Maybe Next Time

When I looked out the window this morning I saw Nivia vigilantly keeping watch under the tree, and could hear the persistent chirps of a squirrel. The poor guy had been treed all night long. We had noticed him late last night and I figured while the dogs slept he would make his escape. Alas, he did not. After listening to the racket he made for ten minutes, I decided to let the dogs in to give him his chance. With the new carpet throughout the house, I put up the dog gate and closed the bedroom doors then let Jax and Nivia in to hang out while I got ready for work. Jax walked in and immediately shook off which sprayed water everywhere. He had just taken a drink from the sprinkler that was on and gotten his entire underside sopping wet. So back outside they went, and I locked them up in the dog kennel. As I headed back to the deck, I heard the squirrel jump out of the tree. I looked up and saw him on top of our fireplace. He kept very still as I hurried back to the house, but once inside, he still wouldn't move. After a bit I threw some pebbles at the fireplace to get him to go, as this was his big chance. My pebble racket alerted Nivia to his location and she whined like the dickens to be let out. This caused the squirrel to run down the fireplace and hide in the grass. He slowly crawled forward and would pause every few steps, stand up and survey if everything was ok, then suddenly run back to the fireplace. Then he ventured out far enough for Jax to see him, which caused Jax to turn into a ferocious lion. Jax does not bark often. When he was a pup we wondered if he even had a voice until one day we threw his Mickey Mouse toy in the corner and his shadow scared him so badly that he let out one big woof. He won't even speak on command. And when he gets worried, he growls deep in his throat so softly that you would think he has indigestion. But this squirrel brought out a series of barks I've only heard one other time from him. The squirrel leaped ten feet and took off as fast as he could scurry. I gave it another five minutes before I finally let the dogs back out. Nivia ran for the tree, convinced the squirrel was still there. But Jax, he ran straight for the fireplace, got the squirrel's scent and followed it wherever he had ran to. When I left for work, the squirrel was now making a racket in the neighbor's tree. Probably telling his family about his horrible sleepless night, the brown dog that kept trying to climb the tree, the death leap to the fireplace and then the way he hoodwinked that black lion. And where was the black dog? At the gate, keeping sentry. His brown eyes watching the tree intently.

Fireworks

Here are some shots from the fireworks at USU. The flyover was pretty cool, we were hoping for F-16's but instead when we weren't expecting it this KC135 popped right overhead and we nearly fell off the roof trying to snap a picture of it. It was close, no zoom necessary... After nightfall we also had a nice view of Venus.