MaggieMoose: Rain-O-Losopher

Maggie's pawsability thought for the day:

"I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?"

Douglas Adams

Styling on my rainy day walk. WOOF WOOF 

Big rain drops fell. 

MaggieMoose: Raining Sunshine & Flowers & Twigs

Maggie's pawsability thought for the day:

"Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."

Hans Christian Andersen

  Our world has been under heavy dew drops. It has R-A-I-N-E-D for days. When the sunshine decided to sparkle its rays we went outside and soaked it up! We had one moment under the sun before the cloud cover returned. It was all we needed. A little freedom to look up and smile at the sunshine & flowers. Today's weather alerts are for heavy fog. Yes, we could barely see each other in the fog on our walk. We asked ourselves; this is California, right? Not London? Maggie's always the optimist rain or shine so, every day's a good day for her. Rain & wintry weather bring twigs a plenty. A big S-C-O-R-E  for a twig lover! After Maggie's morning walk she decided to burrow in for the remainder of winter to live life on a horizontal angle. Her sign is posted: Wakes up for twigs or sun. Flowers a bonus. 

MaggieMoose: Feeling Royally Rich

Maggie's pawsability thought for the day:

 "He who is contented is rich."

Lao Tzu

  Yesterday we finally had some rain. We decided to forget we're suppose to be in a "drought". We both went outside and got wet. Maggie romped in the leaves energized with every drop of rain. I got wet too as we both let the rain pour down on us. Maggie became a speeding bullet chasing the rain as she whizzed by me. Afterwards, we went inside and dried off. Both of us settled down ready to enjoy the raindrop sounds while we were warm & cozy indoors. Maggie wore her princess tiara and felt very royal. In the MaggieMooseTracks®

kingdom our greatest treasure is contentment. We are royally rich for it. 

MaggieMoose: Flip Flip Flop Little April Shower

Maggie's pawsability thought for the day:

"Drip, drip drop

Little April shower

Beating a tune

As you fall all around

Drip, drip drop

Little April shower

What can compare with your beautiful sound"

From "Bambi"Composed by Larry Morey

  Rain. Rain. Rain. The sound of drip drip drop. Maggie, are we in the Disney movie Bambi with the song Little April Shower? Outside we are having our own little April shower while inside Maggie is going flip flip flop little April shower. What's a four pawed girl to do on a rainy day, but go flip flip flop? She's getting her stretches in. She plays upside down cake and then she plays sunny side up cake. Flip flip flop little MaggieMoose. Oh, what would Thumper do? Thump, thump, thump. It's a drip drip drop, flip flip flop day. Little April shower, oh what a beautiful sound.

CLICK: Bambi- Disney Little April Shower

MaggieMoose: Monday Monday

Maggie's pawsability thought for the day:

"Monday, Monday, so good to me;

Monday morning, it was all I hoped it would be...."

The Mamas & Papas

  It's Monday. Maggie and I are feeling kind of folk song-ish. After the Easter sunshine yesterday it rained all night. On Easter we had our little family get together. She got all loved up. Today it's Monday and a different story. Rainy darkness outside. Monday, Monday. After Maggie's breakfast she strolled outside to make her rounds of the property. Then she came back in and we had our little love fest. Maggie you are such a cuddle bug. I must admit she's looking kind of tired this Monday morning. I hear ya Maggie. We decided to listen to the Mamas & Papas song: Monday Monday. We 're not really sure what the song is about, but we loved having a sing-a-long and failing to harmonize as background singers. We know our limits. It's fun pretending we can sing. After our sing-a-along Maggie hit the cozy. She gave me that look of It's Monday, have a nice day at work. I'm going where I need to be. Cozy called. Oh Monday, Monday, it's all Maggie hoped it to be; full of love, food, and being outdoors-topped off with a cozy.

CLICK: The Mamas & Papas-Monday Monday

One Fun Girl and Three Fungi

Maggie's pawsability thought for the day:

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

Robert Frost

  Maggie is one fun girl. She holds onto the tennis ball looking quite studious, but she's just waiting for the explosion of the chase. A second after holding her tennis ball in her mouth she silently releases it from her jaw. The release is my cue to pick up the ball. Then her unspoken command is I am to throw the ball down the hall. It didn't take me long to learn this Maggie lesson. I throw the ball. Blast off! Maggie's gone like a whirlwind. The chase is on. This plays on again and again. It's like life after the storm. It goes on. Maggie and I take our walk and along the way we see what wasn't there the day before: fungi! 

