Filed under: animals, border collies, food, photography | Tags: border collies, dogs, food, life, photography, tucson, vegan
I’m sorry I’ve been so out of touch. Things have been so busy. It’s amazing how adding a third dog can take away half your time. (ok…I may be exaggerating. ) This is my busy season, so I should have many things to blog about. The question is….Will I have time? I suppose the biggest news is this: Your dear friend Pickles was selected to be the cover dog for the Arizona Border Collie Rescue 2015 calendar! And I got to shoot her photo, as well as her May images, Nike the July dog, and October dogs Saxon and London! The calendar is beautiful. They did a brilliant job assembling cute dogs, talented photographers and the print quality is great. Here is my girl now, in one of the photos that didn’t make the calendar:
Pickles at San Xavier Mission
You can order your calendars here: http://azbordercollierescue.com/calendar_purchase_2015.asp In July Cody Bear turned 10! O….M…G….. Time is going by so fast. Pickles is 6 and Tralee is 1. Pickles and Cody Bear still love each other, but he also enjoys sitting back and watching the two Border Collies play. I love how he smiles at them. And every now and then he will join in the fun. But he is slowing down. And how is he doing with the new, high drive, loony puppy….?
Cody Bear and Tralee Bear
He loves her. And she adores him. He is very protective of his girls and he loves having that role of protector.
Cody Bear and his greying muzzle
In even bigger news! Some of you know I have enjoyed working on my photography portfolio for several years now. Well, I was invited by the i.d.e.a. Museum in Mesa, AZ to participate in their “Jeepers Creepers: BUGS in art” exhibition running from 10/3/14 to 1/25/15! I saw the exhibition last week. I drove to Scottsdale and dragged my parents to the gallery opening. We had a great night and my parents and I were SO impressed with the gallery and the diverse collection!
Purple Hairstreak Butterfly
The i.d.e.a. Museum is geared towards inspiring creativity and education for children and they’ve done a brilliant job keeping a collection of talented artists and making it interactive and fun for kids. Please check it out, it is sooo much fun. Final October news: Goodbear has gone vegan! Today is day thirty. I had a few off days where I couldn’t avoid dairy, but for the most part it was a good thirty days and I’m going to keep at it. I will allow an occasional egg from my friends’ home chickens. I know I won’t be perfect, but I’m going to give it a shot. I decided to do it for health reasons and I could instantly see improvements in that department.
Goodbear goes vegan
Filed under: animals, dogs, life, pets | Tags: animals, dogs, life, pets, photography
and so cody bear and pickles have found themselves house sitting! they’re keeping their friend hannah company while her dad is out of town.
fun for pickles who has been playing with all hannah’s lovely toys, and relaxing for cody bear who is recoving from an asskicking surgery.
we end up going home for meals, as, between the two of them, there are a great amount of pill bottles involved.
hannah enjoys watching pickle play with her toys, but she’s a little older so she doesn’t join in with the romping.
tomorrow we go home. house cleaning and a photo shoot for me. relaxing and getting snuggled for them. you know….much of the same for them.
moving on to the serious news…we find out sometime after tuesday if cody bear’s tumor was cancer. i’m nervous, i won’t lie. but i will be surprised if it is bad, i mean….this is the healthiest the bear has ever been. it will be quite unfair if, after years of trying to get his health in order and achieving, we find he has cancer. that just won’t be fair. no other way to say it.
aside: the house we’re staying has a couch! we don’t have a couch. and i’m sitting on it. so posh!
my feet are on the coffee table and the baby loves are laying beneath my legs. i’ll wake them up soon…when i’ve had my fill of cable tv. oh livin’ the high life at hannah’s.
