Ready or Not . . .
We finally had a few days of sun last week. (The round, bright yellow thing in the sky that hurts your eyes if you look at it, just in case you forgot). But of course, it rained again, and since the ground never dried out we seem to be living in a second "mud season". Typically, "mud season" was in spring, but given all the rain this summer and fall, we've had it seems that we'll be living in the equivalent of chocolate icing until it freezes up. (Never has frost looked so good!)Needless to say, that means lots of muddy paws around here, which reminded me how much I love the cue "Ready". I've written about it before, but bring it back every five years or so because it is one of my Read More
Dog is Love by Clive Wynne
The author Clive Wynne sums up his book's thesis in its title: Dog is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You. He argues, compellingly, that dogs aren't special because of their intelligence, but because of their social bond to us, which after extensive research, he is happy to call "love".One might say that this is not quite as unique an argument as he suggests, but there is no better scientific explanation of our astoundingly close emotional relationship with dogs than in this book. It contains so much interesting information that I first began trying to summarize all the studies myself for you. Bad plan. Trying to rewrite his entire book in short form was probably not a good idea. What Read More
Squish Squish – The Swamp That is Wisconsin
Rain. Rain. Rain. Mud. Rain. Mud. Rain. Mud.You get the idea. It is so wet here in southern Wisconsin that it feels like we are living in a petri dish, designed to grow every plant disease known to man. Granted, it's not like the monsoon rains I remember from coastal Alaska, but then, that area is classified as a rain forest. Its plant and animal life is adapted to it. Not true here.I'll illustrate by starting with a rather nice photo of our sunflowers in front of the barn.And here's a wider shot, complete with the squishy, black leaves from a mold/fungus/rot/alien monster plant eater that is found all over my garden now. (I also rather like showing the dark side of the Read More