wildflowers at Bull Creek

A couple of weeks ago (on May 24), we went for a long walk along the trail at Bull Creek.  As always, we enjoyed running wild and free, but this was also one of those times that Mommy let us get all wet, dirty and cool in the water!  That's not even the best part though... the best part was that the whole place was c.o.v.e.r.e.d in wildflowers!  Mom and dad took lots of really great photos:  

Here are my two faves, mommy says they're going straight on the wall:

And here are the others, more or less in order:

Yep, wild raspberries! 

the constant thorn in my side

I know some of you thought I meant Dorothy with that title: but no, she's being alright and we're getting along really well.  I'm actually and quite literally talking about thorns!  Or prickles, or spurs, or whatever you want to call them!  

Every grassy patch is covered in them at the moment and I can't go outside without mommy attacking me with a hairbrush afterward!   The thorns get caught and tangled and it takes forever to brush them out, plus sometimes it hurts!  I never thought I'd say this but I can't wait until my next haircut!  Hopefully I'll get shaved so this whole thing can end.  

Here are some photos after a quick run in our front yard yesterday!

You can't even see most of them because they get tangled!

But when mommy starts brushing... this happens!

What the sink looks like afterward 

note: Dorothy doesn't have these issues but she got some pretty nasty cactus spikes on her face!  See the one just under her left nostril? OUCH! Luckily mommy always finds them.

a is for allergies

I'm so glad that 'a' is the first letter of the alphabet because it lets me address the first, and rather serious, issue going on around our place at the moment.  Since it's spring here in Austin and flowers are in full bloom, the air is full of pollen.  It's like a blanket of yellow snow that gets all over the backyard, the front deck, the car, mailbox and all over Dorothy and me whenever we go outside.  

Even if mommy wasn't a neat freak who insisted on washing our feet and brushing it out of our coats constantly, it would still be a major pain because both Dorothy and I are allergic to it!  It gets up our nose and into our eyes making us sneeze and tear up.  Have you ever tried fetching a ball with your eyes full of water?  It's very disorientating! Mommy says there are only a couple of weeks left of this pollen crisis but that feels like forever to D and me.  People think it's easy being a dog but no one realizes that every season something covers the ground that we're so close to: in winter it's snow, in spring it's pollen, in summer it's bugs and in fall it's leaves! 

this is the tree responsible!

And what it does to our place

Mommy caught me pre-sneeze!

thanks to swatirane.wordpress.com for this photo which shows a trash can in Atlanta. 
The pollen was actually worse in Atlanta but we have a yard here so we're in it more.