see Skippy run

This is a video I took last fall and have just now figured out how to post. Its a 4 second video of Skippy running down the hill. Pretty basic home video.

new haircut

Skippy has a new summer haircut. Nice and short!

Joseph's in the newspaper

Here's a nice article in the Winchester Star about one of Skippy's coworkers, a pug named Joseph. The article describes the work that Caring Canines therapy dogs do.

kayaking with a dog

We've been trying out all sorts of ways to kayak with Skippy. Skippy is now about 55 lbs and prefers to be up on all fours and moving around in a boat. He jumps in the water for a swim now and then, and whines when I get too far from him. The life jacket helps a lot for picking him up and getting back onto a boat.

Top: the best kayak we've found so far (a sit-on-top plastic Cobra Explorer kayak with a big flat deck). Lower right: a silly thing we tried, but Skippy was able to balance (briefly) when in a small kayak on his own. He wasn't so good with the paddle. Lower left: another method we tried for fun. Skippy was actually able to balance pretty well on the large plastic sea kayak, but it took a lot of effort for me to keep the boat upright. We kayaked like this about 5 minutes and didn't even get wet!

backyard pond

Just a quick video of our backyard pond with a couple of koi swimming around on a hot summer day.

I can across this about Sam, an 18 year old flat coated retriever. "... memories like filtered sunlight falling all around him" - a beautiful post.

vacation

Skippy's on vacation this week! See you later.

kayaking

fledgling blue jay

This little guy was waiting for his mom in a tree in my backyard today. When she came back, he followed her, squawking for food. Lots of birds are busy feeding their growing youngsters now.

chocolate chip scones

A year ago I published picture of my scones. I've been meaning to add the recipe, because they are truly delicious. Here's a photo of a new batch and the recipe follows:

(recipe coming soon)