Good Boys!

 The first time that we introduced our grandson Cordae to our dogs he cried. Since we had him for Thanksgiving we tried again. We tried earlier in the day with success. After mom got there she asked if he had "ridden" on one of the dogs yet. We both said no.

 We initially tried to see if Poseidon would sit still long enough for us to put Cordae on his back and get a picture -- but no. Poseidon did however give Cordae his version of a kiss - a lick!

So we tried with Zeus instead. This time with Zeus. This picture here Cordae is actually pulling on Zeus's fur and Zeus did not snap, did not growl, and did not pull away nor bark. Such a good boy!

Zeus with Cordae on his back. Such good boys! Neither were rough, neither were roudy with Cordae. Good boys Poseidon and Zeus!

Halloween

In my garden I had been growing pumpkins at my husband's request.  Unfortuanately he thought they were orange pumpkins until I pointed out to him that the package said they were white decorative pumpkins.  I had printed out templates of Winnie The Pooh, Tigger, Minnie and Mickey along with one other template.  I couldn't decide which ones to use on the two pumpkins that we had grown.  He made it easy he said I want Piglet.  I was like ok... where am I going to find a Piglet template for a pumpkin?  I went back to searching and found pictures of a pumpkin with piglet but no template that could be downloaded.  I said not a problem I have photo software that I can take a screen shot and then reverse the color to get the template.  This is exactly what I did.  So I carved Piglet and Winnie the Pooh on the two homegrown pumpkins.  I had already purchased a regular orange pumpkin because I wanted the seeds from it to plant in the garden next year.  See I'm thinking ahead here. Despite me being allergic to the pumpkin vines I am going to plant pumpkins again I just have to wear long sleeves and wear gloves when doing anything with them.  I then had to debate on what I wanted to carve on the orange pumpkin.  I debated this while I carved Piglet and Winnie the Pooh.  I trick that I found on the two white pumpkins because they were so small, I still cut out the top so that I could light the candle that I would be placing inside, but with these two I cut the bottom out of the pumpkins to allow me to scoop out the guts of the pumpkin and assist in carving the pumpkin.  Now with the templates I taped them to the pumpkin then used a push pin and transfered the design to the pumpkins.  Great time saver, although I should have used duct tape instead of regular tape to hold the template to the pumpkin.  While I was carving these two pumpkins I decided since I'm on a Winnie the Pooh and Piglet theme, that I might as well make the orange pumpkin Tigger.   The orange pumpkin was easier to carve having more space to reach my hand inside, however my previous transfer of the design method didn't work so well with this pumpkin.  Why?  It was easy to see the pin holes on the white pumpkins, not so well on the orange.  However I didn't let this stop me!  I taped the template to the pumpkin (once again I should have used duct tape -however I had none available at this time) and just used the pumpkin carving knives and began carving the pumpkin using the template as my guide on where I poked the holes.  Once I had the template carved I put a candle inside to see where I needed to expand so that light could be seen thru as that is the whole point of me spending an entire Saturday carving pumpkins.