Hiking

We went hiking with Tomokee in Fremont Older open space preseve recently. Here he is enduring yet another photo op.

Play date

Tomokee had a play date in our yard this evening with Agave, one of the neighborhood dogs. Agave is looking a little grimy because she enjoyed our pond a little too much. (Can you say pond scum?) Tomokee is nice and dry because he's never taken an interest in the pond. All in all, a good time was had by all.

GIVE IT UP for TOXIC-P!!!

So, Toxic-P is one of the multiple names we use for Tomokee. The picture, above, shows how he came by this particular name.

This was the topic of a discussion held as I was conferencing on a "making of" commentary for an audio drama I direct (assembling the actors' voices, effects and music) just prior to rolling into the "making of" recording. So, it was in these preliminary discussions that the name came up, in sort of a "making of making of" snippet. It's set to a good rapper-esque squeak'n'beat.

Happy Adoptiversary, Tomokee!

Tomokee has been with us for two whole years! We didn't even kill him two days ago for eating a quarter of our pasta salad from a bowl on the counter. He's advanced from a hyperactive loony teenager to a not-so-hyperactive still-loony adult. Now, if we can just convince him to jump into the back of the car when needed, life would be perfect.

Albino Bumble Bee?

So, we're chucking the tennis ball around for T-dog and Betty has me run and get the camera. We've seen lots of honey bees and plenty of your standard mil-spec black and yellow bumble bees, but this was a new one on us. Betty, who likes to name things, animate and inanimate has dubbed this fine beast, "Oscar."

If my Googling chops are suffering good karma, this might be a Bombus fervidus (Fabricius) (assuming that the name submitted for blessing by the ESA went through back in '07).

[NOTE: updated 9-Jun-08 --
My Google-fu has failed me on this one. Here's a photo of the fervidus:



and, while it certainly has less black, it's not what we saw.

So, being desirous of a more formal name than, "Oscar," I'll propose Bombus festivus (a bug for the rest of us!)]

[Second update (9-jun-08): The Google-fu chi returns!

I found our friend, a form of carpenter bee known as Xylocopa varipuncta here, with this nice photo:


OK -- the search appears done, but feel free to drop us a comment... we're pretty amazed with the printed-circuit look to the face (and the fact the picture came out halfway decently).

Another (partially) off-leash hike

Tomokee got another off-leash-for-some-of-the-time hike this last Thursday. Here he's shown with our friend, Bob. Bob is sitting, appropriately, on "Bob's Bench" near the peak of Windy Hill.

T-dog got to see two bunnies (didn't chase 'em, just sniffed the greenery into which they vanished) and a deer (he was on leash for this, fortunately -- I think he wanted to go romp with the deer).

The dog's got a big yawn going because Bob & I were trying to figure out how the Democrats could screw things up any worse, then seeing the "38 page legal opinion" saying something to the effect that Michigan and Florida broke the rules, but leaving 'em out altogether disenfranchises people (which is what the rules were supposed to do, no?) so we'll seat the delegates and let each have a half a vote or seat half the delegates.

No wonder the democrats have so much trouble in presidential elections... their process is opaque yet horribly vague. Yeesh. Politics bores the dog... he'd rather see more critters.

Hiking off-leash at last!

We took a trip to Carmel this last weekend, and went on our usual morning hike with Tomokee to Garland Ranch. This time we let Tomokee hike without being on a leash, and it was wonderful. He could sniff as he pleased, and he didn't even want to eat the horse poop, as he did the first time we hiked there.
We're still a little hesitant to let him off leash on a beach because he can get a little crazy on a beach. We did do so on the next day at the Carmel beach, but we we kept him on a leash here at the Garapada beach. Most of the other dogs on this beach were on leashes also.