Flower Friday

Greetings to all!  It's me, Maggie!  We are teaming up with Da DB Boyz to bring you Flower Friday! We thought we'd take a walk around our gardens right here at Ao4 Headquarters this week -- ready to take a look at what's in bloom?

Let's start things off with a shot of me looking at the Peonies:

Me checking out the Peonies.
Well, fine.  I was looking at some guys next door.  Whatever.

Or rather a shot of me not looking at the Peonies. Whatever. There was too much going on out there! Anyway, here are some of our Peonies! First, a couple shot with Mom's iPhone:

And now with the Canon 7D:

Mom just can't get enough of her Peonies!

The Purple Salvia is blooming, too:

And so are the Roses:

Rosebud with some kind of Gaussian blur thingie.  I have no idea.

Our other big bloomers right now are our Irises! We have purple ones:

And this color-combo:

What's blooming in your neck of the woods?

Thanks for joining us on our garden tour!  

Yours sincerely,

Margaret Thatcher

Getting Our Ducks In A Row

... or at least the photos of them. And the other birds.  Anyway ...

Greetings to all!  It's me, Mags.  Today, we finally have Mom's birdie pix from our outing on Saturday.  Are you ready to head down to Quivira National Wildlife Refuge?  Let's cut with the chit-chat and go!

Me and Cam at Quivira, checking out the scene!

OK, I wasn't really looking for birdies, I was quite possibly looking for something to snarf. That didn't really pay off.  We did see tons of birdies, though!

One of the most abundant kinds of birds we saw were Blackbirds!

Red-Winged Blackbird

Yellow-Headed Blackbird, trying to hide from Mom

There were quite a few species of ducks there, to include Mom's favorite - the Northern Shoveler.  Here's one hanging out with some friends:

Left to right, female and male Blue-Winged Teal and a male Northern Shoveler

I'm fairly certain the female Blue-Winged Teal was practicing her aircraft carrier landings!

Here's a very small duck:

Male Ruddy Duck

We also saw lots of Egrets!  On the way down, Mom saw some Cattle Egrets in a field with some cattle!  For some reason, she didn't get any photos.  Something about Dad not thinking it's real safe to pull over when he's doing 75mph down the highway.  Whatever.  At Quivira, we saw a few Snowy Egrets and plenty of Great Egrets:

Great Egret in flight

Aren't his wings beautiful?  Let's have a good look at those babies:

Great Egret - wingspan of 51 inches!

With an even larger wingspan of 72 inches, we give you the Great Blue Heron:

Great Blue Heron doing some fishing

We also saw another kind of heron!

Immature Black-Crowned Night Heron

I'm not sure why Mom said he was immature -- maybe he was cracking goofy jokes or something.  Ha roo roo r---yeah, OK, back to the birds!

In the smaller birdies arena we have ...

Eastern Meadowlark

... and ...

Eastern Kingbird

Back to larger birds ... Mom is always thrilled to see these guys:

White-Faced Ibis, with a Lesser Yellowlegs photo-bombing (at right)

Mom didn't even see the Yellowlegs at first.  Some of these birdies have amazing camouflage!

We also saw Kansas' largest bird:

American White Pelican

They have a wingspan of 108 inches!  Wowzers!

We appreciate your kind comments on the video we shared yesterday of the Phalarope and Stilt -- and thought you might like to see some still shots today!

Wilson's Phalarope

Unlike most other birds, the female Wilson's Phalarope (above) is the more colorful of the species!  Here are a male and female together:

Male and female Wilson's Phalaropes

If you notice all the tiny, black specks in the two photos above - those are mosquitoes.  About 87 billion of them.  The rest of the 10 billion that were there were biting Mom, if she's to be believed.  (Side note - in a pinch, hand sanitizer is great for itchy bug bites!)

And here is a shot of one of the Stilts:

Black-Necked Stilt

Aren't his crazy-red legs cool? They have the second-longest legs in proportion to their bodies of any bird; flamingos are number one.

Our last shot for you is of a bird that is a "lifer" (first time ever seeing one) for Mom:

American Bittern!

They are a member of the heron family and are very elusive -- see how well-camouflaged he is in the grasses?!?  Mom almost missed him!

We hope you enjoyed our birdie pictures!  If you'd like to see more photos from this most recent trip, please click here to visit our FlickR album (it's a 2-pager).  Thanks for going birdie watching with us!

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher

Watching Wednesday

Greetings to all!  It's me, Maggie.  This Wednesday, I thought we'd do a little movie watching.  Me?  I've been watching The Last Kingdom --

"Uhtred!  It's Uhtred!"

I don't have any clips of that show to share with you, but I CAN get you started on our birding adventure with a very short video!  Roll it, Mom!

To watch on YouTube, please click here.

Both of those kinds of birdies (Wilson's Phalaropes and Black-Necked Stilts) are exciting "finds" here in Kansas, so Mom was really stoked to see them out dining together!

Mom shot that with the Canon SX60, handheld. She's been working very hard with the occupational therapy guys - can you tell it's paying off?!?

Birdie pix starting tomorrow!

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher

Waiting ...

Hello, everyone!  It's me, Cammie.  We're still waiting for our mom to finish going through the birdie pix she took the other day.

"Ho-hum."

I think she took 87 million, but I'm not sure. It was a lot.

Cammie!

Working On It!

Greetings to all!  It's me, Maggie!  Mom is still working on her birdie photos from Saturday.  I'm helping, of course -- you know, doing things like helping with the ID, making sure she stops to take me outside every so often, or getting her to fill our Pickles up so Cam and I can play.  But anyway ... she's working on it.  In the meantime ...

Sunday, we headed out on a nice family walk.  We went up the big hill, then stopped to strike a pose at that Old Chicago place.  While we were posing, Cam and I noticed something very interesting!

"I think that new coffee shop is open!"
"It has to be!  There are people on the patio!"

Isn't that cool?  We have a new coffee shop right in the neighborhood!  We thought we should go over, order some drinks, and welcome them!

Dad ordered some stuff while we made ourselves at home on the patio.  It was sunny and mighty warm, but there were people to meet, and that made it GREAT!  We love schmoozing people!  The manager was very nice and we hope to make this a regular stop!

After coffee, we posed for pictures!

"The sun's in my eyes, Mom."
"Do you have treats?"

We posted that one to their FaceBook page.  We also switched sides, to see how that would look:

"Seriously?  Do we get the treats now?"
"OK!  Big smiles!"

That was mighty fun.  I think we're going to like having a coffee shop on one of our walking routes!  Next time, I think I'll try ordering a double shot of espresso - wouldn't that be great?!?!

Yours sincerely,

Margaret Thatcher

Let's Bird!

Is "bird" a verb?  Hmm...

Hello, everyone!  It's me, Cammie!  As Maggie mentioned yesterday, we headed out on a day-trip to go birding!  We went to Mom's happy place -- Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, stopping at the Kansas Wetlands Education Center on the way out and back.  It was a very fun trip for all of us, but we're also pretty wiped out, so today I'm just sharing iPhone pix with you - later in the week, we'll show you the cool birdies we saw!

Here is a shot of Maggie and me on the way down:

"Zzz..."
"Zzz..."

As you can see, we were hard at work.

When we got to the Kansas Wetlands Ed Center, we got to walk around for a while. We struck a nice pose for Mom:

Me and the Peep at the Ed Center

After that, we headed over to Quivira! We saw lots of birdies, and Mom was going crazy taking photos (being careful not to over-stress her wrists). When we got to the Big Salt Marsh (BSM), us girls got out to help spot birdies:

"I think I see ducks over across the street!  Wait ... no.  Coots!  I see Coots!"
"Are they old Coots?  Ha roo woo roo!"

Mom fired off a couple shots, then she and I went over by the BSM to look around.  I struck a pose over on the parking pad:

"Old Coots.  I crack myself up!"

It was pretty warm, so we also had a water break (and some snacks!) while we were there.

We drove around Quivira NWR some more, then headed back to the Wetlands Ed Center.

"Siberian pose on 3, Cam!  One ... two ..."
"Three!"

That was fun.

After we all stretched our legs a bit, it was time to head home.

"Hey, Dad.  If you're tired, I'm OK to drive."

Maggie is really helpful like that.  Dad said he was good to go, so we just hung out in the backseat and played the license plate game.  I think Mom found the most states, but she was in the front seat, so she had a bit of an advantage.

A great time was had by all!  More to come very soon!

Cammie!

Be Very Quiet!!!

[whispering] Greetings to all.  It's me, Maggie.  We're out stalking birdies today ...

Me, in stalking mode

We hope to have some cool pix to share with you soon!

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher [end whisper]

Roof!

Greetings to all!  It's me, Maggie.  Our neighbors are getting a new roof, so about every hour yesterday, I told Mom I needed to go outside to use the yard.  Once out there, I did this:

"Ooh, look!  Roofers!"

