ADVENTURES WHILE WALKING, by Nicky

Piper asked me if I wanted to write about the early spring Adventures While Walking, but I wasn't sure how to do it.  She said it was easy.  You just get Mom to take a bunch of pictures while you are out walking, and then you talk about them in the blog.  So that's what I'm going to do.  And I am also going to use a few pictures that Mom took while she was walking Barry and Mel, because they were nice enough to say I could do that.  I just wish the pictures were scratch-and-sniff, because what a dog is really interested in is how things smell, and not so much how they look.  Well, unless you're looking for a squirrel to chase!

It was trash day yesterday, which is a very interesting time to go for a walk, because there's lots of garbage and food and fascinating stuff to smell.  And that's in addition to the regular sniffable stuff that is always out there.  I was really amazed to see what people will throw away!

Hey!  Somebody had pizza, and I didn't get any!

Mom thought this tree was pretty cool-looking because of the fungus on it.  But I was more interested in checking out the p-mail at the base of the tree.

What's up with these people?  Are they some kind of dog haters?  Mom said maybe they don't hate dogs, but just hate picking up poop in their yard.  She might be right about this, but I still have my doubts.

This is a big hole in the ground that got covered up with some pieces of plywood.  Mom told me that there is a water main here that has been leaking for several years, and finally last fall the water department started fixing it.  But they didn't finish before cold weather came, so the big hole has been there all winter.

We saw a flicker on top of a chimney, and he was singing loudly to tell everybody that was his territory.  Then sometimes he pecked on the metal cover of the chimney, just to emphasize his point.

Wow!  What happened here?  We don't know how this fence fell down, but Mom said maybe a car ran into it.

There are a few people who still haven't taken their Christmas decorations down, but hey, it's only March, so why hurry?

Mel and Barry like to pee on this Christmas wreath whenever they go by.

Some people not only took their Christmas stuff down, but they are ready for St. Patrick's Day.

We saw daffodils coming up, and even a few crocuses blooming.

Then we saw this one house where everything is not only up, but it's blooming like crazy.  Mom was really surprised until she figured out that all the flowers were in pots.  She said that meant they had been "forced" to grow and bloom indoors.  I don't know much about plants, but this sounds kind of cruel to me!

Here's a really cool house that's only about a block from where we live.  Mom calls it "The Castle."  One time she got to talk to the man who lives there, and he said the house was built in about 1912 by a man who was a stone mason.  So that's why it has lots of nice brickwork and stonework in it.  During the summer, we can't see The Castle very well because it has a high fence around the yard, and Virginia Creeper grows all over the fence and blocks the view.

The weather vane on top of The Castle has owls on it.  I think it would be better to have greyhounds, but nobody asked me!

When we got up this morning, we found that somebody had thrown copies of The Thrifty Nickel in everybody's driveway.  This only happens occasionally, and we don't know why, but it happened today.  Mom picked our copy up and put it in the recycling bin, but some people just drove over their copies when they were leaving for work.

Mom and Mel and Barry went by to check on their favorite group, St. Francis and the Gnomes.  But they were surprised to see that St. Francis wasn't there anymore.  Instead, the group is now made up of the Virgin Mary and the Gnomes.  We don't know what happened to poor St. Francis.  Maybe he got kidnapped or maybe he froze to death during the winter.  Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter too much, as long as the poor little gnomes have somebody to watch over them.

This house is getting all fixed up so that maybe somebody will actually want to live there.  Ever since Mom has been in the neighborhood, this house has been for sale.  Sometimes someone will buy it and they do a little work on it and then they try to sell it again.  But no one has really lived in it.  Finally last fall the house got auctioned off because of foreclosure.  So now it's for sale again, but it's also getting worked on in a major way.

When you look at the dumpster, you can tell that a whole bunch of bad stuff got torn out of the house.  Mom is curious to see what it looks like inside, but there haven't been any open houses yet.

Well, okay, that is all of the Adventures While Walking for today.  Mom took this last picture of me heading up the driveway so that everybody could see how many annoying sweetgum balls there are in our yard.  Every time Mom thinks she can get out there and rake them up, it starts raining or snowing again.  But I wish she'd hurry up and do it because I don't like stepping on them any more than Mom does!