Filed under: animals, border collies, canine, dogs, life, pets | Tags: animals, border collie, dogs, life, mutts, pets, veterinary
oh my GOD a STICK!
should i be sad that there is nothing in this world that gets me as excited as my dogs get when they see a random 14 inch piece of tree branch?
i mean….i love a good meal with friends, an outrageous sale price is nice, a pint of guinness always hits the spot, but NOTHING gives me the wide opened eyed joyous “holy shit” look on my face that the dogs get with a stick or a piece of beef or a new squeaky.
check out pickles….
also, they’ve got the “no worry” thing down. mommy foots the vet bill, food bill, pharmacy bill…which is high. at the end of october vet bills will be more than….$1600/month.
so keep smiling pickles. keep grabbin’ those sticks cody bear. just please….stop eating dangerous shit and chasing things that will bite you. that’s all i ask. that and for cuddling and some laughs each day.
and thanks.
Filed under: animals, dogs, life, pets | Tags: animals, dogs, life, pets, random, vet bills
even with the tiniest drop in temperature cody bear is back to snuggling in the mornings. he gets so hot in the summer with all that fluff. but the cooler temperatures mean me waking up before dawn with a very patient, cinnamon dog staring at me. as soon as my eyes open he shifts his gaze to the exact part of the bed he wants to snuggle up in and waits for the go ahead!
so that was nice to go back to sleep to. i haven’t been sleeping well because i’ve been worried about cody bear’s tum0r (removal thursday) pickles’ on going weird health issues (x-rays and nutritional response testing wednesday), money and finding a renter so i can move into the new place.
when we finally did get up there was a high speed chase…
followed by a short constitutional through the neighborhood then i was off to work. where i sit now…still worrying.
high points for the coming week: meeting an artist who will paint a cool graphic in the foyer of the new house. (before and after pictures in the future!) photo shoots, vet appointments, team trivia tonight, ….and who knows what else.
Filed under: animals, birds, nature, wildlife | Tags: animals, birds, kingfisher, life, nature, wildlife
working all day trying to make some big bucks for cody bear’s upcoming surgery, i had a few moments to look around and saw something flop in the pond. a few seconds later a kingfisher, brilliant blue, landed on the “no swimming” sign and looked right at me.
ugh! i didn’t have my telephoto and he was so far away. he came back after lunch and was on the other side of the pond, but i did catch a couple shots.
i know the photos are not great, but trust me, he was fantastic!
kingfishers are one of my favorite birds and i never thought i would see one in town!
anyway….i had been venting to a friend (boohonky!) about the worries and then started gushing about this fancy bird and she pointed out to me that perhaps the kingfisher was a harbinger of good news….
Filed under: animals, dogs, life | Tags: animals, dogs, life, pets, photography
why are cody bear and pickles smiling?
i don’t know, really. they’ve had a rough year. perhaps they’re smiling because 2012 is going to be a healthy and happy dog year? sorry i’ve been absent so long. pickles struggled with health all year. we’re still trying to get her feeling better. she is puzzle.
but through it all she keeps smiling and wagging.
as does the bear….who is having a tumor removed next week. the 20th. so please keep him in your thoughts that day.
now….in other news. another reason i’ve been busy: my photography business is off the hook. how did this happen? i just had my first show last month and it was a great success. i’ll get some pics and details up next.
i’m back to blogging. thank god.
Filed under: animals, dogs, friends, life | Tags: absinthe, animals, dogs, drinks, friends, life, pets, team trivia, trivia
so goodbear has some new activities since she first started blogging. one can’t miss activity is team trivia every monday night. (getting excited just thinking about it and it is only friday!!)
so we have this team and….we’re pretty good. since january 1 we have won 5 times, second place has 2 wins. there are usually about 20 teams. our team consists of my photography biz partner(knows many of the music and art questions), abacus (a long time dog park friend great with history and current events), a music store manager friend(knows absolutely everything about current sports and pop culture), a materials engineer (knows alot about music, science and sports) a postal worker (knows crazy amounts of stuff about diverse science categories), a retired biology teacher(has read every book in the english language) a television and non-profit professional(really knows her pop culture), an attorney(current events and geography), an attorney(baseball, movies and random stuff), an attorney(some science and geography) and me(i bring erasers and know a little bit about music)
i think the most fun for me has been trying to predict what he is going to ask each week.
all this goes down at a bar. some people are there for trivia…some just to drink. one night i went to the bar between questions to grab a guinness and i saw THIS:
“what IS it?” i asked.
