Jackal like to swim!

 Sorry all of these pictures are poor quality, they were taken with my cell phone.  

My husband was working on Faran's bridle and put some stuff aside. . . on Jackal lol!  He didn't move except to give me this pleading look (above).  He went to the lake with us a few weeks ago and went for a swim (below)!  We had been walking for a while so he was hot and thirsty.  When I took him to the lake boat ramp my friend let her dog go swimming so I decided to let Jackal join her (I don't really like him going in ponds or lakes because of his tendency to get yeast/bacterial infections in his ears).  He had so much fun!

He started off with just laying in it to cool off (he's on a concrete boat ramp).

 

 And then he went swimming out to my friend and her dog.  I love his tail sticking straight up.

Oh and my friend is taller than I am so that water is deeper than it looks and Jackal is only 19 inches tall.

 

He's laying down in the last picture.  I think he was shaking his head or just about to stand up or something lol.

We had fun!  The crazy thing is he didn't smell like a wet dog and his coat was so soft afterward.  Weird!

Happy Twelfth Birthday Storm Glory!

 Happy Birthday Storm!!!!  I can't believe my baby girl is twelve years old!  It's unbelievable how quickly time flies.  I was a teenager still living at home when I brought her home as an adorable ten week old puppy.  :)

Storm may be a very high maintenance dog with her abundance of fur, high prey drive, crazy exercise requirements, Houdini escape artist abilities and selective hearing, but I love her and she's been the best "first" dog ever (first is in quote because we had a bunch of dogs when I was growing up, but she was my first to pick out, train and raise by myself)!  I've enjoyed the past twelve years with her and I just can't even imagine my life without her.  She's such a good girl.  :)

I think she was five months old here.  This was before her coat grew in lol.  She looks so naked!

Here are the rest of the pictures from today.  Sorry they are grainy, it was almost dark when we finally were able to get pictures.

 

First I brushed her so she'd look nice for her pictures.  I should have taken a picture of all the fur!

 Me and her.  I make her look small lol.  I'm 5'11" and she's 23 inches tall.  :)

 Staring at her candle.  She was not sure what to think about the flame LOL!  Oh and those plants behind her are our pumpkin plants growing on our homemade bamboo trellis.  :D

 

 I cheated.  Her candle is stuck in a dog cookie!  I didn't have time to make anything homemade.  Poor girl!

 Eating her birthday cookie.

My beautiful girl!!

New Camera

I don't remember if I mentioned it but my nice digital camera that my husband gave to me as a wedding present three years ago is having issues.  It's called a lens control error and is going to cost quite a bit to get repaired.  It still works sometimes, but from what I've read it will get worse and worse.  So I got a cheap compact Samsung digital camera that is 14 mega pixels with a 5x optical zoom in case it dies so I won't be completely without a camera.  It will be cool to have one I can carry around in my purse too.  :D

So anyway here are some pictures from the new camera.  I think they turned out pretty nice!!  All I did to them was crop them and add a watermark so they can be considered straight off the camera.  :)

 My husband's gorgeous eyes.  :D

The last harvest of green beans from our garden.  I should have got a shot from the side too.  They are in a standard horse bucket.  I forget how big they are . . . I think a gallon or two.  We will use these as treats for the horses.

 Our first harvest of corn from the garden.  My husband said it tastes great (I don't like corn).

 One of our young male Muscovy ducks.

And some pictures of my gorgeous dogs!  First the outtakes . .  .

 Silly Jackal's tongue is sticking out.

Haha!  This cracked me up!!

Storm giving her intense "wolf" stare and Jackal just being . . . weird.

 And finally the good ones.  :)

My gorgeous puppies!

 Looking good for a dog who is going to turn twelve years old in nine days!!

I still think Siberian Huskies are one of the most beautiful breeds of dog on the planet!  ;D

Cute story about the dogs . . .

My husband finally got a job where he works on the weekends (so he's free to go to school during the week), but it's night shift, so on Mondays he only gets to nap in the morning and I have to wake him up around noon so he'll sleep Monday night.  Well I had fun waking him his nap!  The easiest way to wake him up is for me and Jackal to go play fight on the bed next to him because the more I antagonize Jackal the more he barks, rolls around and kicks my husband in the ribs with his feet LOL!  So we started playing our talk back game where Jackal barks and then I bark, on and on and on and on!  Then to surprise us all Storm, who was laying in the floor next to the bed, starts howling!!!!!!!!!  If you've never heard a Siberian Husky howl you totally have to hear it.  It took me almost six years to ever get her to howl to begin with (she's very quiet and rarely make any noise), so it was cool that she joined in on our play session.  Of course her howling had me laughing so hard I couldn't bark at Jackal so he stopped barking and she stopped howling.  Oh well it was a lot of fun while it lasted.  And we succeeded because my husband is awake LOL!!

How do you self motivate?

 Note:  None of these pictures have anything to do with the post lol.

 One of Jackal's favorite "beggar eyes" poses.  He's snuggled up to my husband's foot, watching him eat and giving him his best "I'm starving to death" expression.  :D

I have been totally unable to get myself motivated the last two days (my two days off) to do anything!!  All I've felt like doing is playing computer games, xbox games or read my book.  In my defense I've had the most horrible sinus headaches (like can't even have the lights in the room on) both days (probably due to a line of storms that moved through - we needed the rain, but it's done a number on my allergies).  By the time I can get rid of the headaches (laying down in a dark room, ice pack on my head along with allergy/pain meds) I just don't feel like doing anything. 

 Jackal checking out our harvest of acorn squash and Amish pie squash (they grew too close together and pushed each other off the vine before they turned orange).  We've already harvested 35 pounds of green beans, acorn squash, Amish pie squash, cucumbers, summer squash and peppers (japalena, banana and serano) from our garden this year and it's only June! 

 I did clean house (laundry, dishes, trash, etc.), have the horses' hooves trimmed, rode Chrome and helped my husband put up snow fence around the gardens so the ducks will stop killing everything we're trying to plant (dang ducks!), but that's all I've done.  So my question is:  how do you self motivate yourself?  There are things I wanted to do like work out, walk the dogs (which I probably will do later when it cools off since my headache is gone), clicker training with dogs and horses, etc.  It's sooooo hot and humid outside that it's hard to get the energy to do much outside unless it's early in the morning (that's when we put up the fence) or late at night (that's when I've been riding horses or walking dogs).  So any tricks for getting yourself up off the couch (or bed) and doing something productive and useful when all you want to do is take a nap or hide out with a book??

Another useful thing I did do is brush Jackal.  I haven't been able to find my Furminator (yeah again, I know!), so I used my horse's curry comb on him!!!  Look how well it worked (sorry Jackal's fur blends in with my concrete porch).  I then used my horse's stiff brush and used it to get the loose hair and dandruff (his coat is sooo dry!) off.  It worked so well.  :D

So anyway, I'll try to get motivated to read blogs (I have over 800 posts to read, probably going to have to stop following so many unfortunately . . . ) and post in my blogs more!  Thanks for reading!