Positively Posting on Pets - Wednesday Medley

Awwwwwww, my favorite photo of Bridger and Misty.

Note: No animals were hurt in the making of this blog post, although the only ones still with us are the two at the end, Tommy & Smokey. The others lived long and happy lives. I still miss them. And to those of you who have been around a while, many of these photos will be reruns for you. So this post will contain a mixture of old and new.

Join Terri and the Gang

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She writes the questions;

we write the answers.

Plug them into your own blog post

and join Terri at Your Friend From Florida

to link up!

Thank you for hosting the Wednesday Medley, Terri!
We all appreciate the hard work!

Tuppence, ready to take a nap in the baby buggy

NATIONAL LOVE YOUR PET DAY

On February 20th, pet lovers everywhere observe National Love Your Pet Day.  This holiday is a day set aside to give extra attention to and pamper your pets.  This is a good day to focus on the special relationship that you have with your pets.

Did you know that most households in the United States have at least one pet?  While there are more cats than dogs in the United States, more households have dogs than cats, but not by much. Pets are not limited to the canine and feline categories.  There are quite a few who prefer the companionship of birds, reptiles, fish or rats.  Whoever your pet companion is, we are sure you will enjoy spending a little extra time with them on National Love Your Pet Day and reap the benefits, as well such as stress relief and lower blood pressure.  So on February 20 (and every day) show your appreciation to your pets! (blue added for emphasis - by me)

 Jazzie, the grandpuppy, enjoying our front porch in wonderful July, 
the shortest month of the year.

HOW TO OBSERVE

Bring your pet a special treat, take an extra long walk or give them more attention on National Love Your Pet Day.  Whatever you decide to do, spoil and appreciate your pets!  Use #NationalLoveYourPetDay to post on social media.

Our pets are spoiled every day. No need to take it to a new level. They would totally take advantage of it and demand it every day! :-)

 Misty, in her favorite hunting ground, the alfalfa field north of the house.
She loved chasing butterflies!

HISTORY

Within our research, we were unable to identify the creator of National Love Your Pet Day.

 Lionel, still very much missed. This is the cat that would crawl under the covers and come up next to me, put his head and paws on my pillow and sleep!
Oh yeah, Mr. C. just loved that. LOLOL
It was SO CUTE!!

By the way, I am grateful every day that God, our Creator, didn't just stick us on some remote outpost made of concrete, but gave us a beautiful earth, full of so many good things (rivers, trees, mountains, flowers, etc.) AND all the incredible animals. Thank you Lord. Help us remember that these all belong to You and we are merely stewards of your good creation. You alone are so deserving of our worship!

1.  Have you ever had a special pet in your life?  Will you tell us about it?

 I know, I know. But Terri did ask!
This is Bridger, for any of you who haven't seen his photo before (multiple times). That would probably be almost no one. LOL

2.  Did you grow up with pets in your home?  What did it teach you?

Yes, we had pets on the farm. But it wasn't the same. Although I think our dog (a Border Collie) was allowed in the house once or twice, it wasn't a regular thing. She was a work dog, whose job was rounding up the cows. I think my parents, like lots of people on farms, thought that animals do not belong in the house. Oh, how mistaken they were! :-))

 Bridger, Misty, and Jazz

3.  Do you ever wonder what animals are thinking?

I'm pretty sure that Bridger was thinking what a lucky dog he was to live in the house and yet be able to go out and play (or lie in the snow) anytime he wanted, and how he wished I'd forget the way to the vet's office. And that's probably what all our pets were thinking. Except for Tommy, who is 99% of the time thinking, 'Where is that tuna??'

This guy loved the snow! I don't know how big, hairy dogs survive in the southern heat.

4.  Sometimes a pet gets out and doesn't return for a few days. What do you think happens to them when they go on a walkabout?

They take a crash course in how to become parents, which is why it's our responsibility to get our pets spayed or neutered. Millions of animals are euthanized each year because of pet overpopulation.

 Allowed on the road ONLY when on lead.

5.  With cats and dogs being the most popular pets, what is the most exotic pet you have personal experience with (didn't have to be yours)?

Our daughter had a pet tarantula, Rosie. Believe it or not, Rosie was a nice pet and didn't seem at all like a you-know-what.

Our granddaughter had a pet rat. Unfortunately, it never ceased to seem like a rat, to me. Ewwwww! I did let it climb up my arm once, just to try to prove something, but catching sight of that tail just makes me shudder!

This rat, on the other hand, is not alive,

and just used to encourage our grandson to eat. You know, imagined competition.

It worked.

