Mischief Monday – Non Stop Action

Hi everyone, we sure are loving having Walter in our home. I think Millie is especially happy to have a brother to play with whenever the mood hits her/them.

Here are a couple of videos from Walters’ first two days here. I can’t count how many hours I have refereed these sessions and I’m sure there will be countless hours more in the years to come.

Here is a little wrestling action first.

If you can’t see the video you can go here to view it.

Next I will show you a great game of tug of war. The noise you hear is Millie’s vocalizations. Her foster parents are very familiar with this sound and we have all concluded that it is not an aggressive sound, but rather just what she does when she is having fun playing. Walter does some vocalizing too, but most of it is Millie.

If you can’t see the video you can go here to view it.

Just so you don’t think they are going all the time, Walter has proven himself already to be a good sleeper and will even settle down for an afternoon nap. The action can be tiring to all of us at times, and they need to be supervised, especially when in the living room where these videos were shot so they don’t knock over Charlie’s speakers or the pole lamp in the room, but I sure enjoy watching it. Having had just one dog, Nina, for over a decade I missed seeing all the fun action between canine siblings. There will be no shortage of that around here now.

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Millie’s Musings – Welcoming Walter!

Hi everyone, Millie here to tell you about everything that has been going on around here for the past week. Last Saturday we all went to the regular meet and greet for the rescue I came from, Big Dogs Big Hearts. I thought it was just to see my foster parents, but after saying hello to them I met a cute little boy dog named Walter and we hit it off right away.

 

Isn’t he a cutie! They say he is a boxer mix and I think his head shows it well. Right away we started playing and having a great time together. A few days later Walter and his foster mommy came to our house to visit. We played outside for a while and then I showed him the house.

 

Here we are with Walter’s foster mommy. She is very nice.

 

Walter is only about 6 months old (I will be 1 in just a couple of weeks) and that boy has lots of energy.

Today was two days since Walter and his foster mom came to visit us. This morning mom, dad and I went to a local pet store and Walter was there with his foster mommy too! Next thing I know mom was signing a bunch of forms, we went inside the store and bought some food that isn’t my brand and a new toy. After that we got back in the car to go home and Walter got in the car with us!

 

When we got home we all went outside and had a huge play session. I like chasing Walter and trying to herd him. Everyone thinks I’m part Australian Cattle dog so I guess I’m just doing what comes naturally. Mom took a lot of videos, but we will show you those some other day.

Walter is a pretty lovable guy and likes to give the peeps lots of kisses just like I do.

 

It’s fun to gang up on daddy and smother him with kisses.

 

Walter has some parts that are different than mine. Mom and dad have never had a boy dog before so if there are any secrets to raising a boy puppy please let them know. Mom said that Walter has had his bobblectomy already, whatever that means.

 

So far we are getting along great! Dad thinks we spend just a little too much time playing bitey face and chasing each other around, but I say you can never play too much.

 

Everyone thinks that when Walter is full grown he and I will be a similar size. Don’t you just love his one speckled paw? After mom and dad ate lunch we all went upstairs and had a little nap (very little nap). Mom said it was nice to see that little Walter could settle down for a while. Right now we (all four of us) are stretched out on our big bed while I dictate this post to mom.

Earlier tonight I was kind of wondering when Walter was going back home, but then I realized he was home! It might take a little while getting used to having a little brother, but it sure is fun having someone around to play with besides my dad. I just want to say to Walter, “Welcome home Walter, welcome home!”

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Black & White Sunday – Lake Ontario Shoreline

Hamlin Beach at Dawn

Swans and Storm
at Webster Park

Sodus Point – Shoreline Textures

More black and whites from Charlie.

We are participating in the Black & White Sunday blog hop.

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Wild Bird Wednesday – Hand Feeding at Mendon Ponds Park

This week I am continuing my posts on birds in our area and joining Wild Bird Wednesday. This week the series of pictures is a little blast from the past, however you could easily replay this scene today if you wanted to try. Mendon Ponds Park is a treasure where you can find lots of wildlife. It is also where Charlie took the picture of the Bridge at Quaker Pond. There are miles of hiking trails as well and you can go from open field to wooded habitat to open water in minutes.

One of the fun things about the park is that because of regular nature hikes hosted Wild Wings, a not-for-profit educational organization that houses and cares for permanently injured birds of prey housed in the park, the black-capped chickadees in the park are accustomed to being fed by the human visitors. For this reason we usually keep some sunflower seeds with us whenever we visit this park.

On this particular visit we had forgotten the seed in the car and when we were almost back to the car a pair of chickadees began harassing us like a couple of pan handlers for some seed. I quickly ran to the car and retrieved the sunflower seeds so we wouldn’t have any bloodshed on our hands.  😉

It didn’t take long for the chickadees to start visiting Charlies hand. At first they were flying off to eat each seed after their visit but eventually they started stashing them in the bark of nearby trees.

While this was taking place a female white breasted nuthatch watched closely from the tree directly behind Charlie.

She seemed to be getting her courage up and even hung upside down from a small branch…

…before finally taking the plunge.

She was cautious but eventually made her selection.

