Flower Friday

Greetings to all!  It's me, Maggie!  Today, we're joining with our friend Dory and her brothers to bring you Flower Friday! This week, we're going to take a look at some of the gorgeous wildflowers we see on our walks. Ready to look around?

Cam and me, posing at the top of the Water Tower Trail

This is a beautiful time of year here in the great state of Kansas - it's peak season for one of our favorites -- Sunflowers!

A butterfly and a bee sharing a Sunflower

Did you know Sunflowers always face the sun?

Did you know, given the opportunity, Siberian Huskies will always try to snarf something?  Way to score, Cam!

Here's a look at a hillside we saw this morning.  It's just packed with wildflowers!

I saw these wildflowers growing in an empty lot yesterday and stopped to check them out:

"Very cool!"

Here's another look:

Curly Cup Gumweed

They were growing with another of our favorites:

Gayfeather!

It's such a bright punch of purple!

"I think that's a wrap for now."

That's a brief look at what's blooming in our neighborhood!  Hop on over to Dory's Backyard to see her Flower Friday - and to see a list of the other bloggers who have joined up!

Have a great Friday!

Yours sincerely,

Margaret Thatcher

Help Where Help Is Needed

Hello, everyone.  It's me, Cammie.  As you know, Maggie and I are Siberian Huskies.  And Siberian Huskies are Working Breed dogs.  We love to work.  No job is too big or too small for us.  So the other day, when Mom needed to strip the air mattress so she could deflate it and put it away, we were right there ...

"Cam!  Cam!  Let's get this party started!"
"We're here for you, Mom!"

... helping as only Siberian Huskies can.  We put a little video together for you, showing different parts of the process.  Please enjoy:

If that won't play, please click here to view on YouTube

Remember, we're Working Breed dogs; we are professionals. Do not try this at home!  ... or if you do, please pace yourselves!

Cammie!

Wordless Wednesday

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher

We're Going Where?

Hello, everyone!  It's me, Cammie!  This morning, we took a great walk with Mom and Dad.  Everything was going pretty normal ... you know ... we were walking along:

Maggie and me!

... and Mom would stop every now and then to take pictures of sunflowers:

Butterfly on a Sunflower

Then Dad said we should go check something out! We went over and saw this:

"Huh.  An new office building and ..."
"... and something else, too."

Here's what we read on the sign:

Interesting!  We've never heard of one of those.  We thought we should go check it out.

"It looks like a cool, underground bunker!"
"It does.  Come on; let's go over there."

"Yeah.  So I guess you could say we're going to the poor house."
"Oh, Maggie!"

"Mrrffff!"
"BOOM!!!"

You all had to see both Maggie's comment and the BOOM coming, right?

Have a great day!

Cammie!

Posing Together By The Sunflowers

Greetings to all! It's me, Maggie! September is a beautiful time in Kansas - our temps finally start to come down AND it's Sunflower Season! We walked past a big patch on our morning walk today and Mom thought it would be a great idea to get a shot of me and Cam in front of them. You know. Posing. Together.

Here I am:

Me, Mags, in front of the sunflowers

And here's Cam:

Cammie by the sunflowers 

Oh. Right. Why no posing together? I mentioned the slightly cooler temps, right? And you know what that means, don't you?

"Ha roo, Cam!!!"

That's right! The desire to act like Crazed River Otters!  It's awesome!

Mom decided the "single" shots were good enough.

Sunflowers.  Without us in front of them.

I do love Sunflower Season! Do cooler temps get you pumped up, too?!?

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher

Serene Scenery Sunday

Hello, everyone!  Cammie here with a nice serene Sunday.

"Hello!"
"Ha roo, everybody!"

Sure. We could be anywhere within the 3,000 square feet that constitute Ao4 Headquarters, but together is where we choose to be!

Speaking of choosing to be somewhere, guess who Mom finally got a picture of?!?

"Zzzz...."

That's right! Bart, the little Brown Bat who hangs out under our upper deck every Summer! We love his mosquito-eating skills!  Of course, he's also part of the reason Mom doesn't let us go play on the lower deck without her sweeping and washing it first ... but that's OK!  He's a bug-eating MACHINE!

Mom wants to extend her thanks for sticking with us through our Quivira trip - and for the kind comments.  It was a really exciting experience and she wanted to share it with everyone!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Cammie!

Our Adventure, The Final Chapter!

Greetings to all!  It's me, Maggie, here to wrap up our trip to the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge!  When we left off yesterday, we were about to loop around to the Big Salt Marsh.

"Water and birdies EVERYWHERE!"
"I see some mud I'd like to step in ..."

We got to get out there to advise Mom.

Looking way out on the water, we saw a group of Coots!

American Coots

We spotted this Egret in the reeds; check out his footy-foot!