 Waiting for me to finish picking green beans.
He never offered to help, although he kept all the wolves and bears away.
I always felt safe from predators with Bridger around.
(UPS, FED EX, USPS, etc.) :-)
Seriously, a German Shepherd would probably give his life to protect his person.
When Mr. C. had to be gone overnight, I always felt safe with Bridger and a 12 gauge shotgun at my side. It's not that I don't trust God, but He did give us tools and a brain!

6.  Please tell us something random about your week so far...

Well, I guess the only random thing I can think of is that we're expecting another couple snowstorms to come through in the next day and over the weekend. Not that we don't have enough snow already. 

 Back Deck

February 19, 2019

 This cute little fella was the subject of the goat?/sheep? debate on my Instagram account this week. I snapped this pic on our way home from Madison, when we took a nice little detour from the Interstate and instead drove on Highway 27 north of Black River Falls. More barn photos coming soon. I was sure that he was a sheep, but the majority of Instagrammers who weighed in say he's a goat. Whichever, it was so sweet of him to pose for me.

 Tommy, held by Mr. C.

That cat loves being upside down!

 Smokey, lying against the footstool, next to the fire.
I told Mr. C. that when we move from the farm, that block of wood is going with us.
He just gives 'that look.' But that block of oak has been used by everyone who sits next to the fire, including the grandkids (and obviously, Smokey!).

 Tommy & Smokey,
our current pet residents
who are SUCH a delight.
(and almost always together)

So, do YOU have animals in your home?  How many and what species and breed?  Inquiring minds want to know! (That would be all of us!). :-) 

 
(Spouses do not count.) :-D

You might be interested to know that my soap room is off limits to furry critters. Just in case you were wondering. :-)

P.S. I LOVE your comments!

***

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Have a wonderful Wednesday, everyone! 

Join me on Instagram: @cranberrymorning

September 2015 - Autumn, Rushing to Greet Us

As I scrolled through my photo files, it struck me how much the colors of the garden landscape have changed in the past few months. There's so much orange and brown and gold replacing the almost solid green of May. Remember May? Seems like it was just a few minutes ago, doesn't it!

Fall is at the door and in NW Wisconsin we can expect drier, cooler weather, frost in the mornings, shorter and shorter daylight hours, and the smell of wood smoke in the air. The vines of the squash and pumpkins are dying down, the beans and tomatoes have all been eaten or canned, and it's just about time to clean off the garden. Why is it that I feel so little motivation to execute that part.

Striped Dahlia

I cannot look at the photo mosaic above and the photos below without being grateful to God for his amazing creation, for giving us color and texture and fragrance, the ability to see, smell, sense, hear, feel, recognize differences, to appreciate the changing of the seasons, to see God's hand in our lives, giving so generously to us each day from the glorious sunrise in the morning to the starry skies at night.

Jazzie, enjoying life

Golden Soybean Field

 

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;

let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;

let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

 For the Lord is a great God,

and a great King above all gods.

 In his hand are the depths of the earth;

the heights of the mountains are his also.

 The sea is his, for he made it,

and his hands formed the dry land.

  Oh come, let us worship and bow down;

let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!

- Psalm 95:1-6

Barn near Leon, WI

Gorgeous Trumpet Vine, Westby, WI

Happy horses,

being what God called them to be

Cashton Holstein

Checking out the photographer

Have a wonderful week, friends!

Sorry I've been so absent. I'm not making any promises about the months of September through November. I appreciate every one of you who leaves a comment, even when I'm not able to respond to them (although I'll try!). I hope to get back on track soon. And if I don't, I'll come up with a better excuse.

***

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***

This post is linked to

Amaze Me Monday and Roses of Inspiration and Mosaic Monday
and Good Fences and Saturday's Critters
  

Making a Jigsaw Puzzle from a Photo, Misty My Dog

Misty Amongst Sensible Shoes

I've shown you our little blind, deaf, and elderly dog Misty in a previous post, but this photo looked like it would be a great jigsaw puzzle! Wouldn't that be a fun one?  Anyway, there's no place she would rather be than near me, and the next best thing is our shoes. Lots of good smellin' there, I guess.

Have you ever had a jigsaw puzzle made from a photo? Which company did you use? I see that Shutterfly will make puzzles from one's photo, but I want to make sure that if I spend the money to do this, the pieces are a good quality. Got any ideas?

