Little Dogs on the Prairie and LOTS of Balls

We visited Meadowlark Prairie with the dogs.  It is an urban setting that was restored from agricultural land to its original prairie and wetlands habitat in the 1990s.  It’s a popular area for walking, biking, wildlife viewing and picnicking.  The paved path encircles the 404 acre site.  Needless to say, we have not yet made it all the way around!!  Maybe someday, but we are going a bit farther every time we come.  It’s another great place for dog walking and there are places you can go down into the prairie area off the paved pathway. 



We came across this beautiful Northwestern Ringneck Snake along the path.


Apparently they are rarely seen, preferring to move about after dark.  I thought this one was dead at first but when I touched it, it moved.  I thought it was enjoying some sun but after looking more closely at the pictures, I wonder if it was injured.


There were many ducks, geese and other water fowl in the wetlands area of the prairie.  This duck seems to have found a nice resting place.


There were hundreds of geese gathered in a field across the road.  The wind was blowing towards the dogs from this field and they stood for the longest time just sniffing the scent of geese.  Didn’t bark or try to move – just figuring out the scent.

This is the view from one end of the prairie.


This is even closer to our house than the lake is so we have a couple of great exercise areas with 15 minutes or less.

The weather has been wonderful the last couple of days so we have spent a lot of time in the backyard with the dogs.  They love to play ball and get super excited when I approach their bucket of balls.  I am trying to teach them to calm down so as soon as they start barking, I move away from the balls.  When they stop barking I move closer.  In the following video, Ollie throws quite a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get his balls right away.  Jewel catches on and quiets down pretty quickly.  This was yesterday and it took maybe 5 minutes of barking before they settled down.  Today went much quicker – just a couple of minutes.  Then they sat quietly while I got the balls.  Turn your speakers down or OFF so you don’t hear all the barking!!
)

Russ took all video and no stills of this session so I snagged a couple of shots from the video. The quality is not great since these photos are from the video footage, but you can see how Jewel likes to jump and catch.   Ollie loves to run flat out as fast as he can to chase the balls.  Jewel does not want to chase – she wants to turn somersaults and catch the balls.  So I throw one long for Ollie and then toss one to Jewel for catching.  Woe be to me if I don’t take turns and make sure they each get the same number of balls!!





Look how that right leg is way up there!






Catch ya later!!

It’s Nice to go to School

Not that we are students, but when it rains the school next door is a great place to walk the dogs.  



Irving Elementary School houses grades 1-5 and is composed of 7 separate buildings.  Five of the buildings are round which makes for an interesting design.  All the buildings are connected by covered walkways and each building is surrounded by covered sidewalks.



A walk around each of those buildings gives us and the dogs a good workout and the bonus is we stay dry.  When the weather is nice, we can enjoy the large grass covered field.  Rusty and Poppy used to run off-leash here sometimes but we won’t let the current kids off leash at all.






Did you see the pretty pink trees in the background?  Spring is certainly on its way here.  The school yard and play structures serve as an unofficial neighborhood park and it is sure nice when the grandkids come to visit.  They have spent many happy hours playing at this school.  The picture at right is a bunch of my grandkids playing at the school way back in 2007.







It’s nice to have this park like setting right in our own back yard.  Oh sure, we get a few balls over the fence from time to time, but the benefits certainly outweigh the negatives.  And just in case anyone was just dying to see the back of our house from the school yard – here it is!!!


That’s a whole lot of fence to keep up with but it sure is nice in the summer to have the yard and the school right next door.  And that’s why I say, it’s nice to go to school!

Don’t Forget to Take Time to Smell the Flowers

THREE parks today – my feet hurt!!  Oh well, it’s good for us and good for the dogs. 

First we had to go check out the Heron nest at Alton Baker park.  Not much activity this morning, too early in the day maybe.  There were 3 herons but mostly they were just being lazy.


This one was still performing its morning toilet – or maybe preparing for a hot lunch date.  It was certainly working hard to get those feathers just right.



Alton Baker is a very large park with areas for fishing, picnicking, jogging, canoeing, and they even have a Frisbee golf course.  One area is a tree “garden” with many varieties of beautiful trees.  I thought this magnolia was beautiful.  It looked strange to have blossoms but no leaves yet.








There was another variety of magnolia that had beautiful waxy green leaves but no flowers – go figure!!





The day was just too nice to end with one park so we went on out to Armitage.   Armitage is the county park where many of you stay when you camp in the area.  It has a beautiful FHU campground, a fenced 2 acre dog park, covered picnic areas, volleyball, horseshoe pits,  boat ramp, and walking trails.  There is an upper trail through the picnic area, and a lower trail that goes right along the McKenzie River.  We wisely chose to stay on the upper trail today, as the lower trail was a bit damp!