“it’s ABSINTHE!” some kid said with an excited look in his eyes. he and two friends were enjoying the prep for their shots!
so that’s monday. but for the most part, life is still mostly just full of this:
cuddling the bear! business as usual!
Filed under: animals, border collies, dogs, love, pets | Tags: animals, border collies, dogs, life, love, pets, valley fever
pickles has been my healthy girl. my cheapie, so to speak. from border collie rescue, for the most part she has cost no more than routine exams with clean bills of health, holistic pet food and an occasional supplement for a healthy coat. while cody bear has averaged $2000-4000 annually in medical expenses it’s been relatively smooth sailing for the last couple years with miss pickles.
until 3 weeks ago when she became visibly lazy, slower and just looked….depressed. on 12/31 she was fine: perky at her annual exam. 100% healthy. weeks later she turned into a different dog. blood test which immediately showed a thyroid condition and something else. valley fever. the doctor said we found it early; it would probably be another month before she started showing physical symptoms of the illness.
my last border collie mix, loki, died of complications from valley fever in 2004. it was the worst thing that i have ever gone through. it was a hard battle we thought we would win and it was a terrible ending. and while every keeps telling me they know so many dogs that have survived VF…that’s fine. my dog died. all the stories of survival aren’t able to shake the trauma i went through when i lost loki.
we started pickles on her thyroid meds monday night. maybe i’m imagining it, but she seemed perkier yesterday morning. after confirming the VF with a second bloodtest, with fear and sadness i started pickles on fluconozole last night. the doctor is positive and i am a mess.
for years my hyper dogs have taken the sound of the morning alarm clock not as a signal to get up and run and play, but as a signal snuggle in tight for cuddling before starting the daily romping. this morning the clock buzzed, i shut it off and the dogs opened their eyes and then buried their muzzles into the covers and wagged, ready to receive their cuddles and kisses.
one dog on either side of me, they both rested their heads on me as i kissed their muzzles and scratched their bellies. pickles followed me around while i got ready for work, always getting a kiss on the head or a squeeze.
i can’t lose you pickles. i’ll die, i swear.
Filed under: animals, birds, dogs, friends, life, pets | Tags: animals, birds, cake, dogs, food, friends, life, pets
so here was yesterday, (an explanation of why i’m still in my jammies and why my back is tired. not sore…tired)
up.
get to the art institute by 9 am to talk to students about dog and nature photography
go to botanical gardens to take some shots. see this bird with a stick….
which naturally reminds me of this….
pick up abacus to go to breakfast where he orders this….
that’s the “traditional” grilled trout and eggs breakfast meal. whose tradition IS this, exactly?
head to the cakery to hang out with mc cupcake where she was working on this….
home. two loads of laundry. take dogs to the park for a nice long walk.
fm picks me up and we go back to the bakery to pick up a sheet cake for the music studio grand opening.
grand opening where i meet this dog….
trixie.
drink a couple beers, then head home to feed the dogs and take them for a nice walk around the neighborhood. then head to italian restaurant.
next, cyberbowling at ten. i finish game 1 with 100. next…70…next 61.
i won’t be going pro.
Filed under: animals, dogs, food, insects, life | Tags: animals, border collies, dogs, food, insects, life, mutts, photography
so life has been happening. lots and lots of life. good and bad; mostly good.
but i’m back. i will say…there has been alot of eating, visits to the vet and frantic life happening in the last few months.
the best breakfast ever was discovered:
hash browns on green chili sauce with a chili relleno breakfast burrito. (i could only eat half)
insects are still being found:
and while cody bear had a bit of roughness in the past year, he’s back and better than ever:
ever playful, ever loving.
and his faithful sidekick is still doing great and making us all happy:
what a sweet baby pickles!
cody bear's friends 