Once she made that first step she continued to return for more seed.

A great finish to a wonderful day. We never thought we would be able to hand feed a nuthatch!  Charlie and I haven’t been back to the park for a while, but we hope to bring Millie to it to enjoy the sights, sounds, wildlife and hiking trails with us soon. We are just waiting for some drier weather.

I hope you have enjoyed this edition of Wild Bird Wednesday and will take some time to stop by the blog hop host too. And yes I posted this a little earlier than Wednesday in my time-zone, but that is because the blog hop is hosted in Australia.

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Black & White Sunday – Millie Goes Vintage

Charlie has been working with some new image processing software, Nik Collection. Here he used one of the pre-sets in the Silver Efex Pro 2 software to give Millie that vintage look.

We are participating in the Black & White Sunday blog hop.

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Flowers on Friday

Well spring is supposed to have sprung by now, but things are a bit behind schedule from normal. We are just starting to see the bulbs pushing their shoots out of the ground and some of our early flowering trees and shrubs are about to fully open.

Cornelian Cherry Dogwood – Cornus mas

The buds on the Cornelian Cherry Dogwood are just starting to push out. If we get some warmer weather soon the tree will be covered in a variety of insects and yellow blossoms. One of the features we love about this tree is that those flower buds turn into fruit that the birds can enjoy.

Ozark Witch Hazel – Hamamelis vernalis

Our witch hazel has been in bloom for over a month now. I love having a winter flowering shrub in the yard. It is a little ray of sunshine and color among all the snow and clouds. They are fully extended now and when it is warm you can usually find plenty of bees on them.

Glory of the Snow – Chionodoxa luciliae
in Black & White

This is one of the first bulbs that blooms for us. Most of them haven’t opened yet, but this white one was the first one to fully open. They are tiny little flowers and all of our bulbs have divided and spread to make a nice patch. Of course they are in jeopardy of being trampled by a certain “Some Doggy” before they all get the chance to bloom.

Glory of the Snow – in bud

Let’s hope this little guy survives Millie’s zoomies to fully bloom.

As the growing season progresses I hope to update you on what is popping up around our yard so stay tuned.

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Raffle Reminder – With an Update

Get your Blue Moon Magic Raffle tickets now!

As blog followers may recall my mom and I coordinated the making of this years Genesee Valley Quilt Club raffle quilt. I have set up a fundraising page through youCaring.org where you can purchase tickets.

Made by the Genesee Valley Quilt Club, this pieced and quilted work is 90″ x 90″ and will be raffled off to benefit the club and the Community Quilting Bee of Sojourner House at Pathstone.

Raffle tickets are $1 each. Tickets may be purchased world wide, but international winners will be required to pay shipping. Shipping is free to any winner living in the United States.

For each $1 donation a raffle ticket will be filled out with your contact information and you will receive your raffle ticket stub in the mail as confirmation. You may check the boxes to hide your donation amount or to make your donation anonymous so your information doesn’t show up on the fundraiser site. Your contact information is available to the fundraiser administrator only.

Update: I realize that not all of my followers use Paypal or like to use a credit card on the internet so if you would like to purchase tickets with a check just leave me a message in the comments section (make sure a valid email is used with your comment) and I will send you an email with information on where to mail your payment.

The drawing will take place on June 2, 2013 at 2:00 pm (Eastern time) at the RIT Gordon Field House in Rochester, NY. You do not need to be present to win.

Feel free to grab the badge above or any images of this quilt from my site to pass the word on this raffle. You can also go to the donation page and use the “Spread the Word!” section to help promote the raffle. If you have a non-wordpress blog you can create a widget like the one pictured below to put on your site as well.

Thank you very much for your support! I hope one of my readers wins this beautiful quilt (if I don’t)!

If you are in the Rochester, New York area from May 31 – June 2, 2013 please plan on visiting the GVQC quilt show “Magical Threads — Inspired Stitches” where the Blue Moon Magic quilt will be on display along with hundreds of other quilts.

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Wild Bird Wednesday – Redpolls & Bluebirds

This week I thought I would join a different blog hop for Wednesdays post and join Wild Bird Wednesday. I love watching the birds that frequent our yard. We have lots of natural food sources for them during the warm months and have Niger feeders up year round. This winter we have been host to a huge flock of Common Redpolls.

We have never had Redpolls visiting our feeders in the past. There were numerous reports of huge flocks in our area all winter so we were not alone.

We have two of these niger seed feeders and most of the time they are covered with as many redpolls as would fit. I can’t even guess how much niger seed we have gone through this year, but we have had to refill both feeders every day! Normally we have lots of Goldfinches, but they have been a bit scarce with the redpoll takeover. I’m hoping the redpolls head north soon so our resident Goldfinches can have their feeders back.

In other back yard bird news our Eastern Bluebirds have been back for over a month now. The first day we saw them together in the yard we started putting out our dried mealworms.

We think Mrs. Bluebird is already sitting on eggs in the nest box. Last year they raised 3 broods so we are hopeful that this year will be as good.

 

I hope you have enjoyed my first edition of Wild Bird Wednesday and take some time to stop by the blog hop host too.

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