We found some beautiful daffodils and Ollie took time to stop and smell the flowers.


…and smell some more…


…and some more…


…and just a bit more!

He’s such a sensitive little guy ha-ha!!

We were having such a great time that we took the long way out to Harrisburg so we could just enjoy the sunshine a bit longer.  We stopped at the park in Harrisburg but by then I was too tired to get out the camera.  I did get a shot of the kids in their seats though.

Come'on Dad, get in so we can get going.

At home, their energy was still not depleted so Ollie begged to play a few games of “ball.” 

“See Dad, the balls are right over there on the table.”


“PLEASE, Dad, I’ll love you forever.”


And so we wore them out with tennis balls.  Jewel settled down for a bit of squirrel watching.




Ollie brought his Nyla-bone outside and gave it a good chewing.


We sat in our chairs and just enjoyed the warm sunshine, our dogs, and our many blessings.

It’s Not the Destination; it’s the Journey

We didn’t go far yesterday but we did take Therapy out for a little exercise.  She was raring to go, started right up and ran like a charm.  Even sitting under cover all winter, she still gets so dirty and is definitely in need of a bath – later, not today!!

Ollie and Jewel hopped right in.  I had their tethers affixed to the sofa seat belts and brought their crate along for good measure.  Ollie matches the blanket we use to cover the sofa.



Jewel on the other hand, looks like she would disappear into the upholstery if I took the blanket off.  I’ll have to try that next time we get in the motor home.  Look how well she matches the sofa pillow!




Both dogs settled right in and I moved over to my dinette chair.



Jewel looked very curious at first that the whole house was moving but she didn’t seem afraid.  Ollie looked out the front window for a bit then just settled down and went to sleep.



We only went as far as the lake – about a 15 minute ride, but we took the long way home.  I feel confident the poochies will do fine on longer trips and we’ll be doing some of that soon.

While we were at the lake we saw a LOT of geese.  I think they must have been Wimpy Geese because they were all flying SOUTH!!  Wave after wave of these honkers flew over head all headed (more or less) in a southerly direction.



One thing they had in common, they just couldn’t seem to get into formation.  These guys especially seemed to be having trouble.  They made a great line but a “V” was not forthcoming.




Well, like I said in my title, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.  I hope these confused critters can get it together and enjoy their journey as much as we did ours, even if it’s a short one.

A Walk, A Rookery, and a Ride

What a busy day we have had.  Russ started the morning with a solo walk with Jewel.  She was raring to go so while I got showered, and Ollie did his imitation of a couch potato, Russ and Jewel had a brisk walk around the neighborhood.

Breakfast at the Original Pancake house was followed by a trip to Alton Baker Park.  I just noticed that, in the linked post, I called the geese Canadian geese – I know better now, they do not have passports and they are called Canada geese.  How they got their name is debatable but you can read about that here if you are interested.

The pups were GREAT.  Interested but not intimidated by all the geese, ducks, pigeons and other water fowl in the area.  Jewel did try and convince us to let her herd them but she was kept firmly in hand and did not bark.  Did you know that Australian Shepherds are often trained using ducks as the first animal they herd?  Of course Ollie and Jewel are not going to be working dogs so we won’t be encouraging the herding instinct.

Jewel is looking at the ducks and geese, while Ollie is busy sniffing their leavings…



NO OLLIE, it is NOT doggie perfume!


Please, Mom, just let me get a little closer…


I could round them up for you, I KNOW I could!


So near, yet so far away.


That’s a good girl (doggone it anyway!).


And a good boy – just curious, no barking at all.



A lady passed us on the trail and then she stopped and was shooting pictures with her phone.  She was kind enough to point out a group of 5 heron nests in a tree across the canal.  We never would have seen them as it was quite a distance away and we were concentrating on the dogs.  I don’t know if 5 nests qualifies as a rookery, but it sure was neat to see them.

Can you see two herons in this picture?  Click to enlarge.








As we watched, another heron began to circle overhead.


It circled three or four times.  Maybe checking to see if it was safe to land??






Finally the landing gear came down and the final approach was made.





Can you spot all three herons in the picture below?




All I had with me was my little Panasonic pocket camera so the quality is not that great.  But now that we know where this is, we’ll return with our big cameras and try for some better shots.  It sure was fun.

Our fun for the day was not over yet but this post grows long so I will save the “Ride” part for tomorrow.  Hint:  The wheels on Therapy were rolling!!