Another Lazy Sunday

This has been a lazy weekend so far, and that's a good thing. Rita and I took the dogs to the dog park to enjoy the perfect weather, scoring the bench in the shade right away - a rare treat. Skippy seems to really enjoy seeing other dogs. He was particularly attracted to a Golden Retriever who looked at lot like his old buddy that died last year.

Socky goodness is continuing apace. The pink and purple units are still living at the office during the week, so they get only a few minutes per day of progress. The (beautifully matched!) green and yellow ones are the ones I started for our camping trip last week. They are plain stockinette, so they go really fast. One of our camping buddies was so fascinated by them and was so inspired by sock lust that I'm going to give them to her as a surprise. I know they will be going to a loving home.

This is a picture of my favorite dog walking street, proof that I do not always walk the dog under cover of darkness. Now that fall is upon us I only see daylight for our morning walk on the weekend. This is a nice walk, with a couple of horse pastures on the way, and the sound of a rooster about halfway down the street. It's almost a little escape from the city, and just a step around the corner from the house. Roxy especially enjoys it because there is always something exciting to smell - lots of skunks and raccoons pass through, and other dogs visit frequently. Today we got a particular treat - a

tree full of buzzards! I know - now that I see it for myself it does look odd to have "buzzards" and "treat" in the same sentence! There is a dead tree in one of the open lots where I often see a hawk or some of the local gang of crows. This morning I could hear the crows raising a ruckus, and when I looked up there was a bunch of buzzards hanging out in the dead tree. It's hard to tell from this picture, but there were about ten of them. I often see them flying (or circling!) but almost never perched anywhere, so this was a nice surprise for me. Of course trying to get close enough to get a recognizable picture of them I got poor Roxy's feet all full of stickers and had to carry her out. The stickers are bad this year because of the drought - they tolerate the dry weather well and nothing else was doing well enough to choke them out.

Here is proof that I have not (yet )pinched the face off the dog. I'm trying to get her confidence by taking pictures of her in daylight. She's so afraid of lightning that the flash scares her. Whenever she sees the camera she runs away.

Rita is here this weekend, and we'll be baking cookies later to try to fatten Larry up. For now she's hanging out with me eating a bowl of oatmeal while I update the blog, add a monkey to the Etsy Shop, and read the New York Times online. Later we'll have company for dinner - tonight it will be an east Indian dish accompanied by a lemon pie. Yummy!