Here is poor abused Rosie, being forced to sit when she would much rather be playing "mental dog" running about the yard like an idiot. She is sitting there in front of a vole track left in the grass after the winter. They are all over the place, but you don't see them until the snow melts. Occasionally during the winter you'll see the dog trying to catch them. Stupid dogs dig and dig where they last saw or smelt the little beasties. SMART ones cock their heads and listen for the sound of the rodents scampering along their escape trails. Our late dog George was a listener/pouncer, though he rarely caught one.

Rosie thus far seems to be among the former. She's not much of a killer anyway, although if the cat brings something around she will try to take it away from him and play with it. "K", my UPS driver lady, has reported stopping by to deliver stuff only to be greeted by Rosie with an Interesting Plaything, as she puts it. (Rural life has luckily inured her to such horror shows, like poor dead animals or Residents Who See No Particular Reason To Put Clothes On Before Noon. AGAIN, my apologies, "K".) For some reason "K" refuses to try to take it from Rosie and throw it for her. Maybe this is why dogs tend to not like delivery people. I mean, would it KILL her to toss a dead chipmunk around for a few minutes? (Obviously it would kill the chipmunk, but the poor thing is ALREADY DEAD.)

I suppose if I actually CARED DESPERATELY about the lawn I would do something about it, but since it's just grass and not something truly worthwhile I am content to let the little beasties have their run of the place. I figure if they can dodge the cat, more power to 'em.  MORE Mojo! »

If I were smart, I would have taken a picture, since an hour from now it will all be gone. But I'm not, so I didn't.

You will just have to take Mojo's word for it when she tells you she woke up this morning to an inch or so of snow on the ground. Just enough to cover the grass, not enough to stick to the road.

Mojo is privately delighted with snow. For now. Ask her again in March and you will get a different answer.

Mojo

So I'm sitting on the couch, cleaning up some cels I've painted. The dog, Rosie, has assumed her typical position on the stairs just above my head, sticking her cowardly nose between the curtain and the window so she can watch anyone or anything should they come up the driveway to attack us. And all of a sudden she starts barking as viciously as possible. Rosie's not a barker, so I know something's out there. Probably our neighbor, walking his dog. So I get up to look out the window to see what's up.

And guess what. It takes me about ten seconds of staring before it registers to me what was staring back at the end of my driveway.  MORE Mojo! »

Mojo's decided she needs a new title. She is getting rather tired of her latest one, which appears to be Queen of the Doofi. Doofi being the plural of doofus. As in doofuses. Mojo has had enough doofi in her life. Meaning, she no longer wishes to be your queen, as much as you may revere her. Revere in the spiritual awe sense of revere, not in the Paul "I was stopped long before Longfellow claimed I was" let's-trample-Mojo-with-a-galloping-horse Revere.  MORE Mojo! »

Okay, here's part of number two. Part because I realized sometime yesterday that when I exported it to a QT movie I forgot to include both scenes, and I'm too lazy to redo it. Sad.

But this shows the little cloud of hatchlings out in the grass of my garden. They are still bleached white from being inside the egg case for months. I checked on them at the end of the day (sans camera) and they were still there, but suntanned to a lovely browny-green.  MORE Mojo! »

We were fishing at C's pond the other day and my Five-Year-Old Friend was running around pretending sticks were guns and all the usual boy stuff. And then in the midst of his imaginative play he says, "And THAT looks like a really big SNAKE!"  MORE Mojo! »