UPDATE FOR THE WEEK & NEW WIREY PALS

Hey Pals,
Where to start. We've had so many things going on this week, some good, and some bad. First we'll tell you about Christmas Eve day. It was not a good day. Our bedroom in the basement was getting drenched with water. Yep, the carpet was soaked, then water was coming out of the cedar wood on the walls, then it was coming out of the cedar on the ceiling. We couldn't figure out where the water was coming from either. But guessed it had to be something from the small bathroom upstairs. Snickers & I thought maybe it was those pesky mousies that keep invading our house, hehehehe. Mama had Papa call cousin Dave over to help out cause he is really smart about plumbing & things. Next they had to tear off the wood on the ceiling & walls in areas cause the cedar is tongue & groove. You just can't take one piece out, you need to start from an edge & remove many pieces & of course some of the pieces got broken. Needless to say the bedroom is quite a mess right now. Then they found wet drywall so they had to start cutting out the drywall in a few areas. Bingo! Water spraying out all over from a hot water copper pipe. Geez, there wasn't even supposed to be any plumbing lines on that side of the house. So handy cousin Dave cut the pipes & put some new pieces on & soldered them back together. Mission accomplished! Then the next bad news was that Mama would have to pay her deductible for insurance to pay for things, forget that! Too expensive. So they'll just have to fix things up the best they can by themselves. They won't be able to replace the carpet either.
Here are a few pictures, the pipe photos are after they were repaired.


Now we have to let everything dry out before fixing & putting things back together. Might be a while.
Update on our mousie hunt, we've caught 17 of those nasty mousies now. Papa had the jar of peanut butter sitting downstairs & they even chewed a bunch of the lid off to get inside of the jar. Mama is driving herself nuts with vacuuming cause she can't even stand the thought of mousie doodoo on things.

On Christmas Eve night we each got our prezzie from Mama & Papa. Snickers & I each got a stuffed wild Turkey! They really look like the real wild turkey too. Of course the squeaker in mine doesn't work already, but I haven't put any holes in the stuffie.

On Christmas Day, Papa finally got a doe deer. He still has another deer tag to fill yet. We also watched Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase. Mama & Papa have to watch this movie every Christmas. They laugh their heads off during the whole movie. We especially like the part where Snots (the Rottweiler dog) chases the squirrel around the whole house wrecking everything in their way, hehehehee.

Now for an update on Koi T-Man's adventure, hehehehe. Remember that we are raising some of our baby koi in the sunroom pond through winter?? Well Mama was cleaning the filters & changing their water yesterday & little Koi T-Man decided he wanted to take a trip. So while Mama was in the bathroom, he proceeded to jump out of the pond & hopped around the sunroom floor. He was almost to the dining room table when Mama found him. Boy did she scold him. He's lucky she found him so fast. Otherwise he would have started to dry out on his scales & skin.

Now for some good news, we have some new blogging pals from South Africa. Square Face the Wire Fox Terrier & Muis his older sissy the Airedale. And guess what?? Square Face has the same birfday as Snickers does, except he's much younger. And some even better news, they are getting a new wirey sissy very soon. You can see photos of the wee tiny pup on their blog.
http://squarefaceterrier.blogspot.com/
This is Square Face or known as Boeta:

This is Muis:
So please go visit them & say ahrooooooo!!!

Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers

Merry Christmas!

Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers

93 CARDS & LOTS OF BAKING

Hey Pals,
We wanted to say an extra special THANKS! to everyone for the wonderful Christmas cards you've been sending to us. So far we have received 93 cards & Mama & Papa have only gotten 6, hehehehe! Here is an updated photo of our cards displayed in the air:
We hope all of the cards we have sent out to other countries have arrived. If not, they should be there soon.

