black dogs and one wannabe

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

dog report

dog report august 4 glencadia.com from glencadia on Vimeo.

kids visiting from germany, ringo chasing a duck or goose, me and amy talking about dogs, pepper waling funny, and a lot of childish squealing

city kids with no dogs visiting
also, Amy, who works here, brought her daughter, Brooklyn
plus some of my kids in there, complaining or running away from big dogs
the duck thing is in the 4th minute

july 30 at glencadia.com dog camp from glencadia on Vimeo.

cat on the roof of the car

july 24 2010 glencadia.com dog camp from glencadia on Vimeo.

sunny, rainy, pretty hot, not terrible

july 18 at glencadia dog camp from glencadia on Vimeo.

if a picture is worth 1000 words, how much is a video?

Here is my plan: go out and work with the dogs, walking and cleaning, then, with whatever rags I happen to have on, make a video of myself, looking dirty, sweaty and disheveled.

Some of the stuff I wrote about in the last entry is captured in the video below, including Turbo kissing Gustov and Maggie Blue trying to get a non-existent ball.

july 11 at glencadia.com dog camp from glencadia on Vimeo.

Here is the extra, one minute:

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

talk story

It's raining cats and dogs right now and I don't want to get my video camera wet. It's a shame because today was the day I planned to do a long, fun video: the horses were off the field, so we had room to run, the barn was all nicely cleaned up when Amy came to work yesterday. But no video today.

Tomorrow I promised a video.

Instead of a video I will talk story (I did live in Hawaii for a year, so its okay for me to talk a little story). You might want to do a find / search for your dog's name since I might mention your dog in a chapter about another dog, if they are hanging out together.

MURI: We have three dachshund and Muri is the biggest. Fattest and longest. But they are all together and they stay together, as if they somehow know they are dachshunds.

BAILEY: He is more subdued than usual. Maybe he is getting older? He snuck into the small dog area this morning and I left him there. He seemed to like it.

PANDA AND BLANCHE: How cute. They ran around with the big dogs all morning yesterday and seemed to enjoy it. They are the spunky little balls of fun.

BRADY: Brady looks at me and wags his tail the whole time I'm there. He never jumps on me or tries to run out of a door he knows he's not supposed to, he just lets me know that if I feel like playing, he's ready. Then when I usually don't play with him, as I am cleaning or feeding or whatever, he doesn't seem really disappointed and goes off to play with the dogs. Nice disposition.

ECHO: I had Echo with Ellie, a dog who was here for a long time and needed a home. After a year, Jim who works here found a home for her, which is great news and I'm very happy. But Echo lost his partner. When he goes in and out of the room, he seems fine with the other dogs. And he doesn't bark at them through the fence anymore. He also tried to eat his way out of the wire fence but gave up after a day with Ellie. Now he's alone but he really seems okay with other dogs. I know: I will try him with my dog Gustov next. Everyone likes Gustov. Also, he will go a whole day without eating, then eat double the next day. I guess that's okay, since he's by himself right now, but if Gustov is in with him, it won't work.

HUDSON: Hudson also snuck into the small dog area. He is right now sitting outside in the rain. I sent him into the house and he stayed there for awhile, I turned my back and he's back out in the rain. He was playing relentlessly with PLUTO, so in awhile I'll make sure they get back together in a bit.

ALICE: She's a different dog this time. I started her right away with the small dogs and she is not a bit nervous. She comes right to me with her tail wagging if I want to take her for a walk, she plays, she eats with gusto. A big improvement.

MAGGIE BLUE: Maggie has discovered a new game: she takes her tennis ball and throws it into my shit bucket, then digs into the shit wood shavings mix to get her now shit covered ball back out and, in the process, throw the stuff I just shoveled off the floor out of the bucket and back on the floor.

Needless to say, I don't really like this game.

Then she has another game: She puts her ball next to the fence somewhere, plays with a different ball, then goes back to the fence to get the first one, but forgets where on the fence she left it. After cruising up and down the fence looking for the ball, and failing, she picks some spot along the fence arbitrarily and tries to chew through the wire to get the ball, sort of like the drunk at night that looks for his keys under the lamppost, not because he thinks that's where the keys are but because the light is better there.

This game I don't love either.

PLUTO: Pluto has a terrible habit of diving into my brand new, fresh buckets and making them filthy. He usually does all the buckets the first time I fill them. The next time I empty and refill the buckets, he only does one or two. LUCY (two different eye colors) will join him in this activity if she sees him do it. If Pluto gets time out for bucket wrecking and goes in a room with only a bowl of water (which he can't dream of swimming in), Lucy doesn't do it. Also, Hudson and Pluto have been playing relentlessly. He's a beautiful dog.

MAX: Max is happy and friendly and doesn't really have a story other than stealing everyone's breakfast before he eats his own.

REILLY AND TURBO: See MURI. Also, these guys are the friendliest little guys. Reilly does wander a bit when I let them out but not too bad. Turbo loves the big dogs, especially mine. Very sweet.

DAISY: Usually she takes a day to settle in. This time it was only one night. It's quite consistent. This time she was fighting with everyone on the first night, I put her by herself, Amy let her out in the morning and she's been fine every since.

LADY LULU: Lady and I can be best friends and she is super affectionate. Yet, the next time I call her she comes 90% of the way to me, then turns and runs when I try to pet her. Then I take her for a walk and she is my best friend again. If I call her, she comes as close as she can but far enough that I can't pet her. But then I take her out again and she cuddles right up to me. She seems like the dogs and plays and runs a lot.

SPENCER: Just before I went home on Thursday, Spencer started hiding upstairs. After I left, he seemed more confident. So I guess there was a dog in that group that went home on Thursday he didn't like.

Now he is officially an honorary small dog and unlike some of the other big dogs that slipped in there, Spencer can stay with the little ones.

ANDYWALTER: He refused to come out of the house with the doorman. I carried him to the van. He's quite greedy when he likes the food, so I have been feeding him some special tidbits, since he refuses to eat the regular stuff. He's quite happy with the dascunds and jack russells. He perked up and has some energy. He'll be fine.

SAMANTHA: She seemed to want to stay outside last night. If I insist, she will come in but I let her stay out until it started to rain, then made her come in. She was on limited socialization due to growling for a day or so but now she's with all the dogs and seems fine.

PORK CHOP: When it was hot I was worried about Pork Chop. Still he drank plenty. We managed to keep him cool. He stands right next to my foot and follows me around.

FRANKIE AND TINA: I don't think anyone from this family reads this.

TY: Ty has to eat by himself and he takes his time. He's doing okay. He does have a spot under a tree where he can sleep in the crook of the roots and spends time there, or under the stairs in the dog house. I think he's doing well.

RIPLEY: Doing great. Happy, healthy and playing.

FENWAY: Fenway has been quiet. Why? Because I haven't tried to make a video. She really only seems to bark in the videos. Otherwise, a-okay.

CHARLIE (cocker spaniel): He looks for the pieces of food that other dogs drop when they eat. He will even try to fight a dog 4 times bigger than him over a single kibble of food. I hope he doesn't get fat.

BUCKLEY: Doing great. Happy, healthy and playing.

LUCY: See Pluto.

CHOKS: Doing great. Happy, healthy and playing.

PHOENIX: Phoenix has a habit of going up the stairs and getting stuck. I have to help her down and she seems fine. Then, when I'm not looking, she goes back up. She likes it up there, obviously, but there is something about the stairs that seem to bother her. She is happy to walk down if I hold her collar. She can walk down easily but seems to lack the confidence to try. Otherwise, everything is good.

That's it for today. Video tomorrow.

Sunday around Noon

If you looked at this entry yesterday or early on the 4th of July, you would have missed the shorter video with the barn doors opening and closing. The shorter newer video is of the dogs that missed out on the longer older video from yesterday.

I think you can download the video from Vimeo and then try to quickly scan through for your dog. If you want to try to download it and watch it like that, you should click the link to the video and watch it on Vimeo's site.

18 minutes of dogs from glencadia on Vimeo.

The new video.

spencer alice lady ella and more from glencadia on Vimeo.

This seems to be a shorter version of the 18 minute video.

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

too lazy to bark

too lazy to bark from glencadia on Vimeo.

balloon popping duck waddling dogs doing doggie things

Damn. I spent an hour uploading and it didn't work the first time.

http://www.vimeo.com/12711392

Try, try again!

OKAY! IT WORKED!

june 10 2010 at glencadia dog camp from glencadia on Vimeo.

this is a little better

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

way to go hudson

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

More on the other camera -- when I get back from Gotcha Day (party for the day we "Got Ya" - adopted our daughter Lotta 3 years ago).

Come back tomorrow and I'll have a better video.

And way to go Hudson, New York, our home town (which is at the end of the video):

http://www.registerstar.com/articles/2010/06/11/news/doc4c119d50c7336418637257.txt

We're proud of Hudson New York, the whole damn town. Nice job.

11 minutes of dogs

dog blog slog in the frog bog in fog from glencadia on Vimeo.

no barking and back in putting up videos

I won't go that long without a video again!

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

dogs coming, I promise, but...

... we went to DC for two days. Don't worr: the dogs were in good hands. Bad back, but good hands.

3 in dc from glencadia on Vimeo.

duck and green

duck and green from glencadia on Vimeo.

Attack Mars Now!

I am listening to My Favorite Universe by Neil deGrasse Tyson as I drive back and forth to the city. Highly recommended.

So, Neil, as I will call him, says that the earth was bombarded with asteroids and comets in the first 600 million years of its life. The planet was so hot that life was impossible. The comets left most of the water we have here now. After this period,
the rate of collision slowed.

We now should expect a catastrophic collision once every 100 millions years. The last was 60 million years ago, so we're due in about 40 million years but you never know. That collision was about the equivalent of a billion hydrogen bombs. We get smaller impacts about every 100 years and the last was 1908 over Siberia. That was the equivalent of a hundreds of hydrogen bombs. It went off in the atmosphere. If it were to happen over a city in the same way, there would be quite a bit of loss of life.

Given the extent of the risk, it is hard to imagine how spending more money on looking for these things is not cost effective.

Not only do we have to look for them, we have to develop ways to land a machine on one and use that machine to nudge the object out of its collision course with earth.

If someone had proposed a very expensive study to find out the impact of volcanic ash on airplane engines a few year ago, a study that cost 20 million dollars, it would have been very cost effective to fund it.

Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter in 1994. Each one of the 12 parts of that comet was worse than the object that made all the life bigger than a bread box on the planet extinct 60 million years ago. If there were dinosaurs on Jupiter in 1994, there ain't none now.

Suppose we find an asteroid on it's way. We have some time. The people of earth are united as never before in history against a common enemy.

If we can get a craft on it and start nudging it, we only have to get it to move a centimeter a week for a a year or two, and we'll be in the clear.

But we thought we knew how to plug up a leaky oil well. And maybe we don't. So maybe the craft fails.

The asteroid is still coming. We know that the impact itself will be local. 99% of the loss of life will be from starvation as the sun will not shine for 3 or 4 years. We have some stores of food around. There are pumps to get ground water to the surface that could operate with a generator of a few years. Some people will be just fine.

Humanity is no longer united as it once was. Now, we are in the worst zero sum game in history.

There isn't enough food and water and safe shelter for any nation, only the elite of some nations, or anyone who can commandeer enough bags of rice and get them to a safe place and wait for impact. They will sit tight eating rice while the rest of the world starves.

Oh, I'm sure the happazard efforts to track objects is enough. We don't need any actual government action in advance to work on the process of nudging objects... I mean, we might be fine for hundreds of years, maybe millions of years. Or maybe not.

While we're out there looking for asteroids and comets that might mess up earth, we should check and see if there are any icy comets that could be nudge to collide intentionally into Mars. Maybe it is a good idea to try to recreate the conditions that produced the "soup of life" that existed on earth from 0 to 600 million years, as best we can which is orders of magnitude less than what the early solar system could do. The point would be to make Mars hotter and wetter so that when we get ready to go there in a serious way in 300 years, we have already built up a supply of water and put more material into the atmosphere.

Here is what I would think would determine if this is a good idea:

1) Would it work? Will we be saying, 300 years from now, "We COULD be terraforming Mars now if it weren't for those assholes in the 21st century crashing all those comets into Mars and messing it up." Or, "Well, that was an exercise in futility: Mars still sucks. Let's go to Titan."

2) Is it immoral? I kind of think that morality is only for living things. If we leave Mars alone in its pristine state as if it were like an old growth forest and think we learned the lesson of the rape of the earth, I think we learned the wrong lesson about earth and biodiversity.

If it were to work but be somehow immoral, we can always belly-ache and act contrite like we do now about how we stole America from the Indians... that was terrible, terrible. I never would have done it like that. So, where should we go on vacation this summer? Drive to Oregon?

We can always do that hypocritical crap later. We wouldn't want to miss out on a near miss comet full of water when we get lucky enough to have one we could plop down on Mars for later.

Any, with satellites in orbit around Mars to video that sucker, I think we would finally capture the public's imagination about space exploration. We are not doing that one small step for man, one giant step for mankind bullshit anyone. We are cold pounding the shit out of Mars.

One massive punch to the face for Mars now, another fucking kick in the groin later, that's the new NASA motto. Mars can be the earth's punching bag for 300 years.

Just think how good it will be for humanity to know that all the nations of the earth have banded together to beat the shit out of Mars and slam it with comets for it's own fucking good?

Do you think the aliens from the planet Zog are going to want to mess with us when they see what we did to the Martians? Stephen Hawkings is worried about extraterrestrials stealing our water?

Yo, they will see the signature of those comet collisions from their star system and think we got mad fire power. "That can't be natural collisions. That the solar system is way to old. There is some kind of life in that system and they are crazy violent."

I think it's a win win win situation. Attack Mars Now!

The international space community should devote energy to finding comets that may come within striking distance of Mars and develop methods of nudging the comets into collision course with the red planet. Humanity should unite with a strategy of pounding Mars like a sucker punching bag. Nothing else will bring the romance and public engagement with the space program more easily than a manufactured collision that is the equivalent of 20,000 hydrogen bombs detonating right before our orbiting Mars satellite enhanced eyes. What a show! And in 300 years, our 8 foot tall descendants living on the red planet can pour the water produced by the collision into their glasses and toast our need for barbaric entertainment.

a stick in the water or a rock in the storm

There is a stick poking out of the reservoir at about mile 2 and a half on the Sprain parkway, visible only on the southbound side. It has been sticking out there for five years. I know that stick because a family of commarants uses it as a perch to scope out fish, I assume. From April through September I when I drive by at around 4 or 5 pm, there is always at least one and as many as five commarants on that stick. They seem to come back later in the Spring than other water birds.

I think they are commarants: black birds with long necks that look like the one Chinese fishermen use to catch fish with a band around their neck in books written for children. It looks more or less like this. I'm not convinced I saw the yellow around the beak.

There is no way for a human or other predator or other pest (from the birds point of view) to get to the spot. The stick pokes up out of the water off an island in a reservoir that is surrounded on both sides by a highway.

A branch of a log that fell in the water years ago can be a remarkably stable and reliable landmark.

It has been the focal point of a family of birds life for at least five years when I began to notice it. It has not rotted or broken off. The log that holds it up has not rolled over. The birds leave in the fall and can rest assured that when they get back next Spring, it will still be there.

While change is the only constant, and all that, something as apparently transitory as a tree falling into a pond, which is what the natural corollary of a reservoir would be, leads to this stable situation.

Further lessons:

In the time that that log has been holding up a branch providing a stable fishing spot, thousands of houses have been built in Ireland, houses that will never be occupied and will be demolished without anyone ever living in them. Ghost Estates, symbols of the housing bubble. Meanwhile, that branch keeps on trucking.

