A Country Corgi’s Day…

This morning started out with a mail run for me and Mercy. Dad (Robert) lets us go with him when he goes down to get the mail because we listen to him even when those neighbor dogs come out and yell nasty things at us.  We get a bit excited...

First, of course, we must leave peemail…  and do a quick check on the enemy's position...

Then we head down the drive to the mailbox… 

Double check the position of the enemy… 

Ooooo! Check out that double rainbow! 

Wow! The grain hay our neighbor planted for us is starting to sprout! 

After GrandPaw got the mail, we noticed some kind of critter – probably a ground squirrel or chipmunk- had a new hole in the dirt by the driveway… 

It’s still in there! I’ll get it! 

I’m going in! 

Mom! GrandPaw is calling us. We’d better get going. 

Daaaadddd… I wasn’t finished yet!

Dad… I am NOT happy with you calling us in before I caught that critter! 

I’m going to go chew on a rawhide and pretend IT’S the critter!

Later, we went out back so Dad could let Cory out of his pen. 

Tuffy had been up the hill grazing, and came charging down when he saw Cory loose!

Pip got in his way and got his foot stepped on! He was really lucky he wasn’t hurt badly, but he tucked and rolled as Tuffy thundered over him. Grammy checked for broken bones and didn't find any, so she put frozen Otter Pops around his leg and wrapped it. She held him for about an hour, wrapped in a blanket, to keep him from getting shocky since he was shivering. After he settled, he went in and laid on the bed for several hours, then chewed off the bandage that held those frozen things on his leg and just barely has a limp now.

This evening, while Grammy was getting ready to hang up Papa’s work clothing in the little closet in the living room, she got a surprise. Apparently a country critter decided that it’s been to cold to stay outside, so it came in and decided to stay in the closet for a while. SURPRISE!

Grammy double checked it’s tail and then decided that it could stay since it will take care of any mice that might decide to live in that closet. 

Well, have a good day! We did! Except, maybe, Grammy...

Remembering 9/11, our Cousin, Mia and Mercy

Grammy had put up a post to Remember 9/11 on her Country Grammy's Blog, and meant to post a link to THAT today, but then we heard from her sister, Naunie, that her little Shih Tzu, Mia, had taken the Rainbow Bridge this morning and things got sidetracked.  

We DID get our flag put up in the frontyard for the day, and if you would like to read the 9/11 Tribute that she did, you can go HERE.

Little Mia has been fighting a bad case of Pancreatitis valiantly for the past week, as those of you from our Facebook friends know.  She decided that she needed to take the Rainbow Bridge this morning, and we are very sad for our Auntie, today.  We will see you later, Sweet Little Mia.  Run Free!

Grammy has also been busy taking care of Mercy, who has done something nasty to her nose.  We don't know if it was a spider bite, cat scratch, garter snake bite, or wasp sting (Tarantula Hawks are all over again).  It started off with a bunch of little scratch type marks on top of her nose, but the next day it got a lot worse.

She has to take several medicines (antihistamines and antibiotics) and have it cleaned off and medicated a couple of times a day.  She is eating well and has no fever.  She also had injured her leg the other day, but that is doing well now and she is putting weight on it again.  She will need to go to the vet on Monday if there isn't any improvement on her nose.

Pippin’s Peek at the Past #4 Winners!

We only had 2 winners this time, though 3 others got really close, only missing one question of the three each.

Congratulations to:

1. Dory and Mama from Dory’s Backyard

2. Ruby and Penny from Ruby & Penny – 2 Mini dachshunds

You two can copy and take this Winner’s Badge to your blog if you’d like, and your names will be put into the drawing for the Grand Prize in just a couple more weeks!

We want to thank Ruby & Penny, and Betty & Koda for pointing out that our link wasn’t working AGAIN, fairly early so we could get it fixed. I’m so sorry about that.

The Questions & Answers were:

1. What did the pups find in the back yard? A tarantula

2. What was BG’s little ex-mistress doing in the picture? Riding a horse

3. What did they find in the tackroom when they went to feed the horses? A snake

I think some got fooled by the “BG’s little ex-mistress” part cause Sadie was sniffing the tarantula in one of the pictures, but she isn’t BG’s ex-mistress, and some were fooled by the “doing in the picture” part because the WORDS DID say that she was helping to feed when we found the snake. 

You 3 were SO CLOSE!!! I guess it was a bit harder than I thought, but at least those that missed THIS time, have gotten it right at least some of the other times, and everyone still has another chance to get your name in during our Fifth and LAST Pippin’s Peek at the Past Puzzle.

So far, here is the rundown on the Weekly Winners:

Mango   (1) from #2

Chatty Crone   (1) from #2

Angela   (1) from #2

That Corgi   (2) from #2 and #3

Khyra   (1) from #2

Ruby & Penny (3) from #2, #3, & #4

Rudy (2) from #2 and #3

Dory (2) from #2 and #4

Mayzie (1) from #3

Congratulations to all of you!

We Found a SNAKE! By Mercy

The other day, we were out in the front yard and guess what I found! It was a long, living rope, that moved and wiggled, and it was right by our front yard fence!

I called Auntie Sadie and she said that it was a SNAKE! She said they can be very bad and not to get to close. She said you need to be ready to jump back cause they might try to jump at you and BITE you!

She started yelling at it and alerting our people, so Mama Dott and I helped her.

