That’s the difference between the high temperature on December 26 and the high on December 31. I’m still not entirely convinced about global warming, but there have been a lot of strange things going on with the weather in recent years. We did have local warming in a big way last week, with a high of 55°F on December 31. That is pretty unnatural for the Chicago area.
Just a few days earlier on the day after Christmas, the high for the day was 31°F and a few inches of snow had fallen overnight. The dogs loved it because it was deep enough to wrestle in and roll around in. Please note that these are Rottweilers at play, not war. They may appear to be killing each other, but trust me. They tell me this is big Rottweiler fun.
Temperatures were warm enough on the 29th and 30th for the snow to start melting. The unseasonably warm temperatures on the 31st killed it off almost completely. I don’t have photos of the in-between swamplike stage featuring freezing cold mud, but here’s that same yard on New Year’s Eve day, after rain overnight and through the early morning.
We’re back to a more typical 20something°F today. No more local warming here.
On an unrelated note, I’m starting a Project 365 and attempting to take and post a photo every day this year. We’ll see how that goes. I’ll be adding a link to my photoblog in the right sidebar soon, but I’ll repost only the dog- and computer-related photos here. Like today’s:
Last year, Axel was on the road chasing his championship dreams (ok, fine… my championship dreams). Freya and I were getting ready for her second UKC Rally Obedience trial, hoping to finish the first level and wondering if we could make it as far as the advanced titles.
This year, I’m wondering how to keep Axel busy and happy at home, now that he’s chased and caught that championship dream. Sometimes I think he misses showing. He’s a very “look at MEEEEEEEE” kind of dog. I don’t want to send him out to chase a grand championship, though.
This year, instead of working towards advanced titles with Freya, I’m wondering how to fix whatever went wrong over the spring, or whether to just let her retire. I wish she could tell me what she really wants, because I think it might not be the same as what I want.
Somehow I managed to completely miss talking about Axel’s sieger show in September. We had a few bad technology moments right around the show date, so there wasn’t much blogging in early September in general. I also wanted to post a photo from the show, as well as talk about his critique. But I still haven’t seen any show photos, and I really wanted to post the photo along with the critique so everything makes more sense.
So what does Axel’s show have to do with the pumpkin shortage? If you have a dog like Axel that is prone to occasional dietary indiscretions, or one like Freya with a mild case of IBS, the pumpkin shortage was a bad thing indeed. Canned pumpkin is one of the best remedies for either diarrhea or constipation in dogs. I know that sounds strange, but it has to do with the fiber in pumpkin helping to regulate things in either direction. And it should go without saying that if you are unsure of the cause, a visit or at least a call to the vet is still the best course of action. If, like us, you can attribute any unpleasant output to overindulgence or a known condition, canned pumpkin is your dog’s good friend.
Even though it was apparently well-covered in the media, I somehow missed the fact that there was a canned pumpkin shortage. So a few days before Axel was to leave for his show, he was suffering from a minor digestive upset, and I went to buy some pumpkin. I went to three different stores and at the last one there was a sign mentioning the shortage and that they expected to have pumpkin back in stock in about a month. Whoa. That would be an eternity when your dog is exploding. Fortunately it was a very mild upset, and one skipped meal and one bland meal got things back on track in time for trouble-free traveling.
So when canned pumpkin returned to the stores last month, I got a couple of big cans. And by most accounts, the shortage is now over. Then I saw yet another source, where CNN was reporting as late as October 24 that the pumpkin shortage was not in fact over.
I don’t really care about pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving or any other time. But I do want to make sure my dogs’ butts are covered. Today, it was Freya’s turn to need some pumpkin love, so there goes some of our stock! What’s the real story… shortage or not… anyone know?
It was a lot easier to upgrade my camera than my photography skills. It is just as I feared. I will still end up with a frighteningly large number of dog butt photos as I go through the learning process.
And if I happen to be trying out sports mode (and don’t judge me for using the presets), I will end up with a frighteningly large number of nearly identical dog butt photos. In this test, there were nine. I won’t make you look at all of them.
Freya pops in to visit the Blog Hop this week…
…just patrolling the fence line for something. We aren’t sure what that something is, as we can see nothing that should be of that much interest. Maybe she’ll do a post of her own and tell us!
Who let her bring that thing in here while I am trying to nap?
For some reason, I never wrote about it here, but back in the spring of 2009 I started asking around for advice and comments to help me pick a good digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR). I would be a first-time buyer for this type of camera. I’ve owned film and digital point-and-shoot cameras as well as entry-level film SLRs, but I would still consider myself very much an inexperienced photographer.
It took me a while, and my decision was based mostly on value and price rather than this year’s coolest technology. The camera I chose was Canon’s Rebel EOS XS. Continue reading