Have your Mama's been super busy baking stuff lately?? Our Mama has been today at least. She started baking early this morning. So I Butchy decided to play with some of my Christmas stuffies.
First I got them all out onto the floor:
Let's see, this green & white bone is from Snowball...
The tan gingerbread man is from Gussie...
Oooooh, the red reindeer is from sweet little Asta in NY...
I think I'll play with the red reindeer......
Later on today we could smell something baking & it wasn't sweets. Hmmmph, we wonder what it is. Looks kinda weird, like weird colored potato chips.......see???
Oh our dawgness, Mama made us homemade dried sweet potatoes!!! Yummy, yummy!!!
And they actually taste delish! Almost as good as the Sams Yams that you can buy at the stores. Here is how you make them in case anyone wants to beg their Mama to make some for them:
Wash & slice up fresh sweet potatoes/yams. You can even cut them into french fries if you wish. Place potatoes onto baking sheets. Place in 200 degree oven for 2-3 hours. You must prop the oven door open about 1-2 inches with a wooden spoon. Bake until desired crunchiness. If you like them softer, take out at 2 hours.

These are the goodies that Mama was baking today. The pie is an actual photo but for the cheesecake & log roll, those are the recipe photos. Mama can't cut up or remove the items from the pans until ready to serve tomorrow.
This is pecan pie:
This is Mama's famous Oreo Cookie Cheesecake:
This is a chocolate cake/peppermint log roll:
It's really delectable. The pink filling is a homemade whipped cream with crushed peppermint candies in it & there is also chocolate frosting on the outside of the cake roll. If anyone is interested in the recipes, just let us know & we'll email them to you.
We hope everyone is having fun getting ready for their Christmas festivities for the next 2 days. Time to help Mama wrap some prezzies, tee hee! (we hope there are some for us!!)
Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers
PS Anyone want some snow for Christmas??? we got a ton of it last night & need to get rid of it. We can even color it yellow for you, wahahahahaha!

We've Been Busy

Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers

MISSING CAMERA, DOGS & ????

Hey Pals,
Sorry for the delay in pawty pictures. We still don't have them all done yet. First of all, Mama's camera had disappeared. We couldn't find it anywhere. Then Boy n Baby's Mama contacted us wondering if Boy n Baby were still here cause they hadn't come home yet. We got really worried. Well we soon figured out that Baby had Mama's camera. Seems Baby & Huskee Boy had skipped out on riding Aire-Ruby home, tied up Boy inside of our hunting shack and hitched a ride on a big semi-truck headed for Las Vegas. Baby had this wild & crazy idea that her & Huskee Boy should just get married right away at Las Vegas & then surprise everyone.
So she borrowed Mama's camera so she could get pictures of the short but sweet wedding. Well, after arriving in Las Vegas Baby decided it was best to wait to be married at home so all of her family & friends could attend the bootiful wedding she had always dreamed of having. Huskee Boy totally agreed and so they came back here. Then Huskee Boy rented a plane for the 3 of them to fly back home. Whew, worries were over.

Well then Mama tried to work on our pawty pictures & that stoopid mousie thing that goes clickity click isn't working right & she's having lots of trouble getting our photos ready. We'll keep working on them though & post as they are available.

Now for the big question, WHAT THE ???????? Who left this in our koi pond?????
Poor Snowball almost had the peepee scared right out of her. She had gone over to the koi pond to look for Koi Snowball & the above jumped out of the water, drowning poor Snowball's legs with cold ice water. Needless to say Snowball spent the rest of the pawty by our nice cozy fireplace to warm her legs & feet. All Mama says is that this thing better be gone by Christmas Eve.

We do have one picture done where some of the gang was learning to PINK VAN ICE SKATE!!! Hehehehe! GirlGirl was in charge of course. She hooked up the red sled that Agatha & Archie brought to the back of her pink van & then everyone hopped onto the sled for rides. It sure was fun. Little Asta was having so much fun doing her skating moves. She was pretty good at it. Baby was also skating really well. Huskee Boy sat on the rock near the pond edge watching every move that Baby made, tee hee.

And if you haven't heard yet, Baby publicly told Huskee Boy YES!!!!!

Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers

PAWTY TIME!!

Hey Pals,
We told Mama to post this while we're out skating. The pawty has been going on for a few hours already & it's a blast! Here are a few photos, the first one is Aire-Ruby landing. Ruby actually landed the plane in our driveway which is almost like a road anyway since it's so long.
Aren't the red snow skiis pawsome?? Everyone told us the landing was so smooth they couldn't believe it. Many thanks again to Gussie & Muzzer!

This next picture is from this morning:
Mama hired the local farmer that plows for us to clear off the pond for her with this zamboni. She was going to sweep the snow from the ice & decided it would take her way too long. She kinda got behind this morning on the preparations because:

SHE GOT A DEER HUNTING THIS MORNING!!!!!

It was a doe, but a HUGE one. So deerburgers will also be served today, hehehehehe!

Here I Snickers am waiting in the big living room. As you can see the fireplace is going hot & strong, all ready to warm everyone up.
We'll post after pawty pictures tomorrow sometime after we wake up, hehehehe! Who knows how long this pawty will last. Between the ice skating, hockey games, hot chocolate, roasting marshmallows & eating tons of goodies, we might not be able to move very fast tomorrow, tee hee. Oh, and we almost forgot, the new sport 'PINK VAN SKATING'!
Wirey Hugs!
Snickers & Butchy

Remember to help the Homeless Pets

A Rescue Dog's Christmas Poem

Tis the night before Christmas and all through the town,
every shelter is full - we are lost, but not found,
Our numbers are hung on our kennels so bare,
we hope every minute that someone will care,
They'll come to adopt us and give us the call,
"Come here, Max and Sparkie - come fetch your new ball!!
But now we sit here and think of the days...
we were treated so fondly - we had cute, baby ways,
Once we were little, then we grew and we grew
now we're no longer young and we're no longer new.
So out the back door we were thrown like the trash,
they reacted so quickly - why were they so rash?
We "jump on the children:, "don't come when they call",
we "bark when they leave us", climb over the wall.
We should have been neutered, we should have been spayed,
now we suffer the consequence of the errors THEY made.
If only they'd trained us, if only we knew...
we'd have done what they asked us and worshiped them, too.
We were left in the backyard, or worse -let to roam-
now we're tired and lonely and out of a home.
They dropped us off here and they kissed us good-bye...
"Maybe someone else will give you a try."
So now here we are, all confused and alone...
in a shelter with others who long for a home.
The kind workers come through with a meal and a pat,
with so many to care for, they can't stay to chat,
They move to the next kennel, giving each of us cheer...
we know that they wonder how long we'll be here.
We lay down to sleep and sweet dreams fill our heads...
of a home filled with love and our own cozy beds.
Then we wake to see sad eyes, brimming with tears -
our friends filled with emptiness, worry, and fear.
If you can't adopt us and there's no room at the Inn -
could you help with the bills and fill our food bin?
We count on your kindness each day of the year -
can you give more than hope to everyone here?
Please make a donation to pay for the heat...
and help get us something special to eat.
The shelter that cares for us wants us to live,
and more of us will, if more people will give.

--Author Unknown

AIRE-RUBY IS GETTING SNOW SKIIS

Hey Pals,
Guess what? Aire-Ruby is having RED SNOW SKIIS installed before picking everyone up to come to our Ice Skating Pawty. Isn't that so pawesome??? Check this out:


Big bright red snow skiis!

Big wirey thanks go to Gussie's Muzzer for making this happen. She was so worried about everyone maybe having to parachute & slide out of Aire-Ruby if the weather was bad, especially Princess Snowball with her bad back. Thanks again Muzzer!!

Time to get back to the pawty preparations!
Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers

Christmas Cards & Annoyance Tag

Hey Pals,
We've been getting some gorgeous Christmas cards from everyone in the DWB Christmas Card Exchange. We finally got them hung up, and boy that tape stuff sticks so easily to our fur, hehehehe. Here is how they look so far:
A big wirey thanks to everyone that has sent them to us so far.

We were recently tagged by Maya & Kena to list 7 annoyances & link to them in the post, then list & link to 7 more bloggers to do the same & notify them by leaving a comment on their blog.

We are going to do the same as Maya & Kena, and Maggie & Mitch by splitting up 3 annoyances for me Butchy, 3 for Snickers, and one for both of us.

Okay, me Butchy first:

1. I really really really don't like getting my blood taken at the vet. I had to have it done again today & tried to hide under Mama's arms, hehehehe.

2. Another annoyance is when I wake Papa up in the morning for him to get ready, I beg for him to get my cornflakes & milk & can you believe he makes me kiss him on the lips before he'll even get out of bed???

3. A third annoyance I have is the neighbors dog has to bark constantly at NOTHING! We do feel sorry for her as she is left outside all of the time with no attention, no human interaction at all. She deserves a better life.

Okay, now for Snickers' annoyances:

1. The first annoyance on my list is that Mama won't let me actually catch the mousies in my mouth! She makes us use those trap thingies & that's no fun for me.

2. Another annoyance is that I don't have a big enough wardrobe. Mama is always making clothes for other doggies & not me, hmmmmph. Doesn't seem fair to me.

3. Butchy always seems to think that he needs everything that I get. If I get a treat, he expects one, I get hypothyroidism, he had to go & get it too. So now we both take pills.

And for an annoyance that both of us share:

1. Those darn squirrels like to tease us by running round & round the bottom of the trees as we go around chasing them.

Okay, now we are supposed to tag 7 more doggies but we know tons have already been tagged. It gets so hard to keep track of who has been tagged & who hasn't so whoever hasn't played yet & is reading this post, YOUR IT!! Your turn to play.

Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers
PS Our snow keeps getting deeper & deeper so Mama told us she'll sweep off the ice on the pond for the pawty on the 16th. Also, we have tons of ice skates for everyone to use so don't worry about getting any. And, plan on jumping out of Aire-Ruby. Don't know if she'll be able to land here in the snow & ice. Maybe she can land the plane belly style without the wheels, tee hee!

WINTER ICE SKATING PAWTY!

Hey Pals,
We finally got our invitation for the pawty finished. See it above. Be there or be square, hehehehe! We'll also have the huge fireplace going so for you doggies, cats or hamsterriers that can't take the cold weather, you can cuddle by the warm fire! and we mean warm!!! Mama can get the house 90 some degrees with that thing if she isn't careful. Believe us, it happened one Christmas with the whole house full of relatives. It was very funny, they had to open the windows up in the loft and the kitchen to help cool it down. We also have lots of extra coats, mittens & scarves for everyone if they get cold ice skating. We have plenty of snow here & more is on the way starting tonight. So get your reservations made with Aire-Ruby right away before the plane fills up. BTW, if Aire-Ruby can't land that day due to ice, snow, etc., everyone will have a parachute and a sled so they can jump out of the plane & land in the soft fluffy snow and slide to our house, tee hee!!!

We've been very busy the last 2 days making our Christmas cards to mail out. Monday we'll have tons of cards for the mail lady to take. She probably won't know what to think. Starting tonight through the week, Mama will be busy too cause it's second season shotgun hunting for DEER! Yep, Mama hunts too. She uses her black powder muzzleload gun. Drops the deer in their tracks & we've seen her do it too. We know, we know, it grosses some of you out that Mama & Papa hunt deer, but hey, it puts lots of deerburger in the freezer & we get to eat it too, yum yum! Mama has no problem shooting a deer when she thinks about when they are munching on her flowers, bushes & tearing the branches off of the trees. Deer are just like any other animal or critter that is hunted, they must be hunted in order to keep the herds to managable sizes so that the size of the herds don't deplete the natural food supply. If that happens, then you get very sickly, smaller animals, they migrate more inside of the cities to search for food & bother other things. Some even end up starving to death. So hunting can be a good thing when it's managed correctly. So good luck to Mama and we hope you get a great big HUGE TURDY POINT BUCK!!! (if any of your parents hunt, they've maybe heard that song before, TURDY POINT BUCK. It's funny if you're a hunter, hehehehe!)

If anyone else is coming to the pawty that already hasn't told us so, please let us know so we can sign you up.
Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers

Waiting for Aire-Ruby, Going to Asta's Pawty!!

Hey Pals,
We're anxiously waiting for Aire-Ruby to arrive to take us to Asta's St. Nicholas pawty tonight!! I Butchy sure hope the girls are ready to pucker up under the mistletoe with me, heheheheh!
We've been kinda worried about Aire-Ruby being able to land in the field out here because it has been snowing again today. We have gotten about 4-5 inches of snow already. This time it's the nice white fluffy snow that's fun to play in. It won't work to make a snow dog though.

We heard Mitch is bringing his violin. We didn't even know he could play one. Snickers is all ready in her Christmas dress. She hopes there will be some dancing tonight, especially with her boyfriend Gussie. She hopes he doesn't get too cold in NY. He's used to that hot Arizona weather. Mama let us take some extra coats along in case some of our pals do get a bit cold.
Oh boy, we think we hear the airplane outside. Better go catch our flight!!
Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers

Thirsty Deer On Our Pond

BubbleShare: Share photos - Delicious Christmas Recipes.



Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers

STEELERS GAME

Hey Pals,
Scruffy & Lacie picked us up in the Steeler Trolley to go to the Steelers football game last night. Mama told us we had to dress warm if we were going. So here is what I Butchy wore to the game:
I'm even taking my little football. Do you think some of the players will pawtograph it for me???
(sadly no one wanted to sign it for me, sigh......)

Here is Snickers all ready & waiting for Scruffy:
Boy, it sure was a fun game & of course the STEELERS WON!!!
Scruffy will probably have more highlights from the night on his blog.

Today it's only about 6 degrees so of course we have the fireplace going to keep us nice & toasty:
We tried to get a picture of the WHOLE thing to show you:
Mama & Papa collected every stone for the fireplace from 3 surrounding counties. The fireplace also has stone on the outside of the house. Boy, it sure was a lot of truckloads of stone. It's nice & warm in here right now, about 80 degrees, hehehehe.

Here are updated photos of the ponds this morning:

Mama was not happy when she saw this:
If you look in the previous photo, you can see this by the big open hole. Mama said this shows that something fell through the ice last night. Now she's worried that something might have drown, like a deer, just like last year, yikes! Since the whole pond is covered in ice, you can't see if anything is in the pond. Most deer can usually get out of the pond, but last year one couldn't & sadly died. So she hopes what ever fell in, got out.

Many of our pals ask about our koi in the winter months. See this open hole?? Mama has a big aerator running that keeps this open hole in the pond. You need to have an open hole to let the gases escape from the water in the winter, otherwise gas buildup can kill your fish. The water is about 39 degrees at the bottom of the pond, so the koi sit down there & almost hibernate. They don't eat and rarely move about when it's this cold now. They lose about 20-30% of their body weight during the winter months. So that's why we feed them extra in the fall to build up their fat layer. We won't see them now until around March sometime when the ice melts away & the water starts to warm up to 50 degrees.
The bad thing about the open hole is that all of the critters & deer come to drink water each day. It's good that they have water to drink, but bad with the ice layer when it's not very thick yet. We've only had the ice layer for about a week, so it's only a bit over one inch thick.

This picture is the smaller pond. There are no fish in here, just bullfrogs & they hibernate down in the mud. No need to have an open hole for them.
A few pals have mentioned that we should have an ice skating pawty. Well Mama told us that if we can get enough friends that want to come here in the cold weather, we can have a pawty. So please let us know if you would want to come & we'll see if Aire-Ruby is available.

Stay warm!
Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers

PUPSICLES!

Hey Pals,
We sure are glad we went to Goofy's Birfday Pawty on Friday night cause the rest of this weekend is sure icky. BenBen picked us up in his spaceship & took us to Planet Goofy! Here we are in our spacesuits ready to be picked up:
Snickers:
Butchy:
Check out Goofy & BenBen's blogs for more pawty pictures, it sure was a blast!!!

Yesterday it started snowing & sleeting at 5 in the morning. It kept up all day long & was very cold & windy. We have an ice layer on everything that is a few inches deep, then we got even more snow on top of that.

This is what it looked like first thing this morning:
Then it looked like this:
More snow! At least this snow is the fluffy kind. Here is a video so you can see it snowing:


Since it's so cold out, we decided to watch tv & just lay around:
Snickers was getting sleepy......
So she decided to doze off & dream of her boyfriend Gussie in warm sunny Arizona.....

Off to la-la land..........
Wirey Hugs!
Butchy & Snickers