Great Egret

A lot of the Ibises did fly-overs.  Mom was able to zero in on this one:

White-Faced Ibis

Speaking of fly-overs, check out this heron in front of the sunflower patch:

Great Blue Heron

Dad spotted this Snowy Egret out blowing bubbles in the water:

Snowy Egret

He did that for quite a while, then took off:

Snowy Egret Ballet

Mom snuck up on this White-Faced Ibis:

White-Faced Ibis looking for lunch

Mom was trying to take some shots of these American Avocets and a Black-Necked Stilt when a bunch of ducks crashed the party:

Fly-over by Blue Winged Teals

Nearby, there were two tiny Grebes.  One took off, but Mom was able to get a few shots of this one:

Pied Billed Grebe

What an incredible day of birding!  One more look at a Great Egret:

Great Egret in take-off mode

Now if someone would make our Mom stop singing "Egrets ... I saw a few ... but then again, not too few to mention ... "  Yeah.  OK.

On the way home, we stopped in a very nice little town.  Here is a shot of Cam, Dad, and me checking out the ball fields:

Cam, Dad, and me.  Dad's the tall one.

The town itself, Ellinwood, was very small town Kansas; Mom shot this out the window with her iPhone as we drove through:

Ellinwood, KS

Mom would have loved to do some exploring there, but seriously.  It was time to go.

"Another time, Mom.  Hey, Cam.  Are you buckled in and ready to roll?"

"I'm cool, Mags!"

I need to ask Dad to bring an extra pair of sunglasses for me next time!

"Do you want to switch off driving?  I'm pretty sure I've got it figured out now."

Dad said he was good to go, so I opted to nap.

I hope you enjoyed seeing all the extremely cool birds and beautiful scenery this week!  (Back to normal tomorrow -- promise!)  If you'd like to see more of the ten million shots, please visit our FlickR album at this link.  And hey!  Have a wonderful Sunday!

Yours sincerely,

Margaret Thatcher

Our Adventure, Part IV

Greetings to all!  It's me, Maggie!  Before we get back to our adventure at the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, let me say a big "thank you!" to all of you for the well-wishes with my hot spot.  I'm trying my very best to leave it alone and let it heal, but as many of you know, it's not easy!  Sigh.  Anyway ... where were we?

Oh, right.  We left Mom to fend for herself at Rattlesnake Creek.  Ha roo roo roo - just kidding.  Let's take a look at some of the birdies we saw next!  As we mentioned, we started seeing scads of Avocets!

American Avocets and Blue Winged Teals

Those guys were hanging out with some ducks!  Also nearby was this guy!

White-Faced Ibis, American Avocet in the background, mooning him

Isn't the Ibis cool!?!  Here's an action shot of one of the Avocets:

And here he is, doing a killer head-tilt pose!

"Hello!"

Mom should have tossed him a Zuke's for that!

These two were looking for bugs together:

American Avocets on patrol

Mom stopped to shoot this scene with her iPhone.

In one of the trees in the distance, there are a bunch of Turkey Vultures!  (Click here for a close-up.)

In one of the marshes, Mom saw this heron chased off ...

Great Blue Heron with nesting material

 ... by this guy:

Great Egret

Probably mixing it up to see who's really great!

We also saw a couple chase scenes on land!

Snowy Egret chasing a Greater Yellowlegs

Snowy Egret chasing another Snowy Egret, Least Sandpiper in as the referee

Here's a group of White-Faced Ibises doing a fly-by:

White-Faced Ibises.  Ibisi?  Whatever.

This heron watched them fly high over him!

"Ibises?  Ibisi?  I don't know, either!"

See?  I'm not the only one.

Here's another birdie Mom had never seen before!

Black-Necked Stilts!

And just as she was shooting them (with the camera, people!  with the camera!), another "lifer" flew past!

Yellow-Headed Blackbird!

Mom said that's not the best shot, but she was excited to see yet another bird she'd never seen before!

We'll close today with this group of Black-Necked Stilts, a Snowy Egret, and a White-Faced Ibis.  (This gathering was almost too much for Mom to handle!)

"Yeah ... so, I just flew in from Canada, and boy, are my wings tired!"

That Snowy was quite a card!

Stay tuned; more birdies and adventure to come!

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher

Time Out!

Greetings to all!  It's me, Maggie!  Today, we're taking a time out from telling you about our big adventure to Quivira National Wildlife Refuge.  I was set to go this morning, but then instead of taking us girls on a walk, we waited until 8, then Mom made a phone call and I heard, "Uh huh, yes, yes, today at 9? Oh, wow!  Perfect!"  So, Mom did some getting ready, and the next thing I knew ...

"Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do!"

Yep. The vet. Oh, it's nothing big, it would seem I have a hot spot caused by something, and it's infected, so ... yeah. What a pain in the -- actually in the back leg.

Anyway, after we got home, to celebrate me being a very good girl, we did this:

"I got to meet all kinds of people, Cam!"
"Oh, I love the people there!  Were you super cooperative and calm?"

"Yes!  ...except for when Dr. N had to shave my hot spot.  Then I screamed like a banshee!"
"Good girl!  All part of being a Siberian Husky, Mags.  All part of being a Siberian Husky!"

One of my favorite routes -- the shopping center to the Kansas Ocean! It was great. A bit toasty, but not bad.  It gave us girls time to catch up on everything!

Back to our adventure tomorrow! I think I feel a nap coming on.

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher