The dog ate my ......

Finally things are picking up here, no freezing temperatures, no snow or even a threat of snow, and I've actually had a chance to wear shorts comfortably. Things are perking along quite nicely. I've been very busy on the home front getting plant material into the ground (much of which has been keeping warm in the backyard greenhouse with a heater running for the last several weeks) and also hauling my fairly large collection of indoor plants out onto the deck and to various areas around the house. Of course if the temperatures plunge yet again I'm hooped, but chances are it will be OK.

I had a nasty shock earlier today in the course of doing another of my seasonal tasks. We have a small outdoor pond in which we keep a couple of goldfish during the summer months to keep the mosquito larvae down, and just because they are nice to have. They winter over in an aquarium in the basement and I always look forward to releasing them to the pond as it must be such a nice change for them. Kind of like how Alpac and I feel when we can start riding outside again after a winter of indoor ring work. I had the fish in a bucket in the back yard, covered with a metal mesh strainer. While I left the fish to acclimatize to the outdoor temperature before putting them in the pond, I went out front to do some planting and digging.

Imagine my horror and distress when I returned to the bucket to find the cover off and only one fish remaining where I had left two. I can only conclude that the wretched Mickey (one of my Boxer dogs and the only other living being in the back yard at the time) pushed the top off and ate my poor fish. Alive. I went as far as sniffing his mouth to see if he had fish breath, but really it just smelled like dog breath and I couldn't tell. However, I'd have to say the circumstantial evidence is very strong. He is the one that once raced into a flock of witless sparrows in the back yard and emerged with one in his mouth, so I'd say he is capable of having done this, although I'm not sure where the challenge was in grabbing a fish out of a pail. Poor thing. The remaining fish (of course Mickey took my favourite one, the one with the interesting shape and colours) seemed both in shock and depressed, but it at least is still alive. I have purchased it a new companion as I think even fish like to have another of their kind with them. I will definitely remember this event in future and keep Mickey in mind when I am doing fish transfers.

On a happier note, I had a nice opportunity this weekend to get some shots of Tennessee Walking horses that were doing a demo at a local riding establishment . It was interesting to see their way of moving and to learn about the breed history and their special characteristics.

Today's first two photos show a couple of the Tennessee Walkers, both owned by Sherri Hueser, who was unfortunately unable to ride either of them in the demos due to a knee injury that had her hobbling around on a crutch. However, this freed her up to give us a most informative commentary on both the breed in general and her horses in particular. The first shot shows Teddy in the rack, one of the specialty gaits of this and other gaited breeds. The second shot is Tango, a handsome black fellow with a noble head.

I had the camera at Ebon on Sunday when I popped out to check on Alpac. Little Murphy has taken up his summer occupation of chasing and "killing" his toys on the grass near the outdoor rings. I think in this shot he is wondering what would happen if his head got stuck in this position!!

Today I finally made it to the weir to start my annual seasonal collection of pelican shots (shot four). I continue to be fascinated by these birds and was interested to see that the flock seems bigger this year, with a lot of mature breeding adults (they have the upright keel on their beaks, unlike the juveniles whose bills lack this feature) like the two featured here. I suspect they are a couple, and they worked in perfect harmony much like synchronized swimmers, as they fished for their food. Other years I have seen few adults but many juveniles, so maybe this is the year that the teenagers have made the jump into adulthood, hence the larger number of physically mature birds.

In my few otherwise unaccounted for moments (usually quite late at night these days) I have been working on some more of my rather odd photomontages. This one may or may not be completed. I am fairly happy with it as is, but I will often see other directions to go with these after I have contemplated them for a while, so it's anyone's guess at the moment whether it will stay like this over time. The nice thing about photomontages is that I can keep one copy as is, but do further work on another copy as I see fit. Kind of like having your cake and eating it too.