Rain has a magic effect when it comes in just right portions. Life pops out everywhere in the outdoors. Maggie and I loved seeing the variety in the three fungi we came across on our walk. The first mushrooms had a very cool rosey edging. We thought they were from a very artistic family. Then we came upon the bubble heads. We bet they were a thrill a minute. These mushrooms had very round tops indeed. Like bunnies there were bunches of them everywhere.

Maggie is a unique and fun kind of girl so, we were looking for some mushrooms with a little imagination and pop. Low and behold the flying saucers came into view. These mushrooms looked like they were ready to take off into space. Wow, life really does go on in three, plus one: MaggieMoose. Lessons learned.

Raining Gale Storm Roses

Maggie's pawsability thought for the day:

"A rose must remain with the sun and the rain or its lovely promise won't come true."

Ray Evans

  Maggie and I spent a wild weekend of gale storm wind and rain. One of the biggest storms of late. We hunkered down. It started with the big football game on Friday night. Stanford football played UCLA football for the Pac-12 Championship. Stanford came out victorious through the raindrops to win a spot in the Rose Bowl on New Years Day. It rained roses for Stanford. 

Stanford

On Saturday Wisconsin played Nebraska in their Pac-10 Championship game. Wisconsin came up smelling roses. The Rose Bowl will host our home team Stanford against Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Saturday it rained again. Maggie and I took our morning walk with raincoats on. The powerful wind picked up right before we finished our walk. We spent time in the warm, coziness of our home complete with the glow from the Christmas tree lights. Some folks might play board games, but Maggie spent her time chewing things over. 

On Sunday the storm was at its worst. It was so windy we had to take our new bird feeder down for fear it might go whipping around and do some damage. The winds were so powerful visions of Dorothy in Kansas being swept away to Oz came to mind. Maggie and I were sure our bird friends were holding on tight somewhere in the protection of their nest. We couldn't take our morning walk it was so stormy. For any drivers out there it was white knuckle driving. Fortunately, later in the day the sun came out as if nothing had happened. Even though streets were lined with tree debris, the sky was pure blue without a cloud. In our area, rain means green grass. It's akin to how the corn grows in Iowa-you can see it grow! Sure enough, the grass had sprouted enough for the cattle to come back and graze. The sunshine before the sunset was a beautiful ending of our stormy, gale force rainy and rosey weekend. We hung the bird feeder back up. A minute later our little Junco bird was back cracking the seeds. The promise of celebration was before us all.

Window of Weather

Maggie's pawsability thought for the day:

"On cable TV they have a weather channel - 24 hours of weather. We had something like that where I grew up. We called it a window."

Dan Spencer 

Maggie's twig & sunshine

  Rain, rain, rain came down, down, down.... This song is from Winnie the Pooh's Blustery Day. This morning I thought the song was about my neighborhood. I looked outside the window and rain, rain, rain with blustery wind was everywhere. No, I didn't need to turn on the TV's weather channel for today's forecast! Outside was wet as ever. It spoiled my desire to walk in the sunshine with Maggie like we did yesterday. It meant getting the beach towels out to dry Miss Maggie off after our walk. Maggie won't have time to leisurely pick up twigs in the sunshine. The wet ground for her spells "t-r-a-c-k-i-n-g". She'll be sniffing the wet ground thinking she's gone "tracking" somebody's scent again. Pooh's blustery day of pools of water are everywhere. Maybe we'll see Piglet's note in a bottle stating HELP or Pooh in a honey pot go floating by? Yes, the window tells all for our blustery day ahead. Rain, rain, rain came down, down, down... but, with Maggie any day is fun rain or shine!

PLAY: Winnie the Pooh's Rain song from his blustery day

Wet Ground Mysteries

Maggie's pawsability thought for the day:

"I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity."

Eleanor Roosevelt 

Maggie sniffing the wet ground

  Yesterday the wet ground from the rain peaked Maggie's curiosity. Any water on the ground sets her nose off. As a mother, I couldn't resist Maggie's pleasure in sniffing. I relaxed the leash and let her go ahead. Her head automatically went down. She sniffed and sniffed and sniffed with Sherlockian tenacity. I credit this sniffing to her gift of curiosity, but with an added enhancement. This enhanced gift was reinforced through her early "human scent tracking" training as a puppy. The first element used in Maggie's training was water. Simply put; a water trail was laid down with sprayed water in different line configurations. As the water trail was placed the person who laid the trail walked on the water line to leave their human scent. Maggie then "tracked" the trail with her nose to the ground with a long leash line behind her and me on the end. Eventually, I gave up her tracking training to concentrate on her dog obedience skills. Perhaps the fairy godmother's endowment of the gift of curiosity continues onward? Any water on the ground gets Maggie excited, and the game's afoot.