Keeping Our Cool

It's still hot.
We still go outside several times during the day to take care of our needs because we never learned to use the indoor bathroom facilities.


The hammock is empty. It's too hot for Rob to swing in it.


The wading pool is empty. It's too hot to splash in it.


Nobody is in the shower tower.


When Sue opens the door we rush out to get under a tree, then we rush back to the door to get inside with the air conditioning.

Sue has some ways to help us keep from getting bored and stay cool at the same time.
For the girls, she takes some of these red kongs and puts a bunch of little cheese flavored treats inside. Then she plasters them closed with peanut butter and sticks them in the freezer overnight.
When it gets hot in the early afternoon she gives them to the Lola, Bailey, Tess and Norma Jean to play with. You can hear their tongues working on that frozen peanut butter. Yummmm! If you're wondering why the girls get them and not everybody, it's because Tsar and Sky have that expensive dental work and Sue doesn't want them damaging the caps on their teeth.


The rest of us get to have some of our favorite strawberry yogurt. We line up in front of Sue and she spoon feeds us each in turn. Then somebody gets to lick out the container. We do this a couple times a day so that everybody gets a chance at the container sooner or later.



We're a pretty inventive group and we can probably think up some good ideas for keeping cool that Sue hasn't even thought of. This is a little piece of sculpture that Michelle Toland made for Sue, but it seems like a good idea to us.

It's Too Hot!!

The thermometer on the porch says 103.2 degrees and it's in the shade. Yesterday it was in the mid-nineties. Yesterday the dogs played in the spray from the hose.


Today it's just too hot to do anything. The dogs are sleeping out in various spots around the house.


They run outside every couple hours and pee in the shade, then back into the air conditioning. Tsar just stays in the basement stretched out on his pillow.

The humans in the house are taking the day off, too. Rob is drawing in his sketch book and I'm working on a cross stitch while reclining on the sofa.



It's too hot to work at anything including this blog. I'll check back in tomorrow.

Happy Father's Day

This is Noah's post today.

Today is Father's Day and my brother Sky and my sisters Tess, Lola, Bailey, Norma Jean and I all want to wish our dad, Fudge, a very happy day. We'll all try to be extra nice to you today. We'll let you get in the water first and you can pick the toy you want to play with. We won't even
object too much if you get an extra cookie.



We have something called a pedigree that tells us who all our ancestors were. Sue has found pictures of some of them and we want to wish a happy day to our Grandfathers, Kerchak and Brilho and to all our Greats.


This is Fudge's dad, Kerchak.


Fudge's Grandfathers are Jake

and


Uno

We also want to wish our mom, Samba's dad a happy day, too.

This is our Grandpa Brilho

Here are some of our Greats. They're a pretty handsome group. Our mom's family is from Portugal and so we don't have as many pictures of her ancestors, but the ones we have look pretty wild. You can check them out for yourself.


Benjamin


Bogey


Reno


Gumby


Charlie


Balu


Toby


Cacau


Samba


Dillon


Mare


Zum Zum


Taro


Ilheu


Batel


Leao

In the early 1970s our breed almost became extinct. There were only 27 PWDs in the world. We've made a good comeback, there's even one of us in the White House, but because the gene pool was so small the same dogs appear in everyone's pedigree and sometimes they appear several times. Sue studied pedigrees before we were born and tried to make sure nobody showed up too often in ours. She chose a line of true Portuguese working dogs and a line of US show dogs so that we could have the best of both worlds. We think she did a pretty good job.

Baaaa

Chan reminded me that last weekend and this weekend are KIP days. So in the true spirit of knitters everywhere I took to the road with my knitting bag.

My first stop was Ziggies for lunch. We knitters have to keep our strength up.


Who would have guessed- our waitress is also a knitter. So, of course, we had to share some stories or should I say yarns.


After lunch I headed to the library. I prefer to knit in comfort, no park benches. After the library I had to head home because I had company arriving. My aunt was coming to the goat show. She usually shows her dairy goats and I have been known to take one into the ring, but this year she was leaving her goats home and was attending as a spectator.


As we walked thru the barn we were greeted by some friendly faces. Doesn't it look like she's smiling at us? Maybe she mistook me for the judge.


This one wasn't smiling, but still wanted to say hello and get her head scratched. I love the Nubians with the floppy ears.


This one was loudly demanding her dinner.


Dairy goats are very friendly characters. They're used to being handled and seem to like the company of humans.


This one needed a scratch under the ear.


The best part is looking at the kids. These two are newborns and are sleeping in this dog carrier.


These are a little older and quite interested in all the activity.


Here are a couple tiny ones.


I completely fell in love with this one. She has the most beautiful face and is so calm and sweet She's a bottle fed orphan and I would take her home in a minute if I didn't have a house full of noisy dogs. I stood there for ten minutes with her little face in my hand and she was so content.

The rest of the weekend is going to be spent reading and stitching. Go knit in public!!

The Good Life

Rob has been using the hammock a lot this year. The dogs climbed all over him the first time they saw it, but now they're used to seeing him in it. Still they think they should be able to use it, too.

Norma Jean is the most persistent.


Bailey jumped all the way over him one day. We're not sure what she was trying to do.


Everyone would like to get in with him.


Norma Jean finally jumped in.


Morgan had to check to see what Norma Jean was doing.


Norma Jean trying to get more comfortable. I think she wanted the pillow.


Now Bailey wants to get in.


A couple more checking to see what he's doing.


Tess would like to climb in, but the hammock moves and she's not sure about it.


Morgan stops by to lick Rob's hand.


Here comes Norma Jean again.


It looks like everybody wants to swing.

Lying in a hammock is a great way for a dog to spend a lazy summer afternoon.