I tried to get the dogs to look towards the camera yesterday when Verna had them both out in the courtyard. The were both too distracted by something that kept their attention away from the camera. After I took the photos, I pointed the camera toward the ground only to see the source of their distraction: a six-inch long brown lizard.
Click on any image to enlarge.
Bob gave me these old photos of him taken thirty-some years ago, so I could send them up to one of the social media sites as a ‘throwback.’ In the image above, the cowboy dude on the left was actually an urban cowboy while John Travolta was still having Saturday Night Fever.
The guy in the right side of the image was acting as pilot in command of one of a fleet of aircraft at the flight school where he instructed and did charter flights. Click on the composite image to enlarge.
Over the last couple of weeks, we have been experimenting with letting our two small Min-Pins run around in the courtyard without leashes. That worked pretty well and both dogs were fairly well-behaved and responded to commands to keep out of the back part of the courtyard and to go back into the house when called.
Occasionally, Cabela, the little blue female, would push our patience by trying to sneak back into the forbidden zone, but would usually come back if we commanded in a loud voice. Beethoven, our red boy dog, on the other hand, stuck to the implied rules and stayed where he should – until last evening, that is.
We had both dogs out in the courtyard when one of the big dogs that lives up on the hill across the road started barking. At that point, seemingly without effort, Bay Bay jumped up on the front wall to see what was happening. The wall is a little over three feet high at the point where he jumped up.
Ir scared the crap out of me, since he has been known to run off when loose. Luckily, the little dog trusted me enough to let me walk over to the wall and coax him to let me pick him up and bring him back into the house. It could have been way worse had he jumped out of the courtyard and took off toward the barking dog.
The Mama and the Daddy have let Cabela and me go out into the courtyard without leashes or being carried. This is good. I can lay down in the sunlight and be warm and relax. Cabela just runs around sniffing everything. Click on us to make us big.
The Daddy says that we still don’t have the back gate but he is trusting us to be good dogs and keep away from there. Daddy also says there will be a new gate soon and that we might be able to just run around the courtyard to our heart’s content. Cabela and I will like that.
When the desert breezes briskly blow the flower you’re trying to photograph around, you simply get a grip on the flower stem out of the camera’s field of view and then take the image of the now stabilized flower.
We were both in the courtyard today taking photos of this and that, when Verna grabbed a flower stem on one of the Cleveland sage bushes, pointed her camera at it and managed the close-up photo she was looking to get. I just happened to be in a spot where I could capture the moment when she was shooting her close-up with my camera.
At the left is the image she got of the sage flower; on the right is my photo of her getting the shot. Click on either image to enlarge.
The Mama has a little tub on the patio for us to get a drink when we come back from a walk on the hot road. Sometimes Bay Bay gets in and lays down in the water to cool off. But I just like to step in and get my feet wet. Then I jump out and want to go in the house so I can get lots of wet puppy feet prints on the tile floor. Click on me to make me big.
