Balloons!

On a family walk a few weeks ago, we were pleasantly suprised by the sight of two hot air balloons taking off from the field where we usually go. Such a pretty sight in the morning! If we ever do go for a ride in one of these, I think we'll leave Tessa behind. Once, when we took her on a canoe ride through a lily poad field, she simply walked off the side of the canoe. She obviously expected the lily pads to be solid ground. I'd hate for her to try the same thing with clouds . . .

Hawk Attack Drill!

During the last month we've been heading out to a nearby field once or twice a week for a family walk. We let Tessa off-leash to run around for an hour or so and she absolutely loves it. So far, no snakes, which is good. She found one about a year ago in a field, actually--I turned around to see her sniffing a gopher snake experimentally, delicately poking at it with one paw. I hope she never tries that with a rattler!

Anyway, she's so good off-leash that the only thing we really worry about are hawk attacks. At 16 pounds, she's not much bigger than good sized rabbit and while I think a hawk would have a hard time carrying her off, I don't want one even to try! So J! has been running hawk attack drills on Tessa:

The slow spiral inwards.

The attack!

Eh. T-dog goes back to sniffing a clot of dirt.

Tessa

J! got an iPhone Touch a few weeks ago. The first picture he put on it wasn't of me. It was this one:

Who could blame him?
Those ears . . .