The Queen dethroned

Fleur wanted to take her place on the sofa, but Power wasn't having any of it!

Notice that Power hid his head to avoid the queen's ire!

Power's Power

Power has decided that he needs a big cushion to rest his regal head upon, and he isn't about to give up his royal head rest!

The KING of the sofa cushions!

The Night Stalker

Recently the Dingbats went to Wickenburg AZ for Gold Rush Days.  It's a lovely area, and is at a higher elevation so the scenery, wildlife and weather are different.  We loved it!

At night I would hear wind flapping, and hear the two syllable calling of a bird of some sort.  And not just calling, but it was also flying all around while calling!  This happened each night sometime before 10 pm.  As a birder, I was mystified because it could not imagine what owl, or nightjar this was  ( I knew their calls and had eliminated them).  I spent quite a bit of time on my computer, in my bird books, etc and still could not figure it out!  I had to let the brain cells work subconsciously while going on with life, but it was hard.

I finally did figure it out, and the bird was a Kildeer!  I had trouble figuring it out because I'm not used to hearing them after dark!

Mom and babies

Bird Species:

Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus)

When Taken:

May 13, 2010

I got this photo from the internet, and wanted to put it into the blog, so that the greyhound and other dog lovers out there will know what they look like. Birds don't cuddle with us, but we don't have to take them for walks, and pick up their poop, either!

Spring is such a wonderful time of change for the wild creatures.

Power flower or is it Flower Power?

When I adopted Fleur, her real name was flour (can you imagine?) so I changed one letter (to Fleur) because I wasn't going to go through life with a lovely greyhound with a really WIERD name.  Fleur has the happy coincidence of meaning "flower" in french, so if you get the drift, it all worked out to be Flower (one way or the other).

Fleur's lovely face

Now you can please wake up again, because it will not be another boring reason about naming my greyhound.!

However, I think that greyhounds have power, flower power!  Remember back in the 1960's and 1970's (for those of you who were fortunate enough to be around then) when the phrase "flower power" was seen on lots of hippy vehicles, buildings, clothing, etc!  I never spent much time thinking about it then, but now, I think about it nearly every day!


For instance, last summer, I decided to let Fleur and Power use the sofa so that I had more floor space open.  I went to the trouble of buying two sleeping bags to protect the sofa upholstery.  I made sure that the sleeping bags were a pleasing color so that my living room was attractive, and the zippers were all closed to keep the dog fur off the sofa upholstery.  Everything was working so well that I actually began to pat myself on the back for having such a good idea!

The the "flower power" started working, and the sleeping bag fabric began to look frayed on the bottom sleeping bag.  I also noticed Power licking on the sleeping bag fabric!?  What's that about?  I also noticed that the sleeping bag zippers were no longer zipped, and that the "flower" and the "power" were busily pulling the sleeping bag fabric off the sofa cushions and making themselves very comfortable on the sofa fabric!

They both seem to like showing their heads under a portion of the soft and silky sleeping bag fabric.  I never see them doing that with fleece or other fabric.

I believe that the pictures speak for themselves, don't you?


I noticed that we have a new follower, by the name of Melton Mitchell.  Welcome to you!

Power's Power

Power is a very happy dog.

He smiles all the time, never WHINES (thank God), and almost never barks. He eats well, sleeps well (at last) and in general is loving life. 

However, he has one trait that has me a bit mystified.  This trait is the mental one in which he walks along, thinks about pooping, so he stops, starts to squat, changes his mind, and walks on farther.  After we have reached cruising speed, he decides to stop (pulls my arm out of the shoulder socket) and again he starts to squat.  The squat begins to look genuine, but just at the final second he stands up again, and starts walking again. 

He is eager to walk so we go on and get to cruising speed again, when he ... 

You guessed it!  He jerks my arm as he comes to his very important STOP. The squat seems very complete , and he actually starts to poop, but then he reverses the procedure, stands up, and on we go to walk more distance. 

He is smiling all the while, and just as I am relaxing into the walk (again), he jerks to a halt and this time he completes his appointed task.

I am beginning to wonder if his smile is a secretive code to let the world know that he has the POWER to embarrass Mom each time he takes her for a walk. People are always asking Mom if he has a digestive problem!  Or maybe he has a hemorrhoid bothering him?  Or maybe he has pain in his anal glands?

One very KIND individual called the sheriff because she thought that I was guilty of animal cruelty!  This very KIND woman took pictures of us walking to prove her point and showed them to the sheriff's deputy when he arrived.  He was the canine officer so he was an accepted authority on the subject of dog abuse, and he kept saying that Power was really solid!  Then he would run his hands over Power again( getting greyhound affection all the while!) and again would say " He's really solid." Finally the sheriff was ready to leave and he said to me that he knew abuse, and that this was definitely NOT abuse!

Surely Power couldn't be having fun with all this, COULD HE?!

A license to WHINE!?

My name is Fleur, and I am very important!  I am so important that I wear special tags on my collar.  One tag says that I got a shot at the Vet, one tag has my Mom's name and phone number, and both of these tags give me special privileges!

Exercising sofa privileges

My special privileges include taking over the sofa!  And if you don't understand, I will explain:  I get to live in a motorhome, and a motorhome has a very small number of seats.  In MY motorhome, there is a laz e boy recliner that my Mom sits in, and then there is the sofa.  That's it... no other seats at all unless Mom turns around the driver's seat (when we have a visitor).  So being licensed to take over the sofa is a very important thing!

I'm watching everything that goes on around me!

It's my job to make sure the entire world is behaving as they should.  The cat should be in the sunny windshield, not on the sofa.  If she is on the sofa, it's my job to tell her (in no uncertain terms) that the sofa is MINE.

The cat cannot sit on the sofa at all!

I have to hang over the edge of the sofa to keep my eye on everyone

Once I have messed up the sleeping bag on the sofa enough to drive Mom nuts, then my next job is to hang over the edge of the sofa, and stare at Mom continuously, and to do the special WHINE that I have perfected to make sure that she can't think of anyone but ME!  If she is on the computer, the WHINE is designed to keep her distracted.  If she's watching TV, the WHINE is to make her miss the actor's words.  If Mom is reading, the WHINE is to make her forget the plot of the book.  If Mom is beading or knitting, etc, the WHINE is to make her mess up her project!

The WHINE is my secret weapon to keep Mom's mind on ME!

Tiltable solar panels! Not just tiltable, but electrically tiltable!

I am a gadget lover.  There, I've admitted it publicly.  I've never wanted to climb onto the roof of my motorhome to use the manual type of lifting devices, so have left my solar panels flat all these years.

Four years ago I saw a display of these solar panel lifts, and was very interested in them.  However, I saw the price and backed off immediately! Each year, I would think about them while in Quartzsite, but would avoid the sales area where they were located.

This year, I checked out the prices and found that they had dropped drastically since 4 years ago!

So I decided to leap in and purchase the lifting system.  The installers asked me to show up with my motorhome at an area behind the sales area on a certain day.  They worked hard and made progress, but the wind started blowing hard, so they quit for the day and plugged in an electric cord for the motorhome and I spent the night at the work area.  The next day they again worked on the installation, and again I spent the night at their work area. The third day, they again worked hard all day, and were close enough to being finished to let me go back to my regular campsite with the Dingbats.  I was very glad to be back to my site and to the fenced yard (for the dogs). I was glad to be able to exercise the dogs like they need.

The installers came to my site the next morning and finished up the job that day.  They explained that the lifts require a lot of measuring and fine tuning, and that that was why the process was laborious!  

The lifts come in two models, and I opted for the two way lifts, which meant that the installation was twice as complicated as the one way lift!  The two installers worked hard, and did not charge extra for the extra work involved. They did a good job and the lifts work very well.

The Quartzsite Arizona Desert gets crowded!

Normally no vehicles are parked along this road

Lots of travelers have dogs along

Some RV's are large, new and fancy

RV's begin to line up in rows

The Dingbats are getting crowded also

Some folks travel together

People walk through my campsite to walk through to the "big tent"

Interesting hat bands are worn

This set of pictures was taken last week during the big RV tent show!  I enjoy seeing everyone and even have a few people that I see from year to year!  Some few folks are a bit careless, and overtake others' territory in their enthusiasm.  I had two separate people run over my bird feeder, and completely ruin them, and they weren't cheap ones!  The drivers never even slowed down!

Hot Air Balloon flight

Hot Air Balloon

I was still half asleep when my neighbor stood outside and was looking so intently eastward, that I decided to look eastward as well.  This balloon was just leaving the ground for an early morning flight.

Early flight on Saturday morning