Down Spout - There Has to be a Quilt in That

After our walk this morning the boys wanted to stay outside.  It still looks like rain, there is a lot of fog and the dampness is everywhere.

McGee was hearing some far away thunder, so he wanted in.  I heard weird noises I couldn't identify, and that is never good when bassets are concerned.  So I investigated.

I saw Chloe and DiNozzo congregated.  Another bad basset thing.  Around the downspout?

First thing you think of is a snake, so I grabbed the flat shovel.  I have killed my share of snakes, in
my day.  Part of the "swamp life".  (we live in the middle of the city, mind you!)

I don't see anything.  I hit the downspout with the shovel and I hear a weird cry I can't identify.  I can also hear scratching noises.  Oh oh!

DiNozzo has his face stuck up the downspout (metal flashing, duh!) as far as he can get it.  I grab his collar and pull him away.  Chloe goes up to see what the deal is, although I am sure she can already smell what it is up there.  If it is a opossum, it will fight like crazy, even the babies.

DiNozzo is all concerned that Chloe is going to get whatever it is, so he attacks her!  OMG!  She falls down, I yell, he stops.  If you have ever seen a basset fight, it is a bunch of noise, lots of teeth and ears and not much contact.  She was unhurt, but pretty upset.  She cried all the way to the back door.

I yank that dog's collar and drag him up to the house and shove him through the door.


Frank is nowhere to be found.  He is casually changing his socks and wondering what is all that weird noise.

I enlist him to go check the downspout and we hear crying sounds.  He says bird.  No way that is a bird.  he knocks it and this falls down.

That is a squirrel tail, then a foot then a butt.

If you watch American Ninja Warrior, you see these guys  get stuck on an obstacle.  They hang  on, and hang on and hang on.  They sink lower and struggle more, and still fall.

 Half Body.









Three quarters body.










Plop!  A baby.

 I encouraged him to scamper off out the yard, across the driveway.  Dale, next door, has no dogs to eat him.


When Frank left, he tried chasing him further away, since baby Squirrel was insisting on coming back into the yard with the dog monsters.

My guess is the storms shook him out of a nest he was not really ready to leave just yet.  Close, but not yet.  His mother did not teach him to get home.

I went out just now to let DiNozzo (on a leash) see he was gone, but he was not gone.  He was hanging on the fence.  I tried shooing him out.  No go.  He was staying here.

He is actually pretty good at hiding if he is not good at going home.

DiNozzo is beside himself.  He is totally obsessed with going out (by himself, mind you) and checking on the squirrel.  He assures me he will make sure it finds its way back to its momma.

This one below here is my favorite photo.  Too bad it is out of focus!

And Its Only 9:30......AM

This is from yesterday..........

What a lousy day.  Carrie had a Sesame Street book called Grover's Bad Awful Day, and I think I am having one.

For Christmas, Frank gave me the full, most expensive detail for my 2006 CRV from Benny's Car Wash.  He told me I could get a new vehicle, but actually my CRV is fine.  It just needed to get rid of the last 10 years of dog hair.  I'd be willing to bet I still had some Swissy hair in there.

We brought it in Monday morning and I got the call to get it at about 2 pm.  Wow!  5 hours of intensive beauty makeover.  When I lifted up the floor mat, dirt.  The very back space still had leaves from my oak tree.  When I looked at the side, the splashes of road grime were still there.  The shift supervisor said, leave it and I will have it redone.

When we got there this morning and looked at it.  Still the same dirt and leaves.  I was bummed.  Another day without my wheels.   What happens if I have a fabric emergency?

Aughhhh!  I have no problem paying top dollar, but I want top service in exchange.  This was not.

Then when Frank dropped me off at home, Frank drove off to meet customers and I walk inside.  The alarm has malfunctioned.  Not bringing-the-police malfunction, but just not-doing-right malfunction.  So it was a bit eery walking into the house, even though I knew there was nothing wrong because Chloe was perfectly normal.

