pass on.

We get tons of these huge wasps around here all summer long! Whenever you water anything, a bunch of them will show up, and they drown all the time in our doggy swimming pool and in the horse water barrels. Here are a bunch on the roof of the grain room.

My grandma, Mist, was very allergic to them. She bit one when she was only about a year old and Mom noticed about 5-10 minutes later, that she was rubbing all over the ground and when she looked closely at her, she found that she was breaking out in hives all over her belly, and probably all over the rest of her body and her face was getting very swollen. The vet she called, told her to give her benadryl as soon as possible, 25 mg. per 15 lbs., and repeat every 4-6 hours if symptoms returned. That was about 2 pills for Mist, and the swelling went down after about 10-15 minutes. Mom had to repeat that for about 24 hours every 6 hours. Grandma Mist got over it, but she stayed away from those wasps after that.

So far, Auntie Sadie has a tendency to chase them whenever she sees them. I guess she isn’t allergic because I know she’s caught them several times and spits them out real quick, shaking her head. I tend to leave them alone unless they fly right beside me.

Mom told us that a tarantula hawk is a wasp that hunts tarantulas to feed its babies. They are some the biggest wasps around and can grow up to 2 inches long. They are kind of pretty because they have a shiny, almost blue-black body, and dark, red-orange wings. They have long legs, with hooked claws on the ends for grabbing and fighting with the big spiders.

Wikipedia says that “the stinger of a female tarantula hawk can be up to 1/3 inch (7 mm) long, and delivers a sting which is rated among the most painful in the insect world.” I know they hurt like the dickens!!!!

During the fall around here, usually October, we will see the big tarantulas walking all over the place… sometimes, several in one day on the roads. (The one in this picture was found on the wall by the door of our back patio.) That is when the male tarantulas are out looking for a mate. They don’t eat when they are doing this and get really skinny, so the tarantula hawks would rather find a fat old female, and will look for them in their burrows, grab ‘em, and sting them to paralyze them.

They take the spider to their nest and lay an egg IN the spider, and then cover the hole. The baby, when it hatches, sucks the juices of the spider and then eats it while it is still alive, from the inside out… Lovely, huh! When they are grown, they come out of the husk of the spider and fly away.

We found out from Wikipedia that one of the only things that will eat them are those mean, ugly Road Runner Birds we get around here. The wasps will also, get themselves drunk on fermented fruit sometimes… so drunk that they can’t even fly for a while! They must be a pretty thirsty bug to do that and to drown themselves, by the bunches, in whatever water they can find.

I know that when our water is running and Mom goes out to bathe the horses or us, she usually will spray down an area away from where ever she is going to bathe us first, to draw the wasps there, so they aren’t flying all around us as she works.

Yahoo! We got another one!

With all that has been going on around here, the squirrel wars have sort of gone by the wayside, at least until tonight! While we were on our run and Mom was feeding the horses, Sadie found one of the nasty rebel ones drowning in one of the horse water barrels.

As I’ve mentioned before, Mom and Robert try to keep squirrel ladders in all of our horse water barrels, but apparently Old Cory, or maybe it was Tuffy, must have nosed it out of the barrel, so when Mr. Squirrel fell in, he couldn’t get out… until Sadie helped him. He tried to run but was pretty waterlogged and I almost got him before she did. He was almost half my size, so Mom says it’s a good thing Sadie took care of him. She dispatched him very quickly instead of having to fight with him, like I probably would have had to do.

Mom called Robert to come out so we could get pics to prove it. Sadie was pretty proud of herself! She backed off and let Mama OC take a sniff, and when she left it, Sadie picked it up and pranced around with it for a while before taking it out in the side pasture until Robert got out there with the camera.

It was getting pretty late so they had to use a flashlight, but we got the proof! BG was checking out another area when all this happened and he was pretty upset when he found out!

I still miss my Dougy, but this big slug of adrenaline helped easy my depression for this evening at least!

Tonight is our 105th post, so the contest will end with the comments on this post and they will need to be in by 5 p.m. Pacific time on Wednesday, the 8th because Mom wants to get pics of BG choosing the winner so she can post that info later that evening. We want to thank all of you who have been our friends and posted so regularly over the past several months since we started writing this blog. Good luck to all our old and new friends.

PS Had a video of Sadie with her squirrel and tried twice to download but it was a 6 second video and after looking like it was going to load for almost an hour, it never finished and I gave up at 2:45 a.m. Might try later.

It’s NASTY HOT!!!!

It's has been so beautiful outside lately… we actually had a spring this year. We’ve gotten to run and play outside… it’s been a blast! Usually, we go straight from winter to summer… at least the past couple of years that Dott and I remember. Mama says that’s the way it usually is as far as she remembers, too.

One of Mom’s horses is turning a different color. Remember the “snow” picture of Tuffy, that big old palid- mino horse that Mom is watching for her son? He was a light cream color when he came and all winter long, and now, he is turning dark gold! It’s weird to watch! When we shed, we all stay the same color, but the horses seem to get darker. The red ones are just sort of darker red. Mom calls it chestnut, but that sound more like food than a color.

It was starting to get a bit cold with so much of our winter coats gone, but as of today, I don’t think we will have THAT problem for awhile. At least Mama is moving a lot better today. Last Sunday (not this Sunday, but the one before) there was snow on the mountains about an hour from us, and today, the temperature got up to the 90’s!!!

We were WIPED by the time we got back from our morning run to the mailbox! We drank a ton of water and then plopped and stretched out all over the living room and panted for half an hour. Mom said it was like running an obstacle course to walk from one end of the room to the other.



Since our water is still not running, we can’t use our cooler, so we just had fans going all day. My grandpa, Bud, used to love to lay out in front of them when it was hot. They didn’t put one down low today, so I didn’t get a chance to try it.

Robert had to make extra water runs with the big barrels in the truck to fill the horses’ water barrels because they are hot and drinking like “cam melts.” I didn’t know horses melted! They still look as big as usual to me.

When our people got back from their Bible Study, they said that there had been more snakes out on the road. They had that strange dog smell on them… again!) This is getting a bit old! They go every week and always come back smelling of a strange dog... sometimes, two! They call the usual one Daisy, but I know a dog when I smell one and that DEFINITELY is NOT a flower!

Dott followed Dad all over pushing on his leg with her nose, and sniffing very pointedly to let him know that she was not happy with him. She refused to get into his lap for a while too. Oops, Mom says I have to stop now, so I will finish this blog tomorrow… its supposed to still be hot so we should be here most all day anyway.