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Although I usually forget to do it, there is a chance that this post will be linked to one or more of these great linky parties: Inspiration Monday and Make it Pretty Monday and  Making the World Cuter Mondays and It's a Party at Creative Princess and Artsy Corner Thursday and Treasure Box Tuesday and KatheWithAnE and Rubbish Tuesday and Tuesday with a Twist and  Knick of Time Tuesday (vintage)  and   Tweak it Tuesday and Adorned From Above  and All Things With Purpose and Home & Garden Thursday and Good Fences on Thursdays and  Time Travel Thursday and Freedom Fridays and Junkin' Joe and Vintage Inspiration Friday and Precious Pets and Saturday's Critters

April - Daffodils, Baby Chicks, Dogs, Bunnies, and the Hodgepodge

Daffodils and Baby Chicks

Definitely two signs of spring: Daffodils poking up everywhere (else) and baby chicks being offered for sale at the Farmer's Union Co-op and Farm & Fleet. Every year I think about getting chickens, but so far all I've been brave enough to get is this:

Egg basket, upper left, from Murray McMurray via our son who gave me a gift certificate one Mother's Day, in hopes I'd use it for chickens. And really, I had that gift certificate for the longest time, SO wanting to get chickens, but at that time we still had our sweet GSD Bridger

 Bridger, playing with the bunny

and I just didn't want to ruin his life by yelling at him for playing with the chickens.  :-(

AND, the egg crate (under the plant ladder).  You can see that neither is being used for the purpose for which it was designed.

So today, Joyce over at 'From This Side of the Pond' has us thinking about April. Join in the Hodgepodge by clicking on the button and answering the questions with us. Thanks, Joyce. :-)

1. Since these questions are posting on the first day of April it seems only right to ask-when was the last time you did something foolish? If you can't answer that one, try this one-when was the last time someone fooled you?

Yesterday. Sandra of MadSnapper announced that she was done blogging. I TOTALLY fell for it. Of course she was lying playing an April Fool's joke on us. I don't know why I didn't wake up expecting this sort of thing all day, but it totally caught me off guard. I had even begun writing her a nice letter, asking her to reconsider. No, really. :-) You must visit Sandra if you don't already know her.


2. What's the last biography or non-fiction book you've read? Was it any good?

I read non-fiction almost exclusively, and have to make myself read fiction.  But I do it - occasionally.  But if it's fiction, it better be really good. So the most recent non-fiction are 'What's  Wrong With the World' by G.K. Chesterton or 'After You Believe' by N.T. Wright or 'Failure of the Global Socialist Experiment' by Richard Maybury. It's not unusual to have a few going at the same time. It's what happens, especially when you have a Kindle.  I'll read one for a while then later pick up another, then come back to the first, etc. etc.  And yes, they're all good! And that's why I jump around like that. I can't stay away from any one of them too long. And yes I must have ADHD? But I do eventually get them read. And then there'll be another great Kindle offer on Amazon. Like a friend of mine said last week, 'Just can't resist that shiny new object, can you.' (and that's because she can't either!) :-) But I actually do. There's a lot of trash that Kindle wants me to buy, but I don't. AND there are so many great books for FREE on Kindle. Did you know that?

3. Garlic-friend or foe? What's your favorite dish made with garlic?

Grilled Chicken with Basil Pesto Fettucini

LOVE garlic. Definitely a friend, and it's an ingredient in probably 90 percent of the dinners I make. Probably my favorites are Guacamole or Hummus or Basil Pesto, but favorite 'dish' is  GF Grilled Chicken with Basil Pesto Fettucini. Killer recipe!


4. Several Spring flower festivals happen in the US during the month of April. Of those listed, which would you most like to see in person...The Skagit Tulip Festival in Skagit Washington, The Dogwood Arts Festival in Knoxville Tennessee, The North Carolina Azalea Festival in Wilmington North Carolina or the Daffodil Festival Weekend on Nantucket Island, Massachussets?

 One of the first daffodils in my garden

May 2013

I'd go to the Daffodil Festival in Massachusetts. I love daffodils (the first flower that dares emerge after our long winters), and besides that, it would be such a great hub from which to visit so many fascinating places in New England - and relatively close together.

5. How do you choose which blogs to read?  What is something that will make you stop and read every time? Something that makes you say, 'eh, think I'll skip this one and move on to the next'?

 A good first photo is what grabs me, or an intriguing post title (like Nana Diana's blog on Tuesday) What makes me move on to a different blog is when there's only a few sentences of a post and then a 'read more...' that I am instructed to click on. That annoys me. I know it's all about SEO for blog readership boosting, but I mean seriously, isn't that just too much to ask of me?? I like one-stop shopping, not hopping from here to there to there. And then, to make matters worse, sometimes I'm asked to decipher this horrid 'word verification' that now has like 12 fuzzy, nearly indistinguishable digits!!  Who wants to jump through that hoop? (And I know, I'm asking you to click on the recipe link above, but that's only if you want the best dinner recipe you've had in a long time.)

6. April is National Mathematics Education Month so tell us, when did you last use math?

I use addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, fractions, and algebra often! in recalculating recipes, whether for meals or making soap, for figuring how much data I can use on my phone in the next few days before my data has run out, and figuring how many miles I've walked in the mall.  (etc.)