I love watching people work! Isn't that why we're called "Working Breed" dogs?  I could be onto something here.

Anyway, that reminded me of an old joke. I'm not sure, but from what I've heard about my great-sister Amber, it was probably one of hers. So this joke goes something like this:

A guy walks into a bar with a small dog under his arm and sits down at the counter. He puts the dog on the stool next to him. The bartender says, "Sorry, pal. No dogs allowed."

The man says, "But this is a special dog -- he talks!"

"Yeah, right," says the bartender. "Now get out of here before I throw you out."

"No, wait," says the man. "I'll prove it." 

He turns to the dog and asks, "What do you normally find on top of a house?"

"Roof!" says the dog, wagging his tail.

"Listen, pal..." says the bartender.

"Wait," says the man, "I'll ask another question." 

He turns to the dog again and asks, "What's the opposite of soft?"

"Ruff!" exclaims the dog.

"Quit wasting my time and get out of here," says the bartender.

"One more chance," pleads the man. 

Turning to the dog again, he asks, "Who was the greatest baseball player that ever lived?"

"Ruth!" barked the dog.

"Okay, that's it!" says the bartender, and physically throws both man and dog out the door and onto the street.

The dog looks at the man, shrugs and says, "Maybe I should have said Joe DiMaggio?"

"DiMaggio!"  Ha roo roo roo!  No jokes like the old jokes!

OK, the roofers are still here today.  I need to convince Mom I need to go outside.  Have a great one, everybody!

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher

Wildflower Walk

Hello, everyone!  It's me, Cammie.  Yesterday, we all went on a really nice all-family walk!  Not only was it nice because we were all together, but it actually wasn't raining!  Whew.  Anyway, we saw lots of pretty wildflowers along the way, so I thought I'd share some of our photos with you.  Ready to get walking?  Get a drink of water, then let's head out!

Here we are, walking up the almost end of the first set of hills:

"No rain, but still plenty of puddles around for the asking, Cam!"
"I know!  Isn't it great?!!?  I love puddles!"

See?  We were just getting started and already there was something for everyone!

"Cool sky, huh?"
"We can see forever up here!"

It's really beautiful on top of our hills - we have amazing views!

Anyway, at the bottom of that hill in front of us, we turned onto the Hudson Trail.  We saw lots of pretty wildflowers along the route, like this:

Field of Prairie Verbena

Here's a closer look:

Prairie Verbena, also known as Dakota Verbena

Isn't it a beautiful color?

We also saw a few Daisies!

Me, gently sniffing a Daisy

Oh. I know what you're thinking, but unlike a certain sweet, playful, lovable, bi-eyed member of the family, I do not try to eat flowers. (Just herbs in Mom's now defunct herb garden.) (Maybe.) (There is no proof it was me.). ANYWAY ... here's the Daisy:

Ox-Eye Daisy?  Maybe.  A Daisy of some sort.

We also got to walk up the Water Tower Trail:

"Something just ran across the path!"
"I saw it!  COOL!"

We saw some kind of small animal run across the path!  It was very exciting.  Mom didn't catch it. (Sadly, neither did we.)

Right - back to flowers.  Can you see the yellowy flowers up on the right side of the path? Here's a better look:

Prairie Groundsel

We also saw lots of Honeysuckle:

Me, checking out the Honeysuckle

Right. Sorry. Try again:

Amur Honeysuckle

It was a really great walk! We love seeing all the beautiful, colorful wildflowers!

"I see more puddles!"
"Score!"

Thanks for coming with us!  We hope you enjoyed our walk as much as we did!

Cammie!

Wordless Wednesday

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher

Who ... Us?

Hello, everyone!  It's me, Cammie.  I have no idea why my mom thinks Maggie and I were up to something.

"Who ... us?"

I mean really!  We weren't doing ANYthing!

"Yep.  Nothing to see here, folks. Ha roo roo r-- Oooh, COPS is on!"

Well, there MIGHT have been some activities resembling Crazed River Otter Games ... but then Maggie's show came on.

Cammie!

Wedge

Hello, everyone.  It's me, Cammie.  Maggie curled up in the middle of our breakfast room bed the other day and wouldn't move over.  I really wanted to lay there and wasn't sure what to do at first. Then I realized I needed to choose a wedge.

"Maggie, just give me a little ... OK, no, wait.  I can fit."
"Zzz..."

Oh, not like the kind our dad uses on the golf course, a wedge maneuver.  It was the right choice!

Cammie!