We think of humanity's impact on the environment in terms of oil spills and CO2, and that is true, or bulldozers plowing into wetlands, which is a big deal, but what is the impact of people doing stuff like kicking over logs? If the log I am observing were in the Catskills or in the Adirondacks instead of in between the north and south bound sides of a highway, it might have been absentmindedly kicked over by someone, or someone's canoe might have bumped into it and broken the branch. You might say that kicking it over might make it a better spot for them to fish. But how long would it take them to figure that out? Maybe not long... but maybe the birds would not have prospered as they have with the log left as it was.

Just a thought.

off topic

This has no dogs, except going to the dogs:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/04/the-greek-crisis-has-me-thinking-about-1931.html

yesterday, upload a day late

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

rocky eating oak, harley getting stuck upstairs, lola chasing wood shavings, etc.

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

recital, no dogs, sorry

a great dog video tomorrow, promise... but here is yesterday

oh give me a home, home on the range from glencadia on Vimeo.

geese ducks turkeys chickens dogs

And the video misfired.
http://www.vimeo.com/10951818

I'll try again.

new birds and old dogs from glencadia on Vimeo.

load of sand

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

This much sand costs as much as one, single peacock, as Ollie points out. Charlie is still a little reluctant but has come a long way.

And now the dogs:

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

And now out for a walk:

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

I get a load of sand like this all the time. Here is 2009 and more sand. Another one. And here is 2008 or here.

who wants popcorn?

kids over to play, sunny day, Jim's back is better, things are good

Too bad Frankie killed the rooster. I liked that rooster; he wasn't mean and most are, so he was perfect. Still, I have another one.

Maximus jumped up to get the ball out of my hand and bit me and knocked the camera on the floor. What a jump! Kind of caught on video, below.

I was trying to find the perfect place for Piper. I think I may have. Watch!

I know, Stella, not Ruby. I had 2 Stellas and 2 Rubies and 3 went home. The last one was a Stella, not a Ruby. I still have 3 out of 4 Lucies.

Ollie, my son, says I should get the photo that Budgi took in this video and post it, and she forgot to take her camera home, so I can. And I will.

And this is pretty funny if I say so myself:

kids and dogs april 2 2010 from glencadia on Vimeo.

At about 9 minutes you will see this picture get taken:

I can't. Wrong USB chord.

spring spang sprung sprunk sprink

Story lines in and out of the video:

We have 4 dogs named Lucy here: Long Lucy, Lucy with a Lease, Little Lucy, Lucy Loo
We have 2 dogs named Ruby.

Senja is somewhat nervous. The first hint that she was not sure about the dog camp idea was when she peed on me getting in the van. Then, when she's out with the other dogs, she finds a nice sunny spot and sort of lies down in an inconspicuous manner. And she didn't eat much. Still, as you see in the video, she's coming around. And after the video she got even more comfortable and relaxed. She'll be fine.

Bond is obsessed with fetch. I should never have started. He won't let it go.

Mingus got time out.

Peanut thinks she has to break it up when other dogs play.

Theo makes strange noises.

Happy is a bit naughty in terms of coming when called.

Lotta and Leo put coats on the dog.

You can't tell Darcy from Gustov in person, let alone in the video.

We went all kinds of different places.

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

spring is back and so is the blog

Sorry for delay in updating this... here is today's video. Beautiful day.

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

Delay might have been due to this:

cinnamon bay st. john's us virgin islands from glencadia on Vimeo.

the frogs are out

Loud and clear as a bell. Tonight is the night this year.

And here are the other years: 2009 or here 2009

2008

The earliest day yet in my short notation of the day the frogs come out. They all come out at once. It's quiet one night, loud the next, no ambiguity.

The weather is fantastic and my video camera is working again. It will be dog heaven on the blog tomorrow.

attacking the shavings and all about gracie

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

chicken attacks a dog, dogs discover ice, leo knocks the camera out of my hands and butchie howls

Those are the highlights. I should get some more video but this was pretty good for now.

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.