My algebra teacher would be so happy to know that I still use algebra. We had a great time in his class, and I even actually learned something. I remember the principle of the school coming into the algebra room once when we were all tossing M&Ms up into the air and trying to catch them in our mouths (I was really good at that, which I know doesn't surprise you) - and the time he got so mad at one of the bratty boys in our class that he stuffed him into the air vent in the wall and made him stay there, hunkered down into a pathetic little ball until class was over.  And the time he did a parallel handstand on his desk just to impress the boys. Kids just don't know what they're missing these days! And that was only the algebra teacher. The principle of the junior high school (gr. 7-9) would yell so loudly when he was mad that you could hear him from his office all the way down to study hall. And when he picked up a boy by the front of the shirt and slammed him into the lockers, yelling at him through clenched teeth, now that was REALLY exciting! There used to be a REASON for a kid to get up early and ride the bus an hour+ to get to school!

7. In honor of the A-Z challenge kicking off on April 1...choose one word beginning with the letter A to describe your yesterday.

Ah...ah...ah...CHOO!!!  (one word, four syllables)


8. Insert your own random thought here.

So a certain little 3 1/2 year old boy, staying with his other grandma while mommy was in the hospital with the new baby: They were in the grocery store when he spied chocolate chunks and asked Nana to buy them. Since she is very careful with what she allows him to eat, she told him that she wasn't sure his mommy would want him to have those. He recognized the GF  EnjoyLife bag and persisted in his request. (You know what a spot this puts poor Nana in!)

Finally he said, 'Well, just call her with your phone and ask her with your voice.'  

so she did. 

Why did that crack me up? Because in this day of technology, that little guy knows you can

TEXT

or

FACETIME

or 

SKYPE

or

EMAIL

or simply

Call her with your phone and ask her with your voice! 

(for Pete's sake!)

***

Hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday!!

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Although I usually forget to do it, there is an outside chance that this post will be linked to one or more of the following: Inspiration Monday and  Mosaic Monday and The Marketplace  and Market Yourself Monday and Make it Pretty Monday and  Making the World Cuter Mondays and You're Gonna Love it Tuesday and Treasure Box Tuesday  and  Knick of Time Tuesday (vintage)  and   Tweak it Tuesday and  Coastal Charm Tuesday  and What we Accomplished Wednesday and Whatever Goes Wednesday and  Adorned From Above  and Rurality Blog Hop and  All Things With Purpose and Home & Garden Thursday and It's a Party at Creative Princess and Artsy Corner Thursday and Good Fences and  Time Travel Thursday and Thrifty Things Friday  and  Weekend Reflections and  Freedom Fridays and From the Farm and   Anything Blue Friday and Junkin' Joe and  Serenity Saturday and Vintage Inspiration Friday and Photo Friday and The Charm of Home and  Share Your Creativity and A Favorite Thing Saturday and Weekly Top Shot and Shadow Shot Sunday and  Sunny Simple Sunday and Sunlit Sunday

Winter - From the Pets' Point of View

Bridger

 'Can't get enough of this stuff!'

Misty

 'Sweater or no sweater, this is not my idea of a good time. Open the door. Now.'

Tuppence

' Winter? What winter?'

***

'Amber Romance' 
for Valentine's Day

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This post may be linked to some of the following: Mop it Up Monday  and  Cure for the Common Monday and Mealtime Monday and Clever Chicks Blog Hop and Mosaic Monday  and Barn Charm and  The Marketplace  and On the Menu Monday and  Mix it up Monday and Make it Pretty Monday and   What's in the Gunny Sack and  Making the World Cuter Mondays and Make the Scene Monday and  Something I Whipped Up Monday and  Motivate Me Monday and  Making Monday Marvelous and Get Your Craft On and   You're Gonna Love it Tuesday and Take a Look Tuesday and  Tasty Tuesday and Tasty Tuesday and Love Bakes Good Cakes and  Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays  and Overflowing With Creativity and Mom on TimeOut  and Adorned from Above and Cast Party Wednesday and  We Did it Wednesday  and It's a Party at Creative Princess and Artsy Corner Thursday  and The Self-sufficient Home Acre and  I'm Lovin' it Thursday and  Mandatory Mooch   and Foodie Friends Friday and  Serenity Saturday and Get Schooled Saturday  and Inspiration Friday(ThursNite) and Vintage Inspiration Friday and Photo Friday and  A Favorite Thing Saturday and Sunny Simple Sunday and  Saturday Nite Special

Happy Fourth of July!!

Nothing more aggravating than a smart-aleck parsnip!

Have a Safe and Happy Independence Day, everyone!

And this word from Bridger: 'Please don't take your dog to the fireworks.'

 'I mean it!!'