July 4 Weekend Report

What a weekend!

First, more bipeds showed up to stay with us over the weekend! Grandma and Grandpa -- no, not that Grandma and Grandpa -- were here for a long stay. But then there were all those loud bangs on Friday night. I don't like those, nope, not a bit. They remind me of the time squirrels had us pinned down at Shiloh ... but you don't want to hear boring stories about their acorn artillery barrage. No, I can't say Friday was a winner, but at least all the varmints were gone.

Saturday was better. We had to be kennelled for a bit, but when the bipeds got home they were grilling and we got little strands of grilled chicken in our dinners! Oh, lawdy momma, can our bipeds grill, especially chicken. Sophie was sitting by the grill, her nostrils filled with smoke and her eyes agog. And I caught a robin, which Beau wanted to grill. Unfortunately, we couldn't get the bipeds to do it, so we had robin tartar instead. Not bad, but the bipeds were having chicken marinated in Stubbs' marinade, and this robin called out for that marinade. (Well, not literally.) Plus, we finally flushed that rabbit from under the yard barn. And I would have had him, too, if not for those meddling kids ...

Sunday was big, huge. First, we had to leave Sophie at home, poor girl, because of her heartworm medication, and we had some walking to do. Our first stop was at Oliver winery. The Gewürztraminer was excellent, as always; unfortunately the Reisling won't be available for a couple more weeks. They also have a new line of wines called Flying Dog, so of COURSE we had to try some. Beau and I agreed that it was excellent, though a bit sweet for my taste. Beau prefers sweet wines, though; he said they provide a pleasant frission with goose poo. And were there ever geese there! We got to chase and bark at them, which was fun. And then one of the small bipeds fell into the small lake; the chaos was so great that we got into the smoked horseradish cheddar cheese. Boy, that's delicious! It would go great with Beau's mango mojitos.

We went on to lunch at a place with outside seating. We had several people pay us the proper beagly tributes. Of course. And the bipeds, who keep reminding each other not to feed the dogs at the table, slipped us bread and a touch of cheese. Oh, and I got to bark at a bulldog-boxer mix, so life was good.

Then came our special undercover assignment: eradicating varmints from Brown County State Park. We couldn't do it all, of course; we're just doing our part for the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy of PETA (Pooches Eating Tasty Animals). The program seems to have been going well; we saw only one varmint. That the small bipeds were shouting out Lord of the Rings to each other might have had something to do with it.

When we got to the West Lookout Tower, there was a dog with her people. They looked vaguely familiar, but we were puffing from our walk and I couldn't be sure. We spoke and it was Carolina ( http://www.indypaws.com/profile/4626 ) and Woo ( http://www.indypaws.com/profile/9550 )! They recognized us, of course, in spite of our Ray-bans. Perhaps the large entourage and all the shouting papparazi gave it away. And it was a bit confusing for me because they went to the top floor of the lookout tower instead of spending all their time giving me Beagle Queen tribute. Hm; must have been the heat and humidity.

After a break we plunged back into the woods. Beau ate some St. John's for his wart, and we got loose! We immediately plunged into the woods, of course, to track down varmints. But were foiled in our plan for a week-long outing by a chipmunk. We treed it and almost immediately one of the bipeds, cursing about thorns and poison ivy, grabbed out leashes.

However, we paid for this: ticks! Gah! Fortunately beagles don't have long, thick hair, so it's tough for them to burrow down inside our hair. Stupid ticks keep trying to cover themselves like our beagle fur is like a husky's. Hmph. Still, we got de-ticked, as did the bipeds.

We were too pooped to pop when we left. But it was such a good day. Until Sophie got out when we got back. But that's her story ...