This past weekend I took some photos of the dogs playing in the snow. They were like little kids running around. Haven's happy jumping as she catches a snowball in her mouth.
Here Beacon's fetching his Orbee ball and Haven's "attacking" him.
After getting tired and hot from fetching Beacon decided to cool off in the snow.
Starting tonight another storm will hit us. It'll last until Thursday afternoon or evening! There will be rain, freezing rain, and snow so things will be a mess. Eventually we'll get a decent dumping of snow before it's all over.
Yesterday we walked to the downtown area three times! The first time we took Haven. We had to go to the post office. And there were ice sculptures being made along the riverwalk.
Here are some of the finished products.
My favorite part was the cow!! The local fruit/produce stand had him/her. The cow had a big green blanket on it with red garland on it. Cool! There was also a hot air balloon company that had a burner as part of their float. From time to time the big flame would go off and everyone would oooh and aaah. I also liked the old pipe organ that used to be on the riverboat. Someone was playing Christmas tunes on it as it rolled along (on a float).
There were a lot of people watching the parade. It was a good thing that we walked because it was crazy with all of the cars trying to leave. It was fun participating in some of our small town activities. You can see more photos of the ice sculptures in this Flickr album. I didn't have the camera with me during the parade so no photos there.
After a relatively warm November winter has decided to make an appearance. When we went to bed last night there were a couple of inches of snow already on the ground. The dogs loved it. They were chasing each other around. Haven was eating snow. Beacon was chasing snowballs.
Things were a bit different this morning. With snow up to their bellies the dogs weren't as eager to hang out in the stuff. I'm sure we'll take pictures of them playing in it over the weekend.
I went to the zoo again today. But that's not really what this post is about. As I was leaving I saw that Nessie had arrived. I'll have to go back again sometime to get some photos of her. But this post isn't about that either.
I sat on a picnic table and watched as parts of Nessie were unloaded. They took a break and I heard someone say they wouldn't start back up for another hour so I left. But during the approximately hour that I was watching the action there were two squirrels trying to see if I had anything interesting. And to them interesting meant food.
Neither was scared of me. In fact they both came within inches of the camera.
And both squirrels were fat. Really fat. We have a lot of squirrels around our house but these "city squirrels" really needed to go on a diet.
The squirrels' diet wasn't helped by the mom and two kids who were feeding them fries. Both squirrels would get a fry and come back toward me to feast.
This morning was the annual running of Bailey's Doggie Dash. Andrew hasn't been running much at all this year due to a back injury so he decided to enter the costume contest. He has had this idea for a couple of years but finally got costumes this year. Andrew's race number this year was a cool one. His birthday month and year.
Since we call Haven Miss B when she's naughty (get it - Miss B Haven) the bee costume is fitting. Andrew had to be a sunflower to go along with her. They ended up placing fourth in the costume contest.
These two collies have creative costumes each year. One year they were "collie flowers" with head gear similar to Andrew's! The football player took first place and the cheerleader took second in the costume contest. A pirate was in third place even though we thought Haven should have been there if the collies were going to be first and second. Haven was doing her screaming while being *judged* so we told her she got points taken off her score for her behavior. You can see video of Haven screaming here.
Once the race started Haven settled in. But Andrew said that she was mad that they weren't running as fast as they usually do!
After the race we hung out while waiting for everyone to finish. Haven was all over getting treats and watching the people. She didn't mind all of the dogs but they weren't as interesting.
Back at home we took our yearly photo of Andrew and Haven in front of the burning bush with whatever they took home from the race that year.
After throwing a ball at the bumper it eventually came down. Now both dogs are happily sleeping - Beacon in a sunbeam and Haven on a double decker soft bed.
More photos that I took this morning can be seen in my Doggie Dash Flickr album.
My parents and Zeke came for a visit yesterday. When we went out for lunch we left Zeke uncrated. This is the first time that he has been uncrated here. He's used to being out of a crate at my parents' house so we decided to try it out here. Only one thing was disturbed when we got home.
Well, two. One was Haven though. She took the exercise ball off the love seat. Miss B. likes to get up there when we're gone and has discovered that if she knocks a ball off she can get up there. Stinker. The only thing that Zeke did was pull stuffing out of one of the dog beds. The beds are old so it wasn't a big deal. When we went out for dinner we moved the beds into a room where the door was closed. Nothing was disturbed the second time other than Haven once again removing one of the balls off the love seat.
Both times we set up to the Pets Eye View camera. Overall nothing interesting was caught. There are a couple shots of Beacon chewing on Haven's ears though!
It was finally not raining and some sun was shining in the afternoon after about a week of rainy weather. Beacon enjoyed some fetching. Haven sniffed around and tried to avoid Zeke nipping at her legs. Zeke was either chasing after Beacon or Haven trying to get them to play.
By the time we were done playing with the dogs in the backyard they were all tired.
This morning as I was catching up on my Google Reader stuff I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked out the window and saw a herd of about eight deer. Some of them were really close. As in standing in the garden right in front of the house.
