Buster and a Bottle Rocket Gone Wrong

Buster is obsessed with firecrackers. No words describe how crazy he gets when firecrackers are bein set off. Have you ever known a lab who doesn't have the most dogged (excuse the pun) concentration? It doesn't matter if a nuclear bomb goes off by the lab. HE. WILL. NOT. MOVE. Ever take one duck huntin? Nothin, and absolutely NOTHIN is gonna take him off that bird! No matter what kind, how loud, how big or small these firecrackers are, he will not let up in his obsession.

Tonight, to get an early start on the holiday, E and Uncle Mike set up the PVC pipe and lit off some bottle rockets. Buster was solid as a stone statue as they got the pipe in the ground and unrolled the rockets. He never moved a muscle until they lit the first fuse. Then he hops all around and dives at the rocket before it takes off.

Here, the pipe has just gone in. The firecrackers aren't even out of the garage yet:


He's just waitin. He knows they're comin.


Ha! There they are! He thought dad was holdin out on him!




Wait! It's not lit yet!


It is now! There it goes...right by his face. We have yet to take him to the emergency vet for eyeballs blown out of his skull.




Ready for another one?


Here goes!




I'm sorry. Once again, there is no light for the video but per the audible exclamations and verbage you can tell that something went wrong. Buster's paw hit the base of the pipe as he was dancin around after it was lit, but before it went off. We didn't have time to correct it but Buster did. With his face. It hit his face, he shook his head to clear it and the bottle rocket landed about 10 feet in front of us, behind Buster and went off.

There was only one more after that and Buster kept starin at the pipe, ears up, tuning everything else out. We took out the pipe and he looked at us like he was sayin, "What? That's all?"





This next shot was taken 45 minutes after the last bottle rocket had been fired off. Buster is not givin up. E and Uncle Mike put the pipe back in the ground and Buster wouldn't take his eyes off of it.



I found this funky lookin bug on our front door.


Never seen one quite like this. I thought it was a june bug but then I saw it had some extra plumage on its antennae.

The clouds early this morning were something to behold. The first two shots I took on my foliage setting. The last two shots were taken with the portrait setting.





Oddly enough, the foliage setting didn't catch the rain drops. The portrait setting shots did, however.

Give me the dirt! And add some spit....

This is a satellite photo of one of our earth's excavating holes:



Well, not exactly a satellite photo, but I did use my macro lens for the shot. It is excavation at it's finest, but it's not from big equipment the size of apartment buildings. It's from these two yellow jackets.





They were so busy ballin up this dirt to haul off and build their nests.





At first they'd dart around testin the softness of the dirt. Then they'd decide on a good spot and hunker down to start diggin.





As they dug up the dirt they would coat the ball in saliva. You can see the ball start to form.



Now he's added the saliva and it looks all slick and smooth:



When they had enough mud, they would stand on their forelegs with their ass-end in the air, packin the ball of mud tightly, before they lifted of into the air. I didn't get a good picture of that because they were so stinkin fast once they decided they had enough mud.



Not to sound like a nature-environmental-tree-huggin-birkenstock-wearin-don't-believe-in-washing-my-body-type of freak, but it was pretty neat to watch these two. Wherever they took the mud didn't take long because in about 45 seconds, they were back. Come to think of it.....maybe there were a whole bunch of them and I just didn't know. They were all wearin those same yellow jackets with no name tags.

Titty-Tats and Doofballs

*This was supposed to be posted three days ago but the video wouldn't upload...

The Titty-Tat story and no, it's not what it sounds....

Today we went to the Wal-Marts to get our shoppin done. When we got out of the truck I saw a small black and white kitten come from somewhere and run under a car. We went over there to see if I could get it. Couldn't. So I wrote down the car make and model and tag number and took it to management just in case they would/could do something. I'm sure they didn't. A little over an hour later the boys and I came out with our goods and I decided to look under the car since the car was still there. Sure enough, that kitten was still up in the hoses and axle at the front end of the car. I had already tried before to reach him and couldn't. There was a lady lookin at me, oddly of course, and she came over to see what I was doin. She felt bad for the kitten and tried to help me the best she could. I went back to my truck to get out the leather gloves. That little titty-tat could scratch and spit with the best of 'em. Besides my hair lyin on the hot dirty Wal-Mart parkin lot and my body on the asphalt, half under some random dudes car, the blood wasn't that great either. I finally got him out and from the cart, where our boys were sittin patiently Wyatt yelled, 'Good job mommy!' and then JD clapped. I explained to Wyatt that we were takin the 'titty-tat' to the vets to see if they could find a home for him. He wanted to know why we weren't takin the cat home. He asked if it was because Buster wouldn't like the kitten and I said, 'No, it's because Daddy won't like me if we bring it home', and to that Wy said, 'Oh,dat's not 'dood'.' Ha ha ha!!! No, it wouldn't be good. The only thing I had in the back of the Ford was an 18 pk BudLight cardboard box to contain the wild thing. I stuffed the kitten in there, blocking the end with a huge can of Gatorade powder and blew the a/c on him lightly. He had been pantin bad before we went in to the store to shop. I found a non-rusted Copenhagen lid, wiped it out and gave the kitten water in that and of course he was too scared to drink. When we got to the vet I ran in and asked Brenda if they would take the stray. She looked at him and said she was sure they could find him a home. Wy didn't quite understand Wy the kitten was stayin at the doctor's but he definitely knew I'd get myself in trouble bringin another stray home, and a cat, no less!!

The 'Doofball' Video

At nap time today, I had held JD until he was just about out. That was my mistake. I either need to NOT hold him, or hold him until he goes to sleep. After I laid him in bed he was quiet for a minute and then he popped up and started jabberin and butt-bouncin on the mattress. I only caught a little on the camera but he had been yellin 'yeah! yeah!' after every time he bounced and he must've bounced down on his butt at least a dozen times!












The light isn't good in the room, but if you've ever flooded an area with light while you're tryin to get your punk to do or not do something, it always has an adverse affect. Here's another 'doofball':





Here's his watermelon rinds he apparently thought were as good on the deck as they could be in the trash. I walked out one afternoon and found this: