Woo Hoo!  Nemo, wake up, what’s that noise?

Go back to sleep, Huck.  It’s the blackbird migration.  Thousands of birds stop here on their way south to eat the grain left in the corn field.

Nemo, I’m not going outside this morning, we haven’t had harvest yet.  The corn and soybeans are still standing waiting for the fields to dry out.  Remember Momma Dog watching the Alfred Hitchcock movie, “The Birds”?  They’re omnivores!  They eat anything!

Right Huck, we won’t go out until we hear the combines.

Well he did it again, kept us up half the night insisting we all come out and view the raccoon he treed.  Momma Dog let us out one last time at ten p.m.   and Huck takes off  like Wiley Coyote.  Pretty soon, we hear him barking behind the barn and begging us to come see what he’s found.  This leads to yet another late night trek with the flashlight and him feeling mighty pleased with himself.  So pleased that when he did come in, he grabbed my toy gorilla and tried to shake the stuffing out of him again.  I am very protective of my gorilla and was forced to give chase and rescue it, all this taking place at a time when normal animals are sleeping.  It’s a good thing it’s raining today because I and my gorilla are sleeping in.  Love, Nemo

Nemo what’s going on?  It looks like a cat exodus around here!

Leaf blower Huck, leaf blower.  Cats hate having their fur blown around.  Me, I love it, bring it on Momma Dog.  The bigger the pile of leaves the better to roll in. 

Not me, I’m heading to the barn with the cats.  It would take a tornado to blow you over, but I am a svelte nine pounds.  If Momma Dog accidently points it the wrong way, I’ll be in Kansas.

Nemo and Huck on bed

Nemo:  Grumble, grumble.

Huck:    What’s wrong wide load?

Nemo:   Every time I leave the path to chase something, I come back with  burrs all over my fur.  I’ve almost stuck my eyelashes together.  This is either going to mean a trip to the groomers, or at best, Momma Dog with the scissors again.  At the rate I’m going, I’ll be naked by Christmas.

Huck: You naked!  That would be my worst nightmare!  Man, I hate it when humans take off their fur.  I never know if Momma Dog is going to be blue, green or yellow in the middle.  Remember the day of Michael’s wedding, she must have been in six different outfits, fur all over the room.  Seeing you naked Nemo would be like looking at 45 pounds of Crisco walking.  Come on Momma Dog is making the bed, let’s take our chewbones and jump on the covers.

Nemo:  How about we just lie on the covers while she tries to throw the comforter on.  I’m wearing five pounds of burrs here.

Hi, Huck here.  This morning on dog walk, I left Mr. Slow Freight behind as I charged up the hill after a very brazen rabbit.  Tricky piece of work, that one.  Pulled some sort of figure eight escape tactic, nearly colliding with me at one point, but I’ll be watching for that move from long ears next time.  I was also handicapped by the footing today, slick frost on top of mole tunnels.  There must be an entire city of burrowing varmits living on the back hill and all of them on the move.  I’ve never met a mole, but I watch a lot of television with Momma Dog.    I’ll try digging them out next time when I don’t have to watch for rabbits.  Hey Nemo, want to do a little digging?

Tennis Shoes!  Oh boy, oh boy, come on Huck, we’re going for a walk!  Yippee!  Oh look, we’re all going, Daddy Dog has his keys.  Load up! Load up!

What about our harnesses?  Nemo, does Momma Dog have our harnesses?

Nope, we must be going to the field.

The field, I love the field!  We can pretend we’re wild, we can chase rabbit scent, we can kill our own meat!

Kill our own meat, are you crazy Huck? Yuck!  There’s blood all over wild meat  The closest I want to get to killing my own meat is learning to operate  the can opener.

Frost this morning!  Woo hoo, what a circus we had around here last night.  Of course it was due to the “royal mouth” again.  Huck chased a young opposum under the back deck, crawled in after it and would not come out.  He stayed under there until ten p.m. even though Momma Dog went out every thirty minutes and called him, finally getting her flashlight to make sure he was still under there and not out in the woods somewhere.   The opposum, being one of the few things smaller than Huck, slipped away from him though the design work and finally, Huck opted for a warm bed inside.  I, for one, was glad to see him so I could finally go to bed.  While he was out pursuing some uneatable thing, I wore myself out protecting the family just in case his bigger cousin showed up.  Sometime in the night though, the opposum returned and ate the rest of the cat food from the feeeder.  Surprisingly, cats and opposums seem to get along, Momma Dog has seen them eating together.

After 24 hours of cold rain, we are out this morning on a search for bittersweet.  Momma Dog uses it to decorate our house in autumn.  This year it is growing too far up in the tree for hand picking.  Even though I gave my very highest jump I could not reach it and Huck was of no use at all.  Bark, bark, bark, man that dog has a mouth on him!  He’s claiming he scented a deer and we did find tracks in the mud later, but I didn’t smell it.  I’m glad for my thick fur as it is only 38 degrees out here with a windchill in the twenties.  Two of the cats, Hillside Kitty and July took the trek with us, but they are more interested in winding in and out of Momma Dog’s legs on the steep part of the hill than hunting deer.

Huck and I are going to let our person write today as it’s a misty morning, the scent is rising from the ground, and we have deer trails to explore on dog walk.  So noses to the ground and forward ho!

We trotted down the front driveway hill this morning, around the curve and into the lane below our house.  We did this quickly before any cars could come over the hill.  It was, as they say in Ireland, a “soft morning”.  Leaves falling, ground wet, our steps silent as fog.  Our summer birds have left Iowa to go south for the winter.  Who wants to beak out a worm at -10 from under a foot of snow?  Right now though, the Honeysuckle bush has set her table with bright, red berries for the flocks of migratory visitors due here any day.   With corn waiting in the fields for harvest and weed and thistle seeds galore, birds have a wonderful energy buffet waiting to power them on their way.   

Ah oh!  Did you guys roll in something?

“Wake up Nemo, we’re going outside,  Momma Dog’s got the broom.  We’re going to sweep leaves off the decks.”

“Yeah!  I like that, we’ll wait until she’s got a big pile and then make ourselves as fat as possible and lie on them.”

“Well, one of us doesn’t have far to go to be mistaken for a shag carpet.  Look there’s the young cat, Velvet, let’s chase him.”

“O.K. we’ll chase him up the oak tree.  He’s the only one who still runs from us anyway.”

“Whoops, Nemo, he’s not running, in fact he’s furred up and growling.  I think I’ll just overshoot him and go right on up the hill.  Save my energy for something bigger.”

“Right on Huck, I was thinking of checking out that maple tree behind the barn anyway.”  Nothing worse than a mad cat with claws!’