There were two young bucks in the group. We see does all of the time, usually every day. It's rare that we see a buck let alone two at the same time. One of the bucks was playing with a younger deer. Either a doe or a buck without antlers. They would play bow and then head butt each other. The buck was clearly the alpha but it didn't appear that he was trying to chase the younger deer away. The two would move along looking for things to eat in the grass and take breaks to play. This continued as they moved across the front yard.
The does in the group seemed to care more about eating than playing. Four of them were in the garden eating. They were eating weeds so I didn't chase them off.
When I went to take a picture of the does (the bucks moved along too quickly so I didn't have time to get the camera out) Beacon wondered what I was doing. Usually if the dogs see deer in the yard but they're not too close to the house of the fence in the back they don't care about them. But if they get too close their turf must be defended, mostly by Beacon. Haven's curious about the deer and I think she'd like to play with them more than chase them away.
The above photo was taken about a second before Beacon started popping up and down on his front legs barking so that the deer would see him as a "big threat". The deer did run off so Beacon did his "job". He showed them.
It's now hunting season. If we take the dogs hiking they'll wear their orange vests. During firearm time we won't take the dogs in a hunting area.
The deer in our area (as well as many others around us and the US) are plentiful. There aren't cougars around here so there aren't any natural predators for the deer. In the past couple of years the deer population seems to have grown. A couple of years ago I wasn't able to harvest anything from my vegetable garden because of the deer. Last winter one of the evergreen bushes right outside our front door was eaten by the deer. There are more of them fighting for what food there is in the area. And depending on weather conditions food can be more scarce. While we've had some dry summers and cold winters the cold times haven't been harsh enough to weed out enough sick and weak deer.
A few months ago our City Council approved hunting deer within city limits. It's only in season and only for bow and arrow hunting. And it's limited to properties of 10 acres or more. You must adhere to state laws requiring a license and includes individually the number of deer you can take in a season. I agree that there is a deer population issue. I'm not sure that allowing hunting within city limits is the answer.
There are about 10 properties where this hunting would be allowed and only three of these properties are residential. So in essence allowing hunting only changes things for three properties as it's highly unlikely that a business would allow hunting in their land with all of the liabilities. I'm not sure that the land belonging to three people (and who knows if all three would actually hunt on their land), which are all on one side of the city, will help the overall population problem.
The ordinance allowing hunting within city limits will be reviewed in three years. There hasn't been anything mentioned about how the city will determine whether or not hunting has helped. There was mention of comparing deer-car accidents within the city as well as working with the DNR to get a feel on the population but I don't think anything has been cited as real follow up goals.
I wish the city would have brought up more education in how to help control the deer population in addition to allowing hunting. People go after the bucks. They're the *prize*. But it's really the does that should be targeted so that there are fewer to reproduce. There wasn't mention of encouraging more hunting in the areas surrounding the city where hunting is allowed by anyone.
From watching the deer on a daily basis I can tell that they're not "just an animal". They play. They have personalities. I wish that there were another way to control their population without hunting. But I also know that they have become an issue.
We went out this weekend and got Haven's costume for the Doggie Dash, which is the end of October. Since Andrew hasn't been able to run this year he wants to still be able to make the race fun (although how can any race with your dog not be fun) so he's entering the costume contest. In past years he has thought about this and has had this idea but finally the pieces are starting to come together. Haven's all set. Andrew still needs to work on his part.
Haven tolerated the costume and didn't look too sad. Andrew will probably work with her taking her out on a leash while wearing it so that when it comes to running with it on she's not wigged out. Although if she's feeling a bit weird maybe she won't "scream" before the race (although I have my doubts) or go out too fast and be worn out by the end. We'll see if Haven's a good little bee or one that lives up to her Miss B Haven nickname using mostly when she sneaks up on the couch.
This past Saturday Andrew and I went to the Blandford Nature Center. It was our first time there and we'll probably go back. It's on the other side of Grand Rapids for us and we don't often get out that way.
We had to park in a small dirt lot outside the center. I'm not sure if it's always closed to vehicle traffic on the weekends or if this was just a fluke. There were other people walking around, although not many so it felt like we had the place to ourselves much of the time.
The first thing we came across was a swamp. There was a boardwalk that went out into it. It was the kind that floated but as you walked on the different sections they dropped down. Andrew had fun making me "drop".
We saw a turtle as well as some frogs while we looked around the swampy area. We also met a guy and his son. It turned out that the father's great aunt and uncle were the ones the nature center was named after and created by. He said that since their deaths the center has been struggling for money.
We wandered around the trails. There are 4-5 miles of trails that go through different terrain.
We also came across a "wild life loop" where there were mainly birds in big cages. After doing some reading online the center does rehab for animals. In addition to the birds there was also a bobcat. Again, after doing some reading online this cat can't be put back into the wild because it was raised by a family and domesticated. Still we felt bad for the bobcat because it seemed to have a little kennel craze shown by pacing around.
It's fair week in Lowell. We rode our bikes to the fairgrounds yesterday to watch some of the dog agility.
There were lots of cool dogs there. And it was fun watching the kids and dogs do their stuff.
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