The Graying of the Bennamin

My Bennamin is getting gray, I noticed yesterday afternoon. Underneath his chin and on the sides of his muzzle are the beginning signs of his age... after all, he's an "old" 35 in dog years now. He seems to be adjusting really well to the colder Illinois weather, and has found a new love for initiating play with Mona in the backyard. I just wish I could teach them to wipe their paws after they're finished because smeary, muddy pawprints are frequent around this place! On Friday evening, we had enough snowfall to gently blanket the backyard and the patio table. Both dogs were pretty perplexed trying to figure out what this wet, fluffy stuff was. On several occasions I found the dogs teaming up, pawing the ground to make a little mound of snow to then nibble on. Snow snacks! And because Mona is tall enough, it was pretty funny to see her purposely dragging her muzzle along the edge of the snow-covered patio table, covering her muzzle with snow to then eat. Mona has also become a squirrel-hater. It's a good thing our yard is fenced otherwise I'm pretty sure she'd be well into Wisconsin now in pursuit of her latest squirrel victim. Ahh, our dogs. They really are our furry children.

We had a lovely belated Thanksgiving on Friday. It was really nice to have everyone over to show the house off to a little bit, and to spend the afternoon and part of the early evening with family. I am now convinced, however, that my kitchen is just way too small! I am looking forward to the remodeling we'd really like to do, but we'll need to wait a little while before that happens. It was like a Three Stooges episode with all of us trying to get everything ready, swap turns using the stove burners and the oven, etc. My 88 year old Grammie spent the night on Friday, just for fun, and we went shopping yesterday afternoon and out to lunch. After dropping her back off at my parents' house, I had to stop off at this abandoned pile of wood logs and load up the trunk for a week's worth of burning! When I got home, I told Pat I had some "groceries" in the trunk and he came out to help, then laughed when he saw these giant stumps. The Honda Civic trunk can fit quite a bit of firewood... more than you may think! Hee hee. I'm sure it would've been a pretty amusing sight to see me hauling these giant logs from the prairie into the trunk of my car. I must keep my Laura Ingalls reputation!

Sunday has found us once again... back to the old grind tomorrow, I suppose...