Open season

Jillian has reached her full comfort potential now. She's claimed open season on anything not bolted down.


Judging by the tail action, I think they have both settled in quite nicely.


Jillian is without a doubt the party girl. She's the one that will be sneaking out of the house after dark, coming home after curfew, and hiding all of the other dogs toys. I can tell.


And she has the look, the look of mischief.


During a hot flash attack I had taken off my hoodie. It instantly became a toy.


When I questioned Miss Jillibean about said actions, she yawned oh so innocently.


And the whole time, Miss Slinky, the good sister just observed.

The life of Murphy

Murphy lives for the spring and freshly mowed grass. He would lay out there for hours, as long as we were close by.


He rolls around just like a puppy, taking it all in.


Of course, he always has ulterior motives.


He's not as innocent as he looks. He waits until the coast is clear and munches down on the clumps of grass. He doesn't think we're watching.


But the tidbits of grass stuck in his teeth don't lie.

Today's forecast

The old saying in Oregon is that if you don't like weather, wait five minutes. It rained in torrents for most of the day.

At 6 pm, I walked out to this.

Thirty minutes later over coffee we looked to the west and saw this.

At 7 pm, this little puppy was opening up to the north.

And we closed the night to this.

Welcome to Oregon.

What Sundays are really like

The twins demonstrated a day of activity yesterday, but don't let them fool you.


This is what Sundays really look like. A cushion, a couch


and lots of lovin'.

The twins and the toy

"Oh boy, oh boy, is that for us?"

A beautiful sunny day and we took the twins out in the back yard to play with a toy.


Thinking that since they do nearly everything together, they would play with a toy together.


Sure. What on earth was I thinking? I had two daughters, even in the best of times, they don't share.


For awhile I had a glimpse of hope that we would have a tug-o-war game.


But Jillian got the toy away, and it wasn't long before we realized how much she didn't want to share.


Slinky moved in, and Jillian assured her in no uncertain terms that sharing wasn't going to happen.


It was mostly just a mouthy threat from Jillian.


But Slinky was crushed. We brought out a second toy, but it just wasn't the same.


What was most interesting is that after Slinky walked away, Jillian seemed to miss her and dropped her toy to join Slinky at the local watering hole, just to make sure everything was ok.


After the "I'm sorry I yelled at you, sis", Jillian was back to her prize of the day.

Roxy takes a hike

It was a beautiful Sunday morning when we decided to take a ride up to Silver Falls State Park.

We walked past a rock wall and we were on our way for the easy quarter mile hike.

Forgetting which part of the season we were in, Roxy reminded me that she would keep an eye out for wildflowers.

The colors were fabulous.

And the bleeding hearts were at their finest.

Roxy and Karen really seemed to enjoy the day. Since Roxy will be 14 in September, it's important for her to take it easy and really enjoy herself.

The fiddle-heads were at their peak.

And the sun streamed between the trees.

The trillium were blooming everywhere.

Karen and Roxy paused briefly for me to catch up to them.

Skunk cabbage were just starting to bloom is some of the lower creek beds.

Roxy was adorable on the way home. She pulled at the jacket I had taken off until it was up on her cushion, she laid her head down and slept the entire way home.

Roxy's Road Trip

OMG, with everything that has happened this week I almost forgot Roxy's adventure.

Rest assured she has plenty to talk about and will be back soon to talk about her trip.

We're on a roll this week

Last while out playing in the yard, Jori must have caught her dew claw on something. Of course, greyhounds rarely break a nail, (like me), they crack it above the quick and leave it for us to do the dirty work. Enter Nurse Ratchet with the toenail clippers.

Yes, Jori cried and the toenail bled, but she nursed it back to happiness.


So what does she do tonight? She cracks the other one up above the quick. Although she attempted a quick exit, I held Nurse Ratchet accountable with the toenail clippers once again.


Greyhounds typically come in two flavors. Stoic and brave or wimpy drama queens. If you've ever heard the greyhound scream of death, you know the blood-curdling, heart stopping cry.

Jori has the scream down, but tonight she was much braver.

I'll be up all night installing bubbles around all of the greyhounds. I think we need it this week.

Happy Birthday Duncan!

And just what are you trying to tell us young man?


What's that? It's your 11th birthday? Happy, happy birthday big guy.


You can have whatever you want and we will do our very best to make it a good one.

Two words I hate

We know the drill all too well. We know the signs, we know the symptoms.


Saturday it was a slight limp. Sunday it was a lump.


Tuesday the diagnosis was our worst nightmare. Duncan has osteosarcoma.


Our promise to Duncan, as it has been with all of the others, we'll watch his quality of life, we'll keep him as comfortable as we possibly can. We'll do our best to make sure we're a day to early and not an hour to late.

We're so sorry Dunk-a-dog.

Cancer sucks.