I go to make a cup of coffee and look out the window to see DiNozzo with a squirrel hanging out of his mouth....on the back porch.

OMG!  He finally caught a squirrel.  His life's mission ----  mark it accomplished.  And of course, like the rest of my life when stuff happens, no Frank.


I knew I had to get it from him.  (So I went to the bathroom first just to steel myself.)  I walked toward him and he moved out into the yard.  Further and further back he went until we were at the back fence.  I asked him to drop it, and miraclosly he did! 

After DiNozzo dropped the squirrel I realized it was which was mostly dead at this point.  The interesting thing was the other two dogs were up on the back patio  just sitting and watching.  Alert, but just watching from a distance.    No one came close to bother DiNozzo and his kill.

I wonder what Code of Dog that is.  Respect the kill, maybe.

I got the still barely alive creature over the fence where no one would bother him.  I don't think the squirrel doctors could help him.  I felt awful.  DiNozzo was soaring proud.  

The dogs kept wanting to go outside, and scope the squirrel out again.   Do you remember the last squirrel episode?  The Big Fight?  Frank getting hurt? I brought each boy out individually on leashes, but I let Chloe go unfettered.  She immediately finds the squirrel over the fence, stakes her claim and starts digging out.  I rush the unwilling boys  inside, run back out to stop her from finishing her hole.  bassets are might diggers, those little short front legs are pretty much suited to digging out.

I spent the rest of the day taking dogs who SWORE to me they had to pee out on a leash.

Oh, yeah, when I finally got the squirrel over the back fence and out of the yard, Frank finally returns one of the 15 frantic phone calls I made to him.

Whew.........and it was only 9:30 AM.

The Squirrel As Alarm Clock

So I looked a my schedule last night, as I always do, and found one of those rare days where I just had a few small, non-essential errands to run.  Nothing important.  I could sleep as long as I wanted to!  Ah, the life of luxury, quilting and sleeping late.

At about 7 AM, I hear the Boyz outside.  Not a bark, but definitely a strange sound.  Different.  I  note it in my mind, hmm, that was an odd sound. 

I drift back into sleep, having decided not to ruin my Sleepy Haze by getting up and going to the bathroom.  I hear the back door open and close and Frank runs into my room, blood dripping down his leg.  He was holding his wrist and in a strained voice he say, come and see if McGee is all right. 

McGee was fine, Frank was not.People are going to start thinking we are having MMR fights behind our closed doors every week!  Geez.  I was hoping that he was not going to need a visit to Dr. Day or Dr Gorgeous.

What happened?

From nwaonline

There was a baby squirrel inside the yard.  DiNozzo  scoops it up in his mouth.  It is just a-screaming, screaming, screaming.  Which brings McGee to investigate.  He wants to see the squirrel too.  DiNozzo  is not of the mind to give it up to an unworthy dog.


 Frank literally dives in on top of them.  Finely tuned athlete, remember?  And he hits his knee on the stones, his wrist on a cement block.  He wrestles among the dogs and wins the squirrel.  Which was too stunned to bite him, thankfully.

He tosses the squirrel over the fence.  And the dogs get into a teeth slashing, snarling loud, epithet tossing, ethnicity questioning stream of curses.  So he jumps in to separate the vicious dog fight.

His hand was scraped on the metal fence, and he knocks over the cat statute that sits on one of the  little graves they are desiccating.  Although if it was Chips, he was probably channeling a lot of anger and biting. 

the minute the dogs were inside, they were standing like long time buddies, trying to figure out how they were going to get outside.  Frank told them they were in time out, relegated to inside for  the next few hours until the momma squirrel finds her baby again.  

I checked out both dogs, then Frank.  Not a mark on the dogs.  Not a single mark.  Frank was beaten up, covered in mud.  Several body parts were dripping blood and he has a brush burn on his knee, now sporting a large gauze pad and tape.  Like a symbol of meritorious service.