After helping Dad cut down a dying tree in the yard, and cleaning up all the branches and stacking the logs…..

(Mom said it was a sad thing to see it go, Dad said it was important since it might fall into the power line to the meter base on the house.)

Mom and I went for a very looooooooong walk!  All the way around the place, even to the front of the place to get the mail and then home. We had a great time.

I’m a beagle, you know. Beagles have great noses, we have short-hair (so the weeds don’t get caught in the hair), and we don’t shed too much.  Also, we are small.  I only weigh 40 pounds at my heaviest…if I get even two pounds over that I start to get a belly and Dad says I look like a sausage.  (Humph…a SAUSAGE!?!?! I Don’t THINK SO!)

(Here is a little secret…after you get older it’s harder to lose weight!  Since I’m nine now I have to make sure I go out and sniff around…I used to play tricks on Fuzzy, which was great fun.  I would run barking out to the grain bins like something cool was out there; Fuzzy would think he missed something so he would run out barking right behind me…then when he got there we would both go check out the hay yard, over to the equipment area -Dad has two spots- and back around the barn and the two workshops.  We had a great time.)

Now it’s easy to just lay around the house soaking the heat from the woodstove into the pads of my feet and taking a snooze.  If I get to snoring too much Monkey walks on me until I wake-up.  That silly cat.

Anyway, Mom says the house starts to close in on her so when that happens we (Mom and I) go for a walk.

Usually a LONG walk…It’s the best part of my beagle day.

In my former life I always had to walk on a leash….not here!! No sireee, not on the farm, not ever…I get to go wherever I want.  (If we go to town I have to have the leash, but not on the farm)

The best part of walks are SMELLS!!!

Humm…this is a good smell…rabbit!  Oops! Hawk and rabbit…oh…I don’t think the rabbit made it.  Well, I won’t say anything to Mom she’s busy looking over at the apricot tree.

We scent-detection dogs can tell lots of stuff that is going on just by the smells. Here, right here…is the home of some mice…sniff, snuff…ACHOOO!

What a bunch of stuff they have stuck in their hole…all sorts of loose bits of this and that ACHOOO!  ACHOOO!!!!

Where is MOM!  Wait a minute MOM…MOM!  Wait a bit I’ll be right there but I need to mark a few spots here and there.  The coyotes need to know they are NOT the only canines on the place!

Nice…I can tell Shannon and Jason have been down here to check on the other house…they had Rocky the Rottweiler with them…yep!  Good Job, Rock…let me add some to it!

Mom says I can’t sniff around on the main road, “Hurry, Boom.  We have to get over to the mailbox and back to the farm before some county truck, or logging truck or fast speeding car comes…You can gather the news down our lane once we get the mail!”

So Mom and I hurried down the main road, waved to Mr. Happy our new neighbor—the little grandchildren call him Mr. Happy because he is always friendly and waves, past the head gate– where we crossed the main road and got the mail, then we trotted over to the lane to our house.

Sniff, sniff, snuff, snuffel….

CATS!!! Let’s see…the yellow and white tom that belongs to the neighbor down the hill…that tom sure gets around.  OH!  New cat…hum young, tom, black and furry…oh…he lives at the house across the road close to the church.  Looks like they are both mousing.  Good for them…Mom always like to have the cats out looking for mice.  Hunting for birds now, make Mom unhappy, but cats can catch mice all they want.  Fuzzy used to catch mice also.  Me…not at all; I just love hunting with my nose!

Home now…sigh!  That was a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

Oh…Mom says I have to wait right here while she gets a pan of warm water and a rag…she says I can’t come in until I the mud and weeds out of my paws.

That’s okay…I rather like standing in warm water.  Once inside I know I can lay right in front of the fire and soak up the heat in my pads.

Ahhhhhhhh…inside, fire, turn around three times, make sure the paws are pointing toward the wood stove…settle down………..sigh……………good. Boomer