Of Dogs and Parrots

This morning, Mal wandered into the laundry room, opened James' tool box (we're waiting to house it permanently in our Tuff Shed, whose metal roof is *definitely* coming in on Thursday, and then they'll call to schedule the installation), and found a keyed padlock. He took the key out and went outside to try to open the doors with it. After a while of that, he decided he wanted to go into the back yard to swing. I opened the side gate and let him back there, then came inside to go through the office door so it would be unlocked. I was able to do this because we finally put padlocks on the gates out back, and I don't have to worry about Mal opening them and plummeting to his death in the grotto.

Well, I thought we'd padlocked all of the gates. I found a third stinking gate on that back fence later, but neither Mal nor I knew about it at the time, so no harm/no foul.

Anyway, when he got out there, he was met with excitement and... barking.

At first, I thought that someone was hiking back there, and was getting myself ready to have a "sorry, but this is private property" talk with them. But then I realized that, no, these dogs were on their own. They had collars with tags, but the smaller dog (in the background) wouldn't stand still. The bigger dog just wanted attention... he REALLY wanted in our back yard. But when I'd grab his tag, he'd try to lick my hand, and it took me a long time to be able to read the number... which went to voice mail. So I tried the second number. And the guy didn't even know that his dogs had gotten out!

When they came to pick them up, the guy was telling me where he lived. He asked, "Do you know that house that's the Eagle's Nest?" Why yes. Yes, I do.

I took this picture last month!

He said that they live next door, "with the buzzard on the wall." Um, well, yeah. I am familiar with that one, too.

Also taken last year.

He said that they call their property "The Buzzard Lounge" because before they moved in, the buzzards would all just hang out on the property.

That reminds me: If you ever visit the Waco zoo, check out their vulture exhibit. They didn't really plan to have a vulture exhibit, but the vultures wouldn't leave, and they're protected, so the zoo just put up signs about them and treated it like it was meant to be.

So that was my dog story. As for the parrot? Well, he's a two-year-old who lives in my house.

We were driving home from the grocery store yesterday after church, and because I was chatting with Mal, I missed one of the turns onto our street. I say "one" because it seems like very road in our town eventually crosses ours. So I actually missed two turns, due to traffic, before I could get into the lane to turn onto the third street. Could I make it? It'd be close, but...

I punched it and made the corner, but also tipped several grocery bags (which were in the back seat because my trunk is full of a 10 x 7 wool rug that someone gave me for free, and which I had picked up on the way to church) into the floor, with a resounding crash. Mal was surprised, as was I. I said, "Mommy is DUMB!" He happily offered, "Mommy! Dumb!" Okay. Whoops.

Last night, Mal wanted me to read a book to him, and I was trying to arrange pillows to make myself comfortable first. He said, "Animal book. Here right now!" Then this morning, he wanted something immediately and said, "Here right now!" I guess I ask him to "come here right now" a lot? I will say that listening to that kind of thing is not his strong suit yet, which is why I get stressed about things like grocery store parking lots, and why we had to put padlocks on our gates. So when I say it, I'm pretty forceful as his literal life might often be on the line .He's learned the tone well.

Today when we were out back playing, I reminded him that when he's on the swing, he needs to "hold on tight!" He said, "Hold tight, princess!" It took me a minute on that one.

Our friends gave Mal a book for his first birthday. It's "Epic Yarns: Star Wars, A New Hope" by Jack and Holman Wong. Each page has one word and a picture. This is the page for "swing."

Every time we read it, I think I say, "Hold on, Princess!" which doesn't appear in the movie at all, but the Imperial March isn't in this movie, either, and I do that whenever Darth Vader shows up, so you can take your nit-picky observations elsewhere.

Mal also wanted go into the back back yard to explore the grotto, which we did. He went down into it for the first time, and I kept having to remind him to hold my hand and let me go first (going down; coming back up, he went first). And every time I asked him to hold my hand, he said, "Hold on, princess!" What a kid.

Here are a couple of pictures I took on my phone.

Look at the bottom!

That ice looks jiust like the rocks, riddled with dripping water holes. 

Check out the roots of that tree! So many are exposed! It's holding on to that rock for dear life.

He was sweeping the leaves off of the rock ledges.

Although Mal was still in his PJs, I had changed into street clothes. I was really glad, because even though we didn't go anywhere, we did have unexpected visitors. Oh, and in addition to sweeping leaves, Mal also threw some rocks off of the path and down into the grotto. We got to listen to them roll and hit things on their long trip down, and I tried to explain that that's why we don't want him running around like a crazy person back there. He just wanted to throw more rocks.

AND lastly, there are some oak shoots back there that we need to get off of our "nature path." Well, I tried to do that last week, but you can't pull them up. Or you can only pull them up so far, and then the roots get bigger and bigger... they're not from acorns (or whatever) falling; they're upshoots from the bigger trees' roots! Just Googling that, apparently root sprouts are how oak trees propagate. I did not know that. There. Just unschooled myself.