My Thanksgiving Bird

My Thanksgiving bird is Hattie in a tree!



We're playing around with our own version of Parkour just for fun. Wish there were more places to go off leash to do this.

Porcelain Work

Here are a few more of the things I've been working on for the porcelain class. These are just leather hard and I'm hoping nothing cracks, explodes or melts in the firings.

Another honey pot. My first one melted in the glaze fire.

Hattie and I walked down to the beach yesterday. She is very happy to be off leash. Someone built a nice bridge to replace the one that washed out in a storm. You can make out a lot of bridges here.

A dark, cloudy day. The lagoon is overflowing with the Supermoon high tides.

A swan surprised us at the bridge to the lagoon. It was just a few yards away and wasn't at all disturbed by our presence. (Typical horrible quality of my iPhone photos when light levels are low.)

Bob and Tux are on their way back from Arizona and the desert house has a renter interested in buying in a year or two. We're happy someone will be staying in the house.

Fungus Among Us

Well, other than being consumed with the horrors of life under a Trump administration, things are  kind of boring with Bob and Tux away. Finding this bird's nest fungus growing in the garden was pretty exciting. They are tiny!



Coyotes brought down a deer in the back field two nights ago and finished it off last night. Crows have been dropping pieces of flesh all around that I suppose the dogs will find. Somehow I slept through all of it. Nothing I could have done about it anyway. It was sad yesterday to see a companion deer (sibling? offspring? mother?) cautiously make her way to the mangled carcass to see what happened. Do animals mourn? I'm sure of it.

And here is my sweet Hattie, always armed with something to keep me occupied.

Hattie, Emmie, Porcelain

I need to collect pictures of Hattie who doesn't really enjoy posing. She's a cute one though. I've learned that the red-eye function on my photo software doesn't fix blue or green eye, only red eye. The results of our nosework match came in and we placed 4th! Hurrah for Hattie.

This is Emerald (aka Emmie and Esmerelda). She's feeling quite randy these days and chases me around the yard until I turn and chase her. Then she lets me catch her and stroke her back. I wonder how she would take to adding a drake to the flock. 

Hattie and the intense border collie stare.

I'm hard pressed to find a good block of time to work on projects for my online porcelain class. I'm working on forming tall cylinders with varying amounts of clay and bellying them out to form vases and ginger jar type things. I'll get photos of this top jar with the lid, which is different than any I've made before, when the clay dries enough to start trimming.

Hattie with her Jolly Ball.

Weather was wonderful today. A warm 63. Most leaves have fallen from the trees and bushes but the colors on the ground are still beautiful in the sunlight.

Nosework Trials

Congratulations to The Brilliant Ms. Hattie for completing her first nosework trials. This was a fun match to gain experience before the real trials this spring. We ran the advanced full trial match.

The Brilliant Ms. Hattie

Hattie can give quite subtle indicators when she finds a scent so I have to watch her carefully.

Two legs were indoors. First was a row of twelve closed boxes, only one with anise scent. She trotted down the row and right by all of them. The last box she gave a slight sniff, but nothing I could rely on, so we walked back up the row and down again. When she indicated interest in the last box for a second time I called it, and she was right.

The second leg was a small open search area. From the start she went right to a spot and indicated , two seconds into it, but I wasn't convinced so we walked quickly around the space and she went right back to that first spot... and she was correct again.

The third and forth legs were outdoors and it was pouring rain so I was hoping she'd find the hides fast. The first area she walked one perimeter and went right to a column and gave a good strong sign so I went with it. Her time was just seconds in that leg.

The last hide was on one of three cars. We went around the first one and she gave me a few looks but nothing convincing, then she skipped the second car entirely (she's in control of where she searches within the boundaries) and went around the outside of the third where she pointed at one wheel well. It was raining so hard I thought I am not going to question her. If it's wrong, so what. I just want to get out of the rain. So I called alert and she was spot on. I have learned my lesson about trusting her!

It was a fun morning despite the rain but we had no one to celebrate with at home. Bob and Tux are on their way to sunny Arizona.