Wordless Wednesday - The Stolen Dryer Ball

 

Lessons in Pickleball by Phod

Dear pals,

My people play pickleball 1 or 2 times a week. The Man loves it. They Lady does it because it is good for her and she likes a lot of the people, but not for any love of playing a sport. If the Man didn't love it, she would never play. 

At any rate, the Man got himself a new paddle and I paid a lot of attention to him when he was talking about it and the game. 

Lee was not so interested. Perhaps another way she is like the Lady. 

I think I would like pickleball but Lady says I would interfere a lot and try to steal the ball, even if it was hard plastic. 

your pal Phod

Mischief Monday - The Joys of Aging - by Lee

 Dear pals,

I am not as young as I once was. I also sometimes have a bit of trouble waiting to go out.

While Lady and Man are working hard to decrease the amount of time we are alone, currently they have 1 or 2 days a week where we are alone for more than 5 hours. Often on these days, we have taken to doing business in the house. Lady and Man are torn on if we can't hold it or if we are just used to going out or if we are just mad. Whatever the reason, Lady decided to get some pee pads to see if we would use them. She ordered ones that are too small, but that is ok, she has made them into a bigger mat. Now, excluding that time before Christmas when Phod was really sick, we have actually had success at using them, or at least mostly on them. This has made the Man and Lady's lives and clean up easier. 

Set up by the back patio, a place we like to pee if our people aren't here.

This is one of the accommodations Lady and Man are making for us old dogs.  Getting old is not for the faint of heart!

your pal Lee, who sometimes forgets she is old

Nature Friday - Where Did All The Snow Go?

 Let's look back early in December:

December 3, 2023 - in the Sugar Bush

December 4, 2023 - in our yard

In the week leading up to Christmas, the temperatures became above freezing. It rained and all the Christmas card snow disappeared. We had some of the warmest December days on record. 

Here are pictures from our walk on Boxing Day from the sugar bush:

This was our front yard on December 29.

While on one hand, temperatures of 7C/45F are much nicer than a deep freeze, sometimes it is very hard to deny climate change. We are expected to have a shorter, less snowy winter, with some more violent storms. We will see what January brings.

Thanks to Rosy and Sunny for hosting Nature Friday. 

Celebrating Christmas

On Tuesday, we told you about how our holidays got off to a bad start. They did improve.

On December 24, we got to drive for 87 million hours (1.5 hours in human time) to Grammie and the Big Guy's for our family Christmas. Phod threw up a lot in the car, but other than that we were super good puppies. We saw Grammie and the Big Guy and Aunt C and Uncle D and Maggie and Troy and Uncle Chris and Emma. The adults did their gift exchange. They each get one name and this years theme was charity. Uncle D adopted a cardinal for Lady from a local bird rescue and The Big Guy got Man a new game and puzzle from the Salvation Army thrift store and made a donation to a local food bank. 

Loving the tissue paper by the Big Guy's feet

Begging for turkey

The only draw back, we had to dress for the occasion

There were lots of pets to go around

Phod had a much harder time settling then Lee did

After lunch, we headed home. Uncle Chris and Emma headed to our place too. We spent Christmas eve and Christmas day, eating, watching movies, playing games and being good puppies. Lady realized she really sucked at taking pictures of us on Christmas.

I would like a present too!

We got lots of treats

Uncle Chris and Emma left Boxing Day and after that Lady and Man laid low. They played pickleball one morning. Man went to a movie. Lady met a friend who was in town for dinner. There were nice walks and a lot of naps. Lady is missing the naps this week (and only getting up at 7 and not 5). 

So while the holidays didn't start they way we hoped, they turned out to be just fine.

Wordless Wednesday - New Year's Outtakes

 

Traitor Tuesday - The Beginning of the Holidays

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, celebrating whatever you celebrate, however you celebrate it. For the most part, we had a very low key holiday. Lady meant to get around to visit you all, but just was not at her computer and liked it as she often spends 10 hours a day on it for work. She is back into routine now - which really means she is on a chocolate detox because at the end of last week, she is sure she was 50% chocolate.

We are going to jump back to December 22. This was Lady and Man's last day at work for 2023.  Both went to the office. Man came home early and Mr. Phod had been rather ill and pooped all over the house. It took a long time to clean up and hours for the house to stop smelling. This continued all the night of the 22nd and into the midday of the 23rd. Lady was taking him out like every 2 hours. Lady and Man think he made himself sick by eating too much turkey poop (or maybe deer or cat poop). Other than needing to poop (or as Lady kindly noted, pee out his bum), he was eating and seemed fine. He moved to a rice diet and as they day went on, clearly was improving. 

The night of the 23rd, Phod was feeling better (we had made it a whole 5.5 hours between poops!) so Lady and Man felt confident going next door for the friends' Christmas party. As it was next door at Callie's house, they were able to come home every couple of hours to check on us. While Phod's tummy was now back to normal, we were not fine because we missed out on all the fun. If smelling them wasn't enough, we found some very incriminating pictures on Lady's phone. 

First, Lady and Man got to see Santa and his elf. Maybe we are glad we missed out on that because we may have escaped a hat tax with strangers. 

 

Man gave Callie a lot of love. 

Lady played with a cat. We think this is Cinder. This was taken before she scooped him up and made him love her. 

Lady played with Callie!

We really thought after that, Lady and Man should get some coal. They were big traitors. We don't see how adding us to a house with over 30 people, with many kids, and Lee trying to kill the cats wasn't a festive idea. We think we would have really brought some life to the party. 

The holidays weren't off to the best start. They got better. Come back Thursday to find out how.