Cedar Waxwing Invasion

We seem to have been taken over by groups of Cedar Waxwings today. They may be gathering to migrate but we observed a parent feeding two large young ones in Ruth's apple tree at the back of the yard. Top two pictures here are the young ones and the third picture is an adult. This morning we went out for Monday morning walk with nature club. En route to our hike destination Deb noticed this strange bird sitting on wire. We backed up and observed it for quite some time as he moved from pole to pole, all the while we were also checking our bird book for identification. We finally decided it is most likely a Burrowing Owl. Lastly, a nice surprise to come upon was this large field of pretty yellow sunflowers on the north side of the road so all their faces were looking right at the camera.
click on any picture to enlarge

Dusty update

Our little dog is feeling better although she still has some improving to do . She is now able to jump on and off couch and bench outside as well as doing the few steps in and out of house. She did take a couple of longer walks with us today, but with the change in food(all those missing teeth require soft food until her mouth heals) and the lack of exercise lately she just isn't her regular self , if you catch my meaning. At least she has gotten used to the aches in her legs from removal of dewclaws and after two days of licking off the nasty tasting cream designed to make her not lick there....she has learned that it really isn't a good idea to even try to sneak in licks when we aren't looking. LOL. I saw her awaken from sleep last night and lift her head to stare at her legs then she flung her head backward and went back to sleep with a sigh. I take that to be an indication that they hurt but she has learned there isn't anything she can do about it for now. Her stitches should come out next Friday.
I forgot to mention that it took us about 4 hours to cut the little green bandages off of the freaky dog and she even tried many times to snap at me while we worked on it slowly cutting away the wraps with very tiny scissors and didn't hurt her at all. Good thing she has a sore mouth or she just might have really bitten me. This is very uncharacteristic behaviour for her...the vet is the ONLY person who gets the snapping reaction so we normally use a muzzle there. unfortunately we don't have one at home.

Bad day for Dusty

As you can see by these pictures, little Dusty isn't feeling the greatest today. She spent yesterday in surgery having her dew claws removed and her teeth cleaned, checked out and many extracted. The vet says she now has a grand total of 14 missing or possibly never grown, teeth. Of that we were only aware of one which fell out a few years ago following some very rough chewing and play with her toys. She had to have one major canine tooth pulled along with some very small teeth, so today she is hurting big time. The vet says she will be acting 5 years younger, in a few weeks when she recovers from this tooth infection and removal. We haven't tried to be bad caregivers to her but no vet has ever been able to get inside her mouth for a look before and even we have trouble getting her to let us check inside there. Normally we get a quick peek during play and that's it. Yorkies are well known for having tooth decay problems due to plaque build up below gum lines. Little freaky one had to be knocked out for this exam and we knew she has been having mouth troubles of some kind off and on for some time now so made the decision to send her for surgery even though the doctor thought it should be just an exam first. The dew claw removal was sort of an afterthought on my part because it should have been done when she went for last surgery(spay at age 1) but she was too dehydrated and the doctor didn't want her to lose more blood then. This seemed to me like a convenient time to get rid of those curly monster claws which cause her so much trouble. Seeing her poor little legs wrapped and her not being able to stand much makes me wonder if I did a bad thing???? We can take off the green bandages tonight so maybe things will look better then.

CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE AND SEE HER SAD FACE AND PATHETIC LITTLE LEGS.

Bill and Diane's Pond

Bill and Diane have been busy this summer improving their yard and garden for all to enjoy. These are 2 views of their handiwork in creating a fish pond beside our fence. The gate you see beside the pond leads to our backyard. They had a small pond last summer and enjoyed it so much that this year they got the larger one you see at bottom and used the original small one above it to create waterfall for their fish to play in. They began the summer with a few waterlilies and the three fish from last year, but often when they were out the number of lilies grew in the pond. It took some detective work but finally they discovered it was Ed, another neighbour who also has a large pond, who was dropping in extra plants for them. Diane did have more decorations out and about in the yard but this summer has been a bad season for kids stealing things from their yard so they have become leery of putting out more. Still, we think things look beautiful and there are many people around who appreciate the hard work they do in beautifying their piece of the neighbourhood.CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE FOR BETTER VIEW

flowerbeds in bloom

Just a few more recent pictures of our front garden. The short yellow and red flower, beside the solar light in first picture has a pretty little yellow butterfly feeding on a flower near the center of the plant. We have seen these little yellow guys gathering for migration. Prime viewing was a few weeks ago when we noticed gatherings in groups of 10 - likely 30 or more along the roads near the lake, especially beside bean fields.

The other pictures here show off our coveted, Spoon Daisies. First is the white one alongside our special rose bush and then other picture show the purple Spoon Daisy, which is a bit past prime for the blooms shown. All of these pictures were taken this morning in very bright sunlight and seeing them, I am now thinking that less than direct sun would have shown the true colors better. Oh well, you get the idea anyway.

Today out at Pearce Park we found these large coral fungi which have suddenly grown on a felled and rotting tree. Very interesting to see them all growing on the west edge of the log. Judging by the sawdust appearing beside the one shown in lower picture, there may be some sort of bugs living inside the corals. We were last at this location about a week ago and there was no sign of anything growing here then. I guess it was combination of wet and cooler weather that brought on this outburst. Hopefully we can make time to check out growths along the trails on the longer trails to the north side of the road soon. Tis the season to find strange things growing around here.

Kitchen floor

This is a view of the new flooring which Deb and I managed to install while Chris was away at camp. It is laminate and we hope it will hold up better than the vinyl floor which I had put in shortly after purchasing this place. If not, at least it will be easy to replace. The kitchen is in a very unsettled state at the present time because we also arranged for new counter top to be installed. It was a nasty job due to "U" shape and very uneven walls along with unlevel everything....the job was arranged through Home Depot although it was subcontracted. The guys doing installation were idiots and cut the hole for sink too far forward on counter top. The result was that I can not install the clamps at the front of the sink because the sink is actually directly over the edge of the cupboard. Needless to say we are waiting for someone to come inspect and find a solution(likely another complete replacement of counter top so hole can be cut properly). Meanwhile we have things from cupboards sitting throughout the house because I am too lazy to put it all away then remove it all again when they get here to fix it.

Miranda at college

Miranda And Sheldon are settling in nicely at Confederation College. Miranda sent these pictures to show that they are doing fine and the bottom picture is of a little guy who tried to follow them home from a shopping trip.
It was great that Miranda managed to get accepted into Confederation after Sheldon decided to go there. Life is so much easier with a friend, when you begin on your own so far away from family. click on any picture to enlarge for a better look