Cheers to 5 years

Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong
The wedding bells will toll
Love, joy, adventure
Through life we will stroll
With peace in our hearts
With unity we stand
Together forever we'll be
One Woman and Man
By Beth

My Beth wrote that 5 years ago today before her wedding. Silly little quip to a sing song tune.  I can't remember the rest but the happiness that shown through her face on that day can still be seen there with every rising of the sun. Happy Anniversary Beth and Ryan.  Cheers to the best family a dog could every be spoiled by.

Lazy Days

Lazy days in the sun

But laying here is just no fun

I need to play with ball

Where is Beth I hear her call

She has thrown it so I will run

-Omar McDog

Garden Gems

Tomatoes are Red

Peppers are Green

I like to eat them straight from the bush

It’s a good thing I wasn’t seen!

     Well as the old saying goes “good things never last forever.” I love me some good juicy ripe tomatoes.  Just thinking about them I am drooling all over the keyboard.  It all started this spring.  Beth’s tomatoes were starting to get ripe and I was biding my time until they were that perfect crimson.  When the first one turned I knew it was time to strike.  Beth always lets us out to relieve ourselves before the sun is even over the hills in the morning.  I decided to use the dim light and her “before coffee” state to my advantage. I went straight to the bush, grabbed the beautiful fruit and proceeded to inhale it before anyone was to the wiser.

     Well when Beth went to the garden as she does every morning to pick and water before she leaves for the day she found the precious fruit missing.  Oh dog, was she upset.  She started to curse at the deer, bunnies and anything else that she thought might have been the villain to steal her first tomato of the season. Me being her faithful companion I sat at her feet with the most pitiful non guilty look I could muster.  It worked!

     I continued this pattern for several weeks, filling my belly until I was fat with the wonderful garden rubies.  Until one fateful morning Beth, the creature of habit which I love so much, changed her morning pattern. Ryan had the coffee made for her that morning and she had cup in hand and was wide awake as we walked down the hall to be let out. She followed us out to enjoy the first rays of the morning sun.  I am a creature of weakness I must admit.  Like I am a ball junky, I too am a tomatoaholic.  I couldn’t help it, I tried to wait until I thought Beth was distracted by the cluckers that roam in our yard but I missed judged her.

     Right as I get my mouth around the wonderful juicy round red fruit, I hear my name. Not the loving Bubbers that she often calls me when fawning over my cuteness, but the Om-Ar in the stern, I love you but you are in big trouble mister voice that I have come to know too well in our 10 years together. I was caught red lipped in this case. Beth has never been one to raise a hand to me.  Instead she uses other tactics of punishment.  Sometime I think a swat on the rump would be better than the, silent treatment and disappoint looks.  She gave me a talking to and the NO! that always follows her pointing at the object in which she clearly thinks I should have known better than to touch in the first place.

     Well I did steal any more tomatoes.  Which made Beth happy, and to my surprise after a few weeks she even gave me a few that had fallen on the ground or were a little over ripe.  I guess the lesson you can learn from this is sometimes, if you just ask for something rather than taking it without permission, you may get not only what you want but enjoy it even more.  When I am given the tomatoes I have the time to lay in the cool grass and eat them at my leisure, rather than eating them so fast that I can barely taste their sweetness.

I am kind of a big deal

Today I took my Beth for a walk on the levy which is like the hot spot that dogs love to take their people.  It was a pretty refreshing morning and we had decided to go out fairly early.  Beth has been super busy with human things this year and we have been working almost every weekend at the auctions.  It was nice to finally have a Saturday to just take a stroll and smell the flowers with Beth.  

So there we are, walking down the path and I hear my name a little ways a head of us.  My name being Omar, you don’t hear it often so I was sure that it was meant for me.  We continue on down the path when I hear it again. “Omar, old boy!” Before approaching any closer I stop to take a sniff of the air. John, that smells like John I think to myself.  John is a nice man that comes to all the sales and always takes at least 10mins out of his day the pet me and tell me a story.  If I catch him at lunch time he will even share his hotdog with me. I ran up to him, leaving Beth in the dust.  When she finally did approach, John was introducing me to the little person he had with him.  The little person wasn’t very good at throwing stick but I entertained him by bringing it back all the same.  

Beth and John were joking about how he didn’t recognize her at first but that I was pretty easy to spot.  They continued on with some other boring human stuff and then we were off down the path again.  We had been on the levy for about an hour, Beth was sitting by a tree reading and I was sniffing and rolling in the wonderful grass, when I caught wind of something familiar.  Then it happened.  My name, I heard my name again.  This time it was coming from a wispy sing song voice.  There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that it was.  Ruth! Another one of our good patrons.  She is a sweet little lady that smells of too many flowers. She always has a goody for me in her pocket when she comes. Beth and her chit chatted for a few minutes and off she went.

It happened again, and again it was me that they called out to. When they left Beth seemed a little frustrated.  “Omar”, she says to me, “I find it slightly amusing that I have been around these people since I was a little girl, most of them knowing me as well as my own family, and yet it is you that they say hi to first, and ask how you are doing, and then turn to me to ask the same almost as an afterthought.”  I didn’t want to hurt her feelings anymore but I think she has forgotten that I am kind of a big deal.

The Clucking Queens

Well they started out as fuzzy little balls of noise that bounced around in a little pen.  They smelled funny, but I loved the fuzz tickling my nose.  They didn’t really like me or Bailey at first but they got use to us as time passed.  Now they are more feathers than fuzz and are bossy. Oh dog are they bossy! These little ladies sure do rule the roost.  They walk around like they own the place and they never stop talking. And just as one of us lays down in the comfy grass it never fails. One of them will waddle over, with a displease cluck and make us move.  Like that is just the spot to look for some fresh morsels in the ground. I just call them the cluckers because they really seem to have no purpose other than blabbing on and on.  But mom calls them Basil, Sage and Thyme. Thyme is definitely the boss and whatever she says goes.  That I was swift to learn.