Pretty soon, GrandPaw Robert came out and took a look. Apparently this one wasn’t the really bad kind of snake and he told us we were good to have told him about it!

He went in and got the flashy box and took pictures, then chased it off into the woodpile so it can catch mice and maybe keep the bad kind of snakes away.

Arachnophobes & Ophidiophobics Beware!

Gimli: Dare was a BIG, ugly spider that reared up at us and GrandPaw saveded us!

Guess WHAT!! Papa has decided that he is going to keep me and he gived me a new name. I am Pippin! Pip, for short, now!

BG: It is THAT time of the year! The Tarantulas are ON THE MOVE!

You can see them out hunting for their mates on the roads as you drive around this area. This year isn’t too bad, according to Mom, as they’ve only seen one or two a day on the roads going into town.

Well, guess what!!!??? We found one in the back yard where the puppies were playing. I thought their GrandPaw, Robert, was going to have a coronary!

He wouldn’t even let the pups check it out, but hurriedly got an old Hockey stick to pick it up with and put it out of the yard. How, I ask you, are they to LEARN things if they aren’t given the chance to sneak up on things like that!

At least he let us older ones out so that we could get a closer look at it. (Linda: At this point there WAS a video of Dott, BG & Sadie getting a close look, but heavy winds and dust storms cause problems for dial-up... or Blogger has refused to load it for the past TWO DAYS... GROWL!!! I gave up! )

Not only are the Tarantulas OUT, but the snakes are starting to come IN. I guess it is getting kind of cold out for them, so they try to find warm places to stay, and our hay room is usually nice and warm. Mom was a bit surprised when my little ex-mistress went out to help feed the horses and noticed this fellow visiting.

Mom looked at him really well and saw that he wasn’t a poisonous type, so was happy to have him in the tackroom to help keep the mice down. She IS being rather more careful to look around, though when she goes out to feed now. Garter snakes might not have BIG fangs, but they’ve got a lot of sharp little teeth that would hurt if they latched on to you! This one was about 4 ft. long... almost as long as a bale of hay!

Apparently, Dad has decided to keep that little "Pip Squeak," and I've been finding him in MY Dad's lap a lot lately. I am NOT very happy about that even though Dad says he still loves me, too and we will soon be great friends... Yeah?... Right! (Dripping sarcasm...)

A Bit More About Country Corgi Critters

First, we wanted to answer a few of the comments we got on our last post about the Tarantula Hawks. Mom hates spiders, too, but isn’t totally arachnophobic (like her brother-in-law who goes into a fetal position at the site of more than one spider of any kind). She only dances if one gets on her. The tarantulas around here aren’t particularly poisonous unless you happen to have an allergic reaction.

One of Mom’s crazy sons likes them and will pick them up and play with them (She thinks that's NUTS!!!) She will have one taken off the property or at least to a wood pile usually. The one we took pics of was almost frozen and almost dead when we found it last November. She set it out in the sun & took pics, but it never came around… She thought it had probably been ‘seeded” with a T. Hawk, so she put the body in a jar with a lid so that she would have it to show her grandson.

We don’t like those big spiders and they don’t like us. If we see one, it will usually rear up and looks like it is shouting really nasty bad words at us in “spider language.” We tend to leave them alone, and we don’t see them at all except during the late fall, and maybe only one or two around here every year or two… It is more on the roads while driving that we will see several.

Mom says we’ve never had one IN the house, though that one came close, being on the wall just outside the back door of the patio. We HAVE had snakes, scorpions and centipedes (which have a painful sting) come into the house.

The T. Hawks aren’t aggressive and won’t chase you like the Yellow Jackets. Mom doesn’t like ANY kind of wasp or bee, so she ducks a lot if there are some around, but isn’t really afraid of them… just doesn’t want them in her hair.

It’s the Brown Recluse Spiders that are really dangerous around here! The Black Widows, and Brown Widow Spiders can also make you kind of sick feeling for a while unless you are allergic and THAT can be a problem. Mom says, Praise God, she isn’t allergic because she’s been bitten by Black Widows a few times.

These three kinds of nasty spiders are smaller and hide in dark places. They will get you if you don’t carry a light and check any dark place you need to put your hand into… like when feeding horses at night.

We will probably post more about these nasty critters some other time. Mom just wanted you all to know that she thinks the rattlesnakes around here are a MUCH worse threat to us, but she prays for us a lot about the nasty critters in this area, and is glad that we have been really smart about pointing the nasty things out to her … Well, DUH! We ARE Corgis!!!

When we see a nasty, we bark our “ALERT!” bark and bounce back and forth at it, staying out of reach, until she comes and takes care of the problem appropriately! Auntie Sadie is the one that taught us that. Border Collies are really smart too, I guess… Auntie Sadie sure is!

Also, about the Road Runners… Mom’s not crazy about those either as they are mean to other birds and animals. They eat eggs, kill chicks and other small birds as well as lizards. We will post more on them later sometime, too.

Sorry Dott hasn’t wanted to take her turn at posting lately. She started eating like a HORSE instead of her usual “bird like” appetite a few weeks ago, and then, suddenly, she seems to have lost a lot of her appetite and is kind of dumpy and sleeping a lot more. She does get out and run when we do go out, but she doesn’t seem to be able to “fly” like she used to when she jumps up on things.

Mom is watching her closely and she doesn’t really seem to be showing any signs of sickness, but she is acting differently, and so we are still wondering about the possible “Puppy” thing…