![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This weekend was fairly mild with another dip in temperatures and potentially our first snowfall due for later in the week, so Bobby finished cleaning up the leaves in the yard. Yesterday, I was able to help him: raking up the last of the leaves and putting a good, thick covering on all the garden beds.
Golden Retrievers pretty much know how to do anything handy that you might find yourself doing around the house, and they are always right there and eager to help. Cleaning up the leaves was no exception. For example, it is very helpful if, when you rake up a pile of leaves, a Golden Retriever lays in the middle of that pile because it keeps the leaves from blowing away.
When Phil did that the first time, I responded by raking the next batch of leaves over top of him. He became indignant and got up from the pile. Later, Alex did the same thing, so I thought, "Well, it worked with Phil, so it'll probably work with him too."
Nope. He actually seemed to enjoy being buried in leaves. He would lose Big Pink in the pile and then root his head under the leaves looking for it.
At one point, Bobby made a pile of small branches and big sticks that he found in the yard. I told him I didn't know why he bothered since, before we were finished, the Goldens would have those sticks re-strewn around the yard.
This time, I was not wrong.
Of course, this did not stop Phil from his unrelenting quest to have Big Pink thrown for him.
Yesterday afternoon, we took the Wilds for a walk at Bear Branch, a nature center outside of Westminster, a change of pace from our usual walks at Charlotte's Quest. We'd never walked the trails at Bear Branch before, but at sundown on a late autumn day, it was starkly beautiful.
At the end of the walk, we happened on a surprise: a shelter for injured and imprinted raptors. The light was so low by this point in the evening that my attempts to photograph them through two layers of fencing didn't work out very well, and only two photos came out.
American kestrel:
Black vulture:
There was also a screech owl (whom we did not see), two barred owls, two great horned owls, two red-tailed hawks, a Cooper's hawk, and a bald eagle. Most of the birds were in their nests when we happened by and came out to see who we were. The black vulture was the most curious and, as the photo above shows, came right down to the fence and peered up at us. This was definitely the most unexpected and delightful thing we've found on a walk in a long while.
Golden Retrievers pretty much know how to do anything handy that you might find yourself doing around the house, and they are always right there and eager to help. Cleaning up the leaves was no exception. For example, it is very helpful if, when you rake up a pile of leaves, a Golden Retriever lays in the middle of that pile because it keeps the leaves from blowing away.
When Phil did that the first time, I responded by raking the next batch of leaves over top of him. He became indignant and got up from the pile. Later, Alex did the same thing, so I thought, "Well, it worked with Phil, so it'll probably work with him too."
Nope. He actually seemed to enjoy being buried in leaves. He would lose Big Pink in the pile and then root his head under the leaves looking for it.
At one point, Bobby made a pile of small branches and big sticks that he found in the yard. I told him I didn't know why he bothered since, before we were finished, the Goldens would have those sticks re-strewn around the yard.
This time, I was not wrong.
Of course, this did not stop Phil from his unrelenting quest to have Big Pink thrown for him.
Yesterday afternoon, we took the Wilds for a walk at Bear Branch, a nature center outside of Westminster, a change of pace from our usual walks at Charlotte's Quest. We'd never walked the trails at Bear Branch before, but at sundown on a late autumn day, it was starkly beautiful.
At the end of the walk, we happened on a surprise: a shelter for injured and imprinted raptors. The light was so low by this point in the evening that my attempts to photograph them through two layers of fencing didn't work out very well, and only two photos came out.
American kestrel:
Black vulture:
There was also a screech owl (whom we did not see), two barred owls, two great horned owls, two red-tailed hawks, a Cooper's hawk, and a bald eagle. Most of the birds were in their nests when we happened by and came out to see who we were. The black vulture was the most curious and, as the photo above shows, came right down to the fence and peered up at us. This was definitely the most unexpected and delightful thing we've found on a walk in a long while.
Tags:
