One reason my house isn't amazingly clean

I love both of our dogs dearly, BUT.... Maggie has a very annoying habit. Every time she wants to be fed she'll stand in her dish until I or one of the kids dumps in the food - that isn't the bothersome part. She isn't content to just eat the food from the dish. She has to slide it around the floor until it tips over. She halfway learned this when my mom's boxer stayed with us and he drags his bowl around until you fill it. Maggie just took the practice a bit further.

Then she'll lie on the floor to eat. I gave up keeping her bowl by Tate's bowl, because Maggie ALWAYS drags it over to the edge of the kitchen. Her ultimate goal is to flip the bowl over onto the living room carpet. Once on the carpet she'll eat more, but I'm always finding the leftovers after she has enough.

I love this dog (she's a boxer/Am. bulldog mix and both have BIG personalities), she is absolutely wonderful, but I really wish she would finish cleaning up after herself.

Yellow bellied slider

Maggie, the wonder dog, was barking like crazy out the front window. She generally spends time guarding from the stairs, and today she went nuts. Big Al looked out the window and saw a BIG turtle in the front yard. When we all went out to take a look it was hiding under the car. He hid out there for a bit, and then took off for the pond in the backyard.

Big Al tried to gather the courage to pick it up, but promptly dropped him and danced around like a girl who touched something ookey. Puh-lease...... She did get the idea that he was pretty heavy.

T-Rex then stepped up to grab him, and then took him to the pond. This is generally her "job" during heavy rains because a lot of turtles tend to come up then and end up in the road. This one was by far the biggest we've seen so far in the pond.

The closer she got to the pond the more he started waving his feet around trying to get in as fast as he could. When she let him go he charged straight in, although we could watch the water lillies move as he swam farther out. He was taking no chances on hanging around with us.

June's paddle - ACE Basin Wildlife Refuge

On Sunday my buddy Karen and I went down to the Edisto River and met up with the paddle group. It was a one way paddle, so we left our car one place and rode with new friends Chris and Casey (mother and daughter).

Karen has this "thing" about alligators. I've paddled with them enough to know that they leave us alone, but she would rather not think about them in the water.... BOTH of us are just super careful. I've heard about scary encounters where an alligator felt threatened and reacted, so I'm always on the lookout. Thankfully we didn't see any on this paddle.

Above is the land belonging to the gorgeous house right by the boat landing. We were paddling around the water waiting for everyone to get in and trying not to block other boaters. Below is the Edisto River that we started on, which is very wide and NOT shaded at all. It was an easy paddle as we went with the current. I started off at the front paddling with a couple ladies I met who are also involved with scouts, and Karen was WAAAAYYY back there with Chris and Casey somewhere- oops, guess I wasn't a very good buddy. ;-)







My favorite thing about the paddles, besides the new friends, is all of the wildlife you get to experience. Above are spider lillies which are becoming endangered in a few places in our state. Here in the midlands they are starting to map where they are so folks can watch what they are doing around them. Below is pickeral weed which has a lovely purple spire and grows ALL OVER the lowcountry banks.



About 4 miles in we turned on to Penny Creek and the water became narrower and a little more shaded- I actually prefer these types of side places because there is so much more to see.... if you look. One thing I'm beginning to notice is how people really don't see what is around them, so I'm constantly on the lookout. In this oak (above) for instance, the first thing you notice is more spanish moss, but if you look closer you can see a couple nests. These nests (below) held a momma night heron and her babies. You could hear her chirping at them to be quiet. There were several nests in the same tree. Sadly, these pics look a lot clearer on facebook instead of blogger.










Dragonflies and grasshoppers of various colors were everywhere. This one kept landing on my pfd once I was out of my kayak so I managed a pretty good shot.






I LOVE all of the colors of the kayaks -next time I'll make sure the paddles and bags are out of the way.





About 10 minutes behind me was Karen. After loading all of the kayaks we drove back to the first landing for our car and then stopped by this plantation (Prospect Hill) to take pictures of the gorgeous Oak Allee. These old places are such a staple of the old south, and an absolute reminder of that time period. They are in secluded places and generally WAY off the beaten path. I don't know anything about this house except that it was built in 1848.







A lovely little paddle, fairly easy, and not too hot. 6 miles or so total from the Edisto (Willtown landing) to Penny Creek landing.

Bridging

When a girl scout moves from one level to another we have a bridging ceremony. Three of my Brownies, Blondie included, were moving up to Juniors. Two of them made it to the ceremony this past Saturday. There were girls all the way up through bridging to adult (Big Al is bridging too, but her group wants to have a dinner instead of participate in the ceremony).

We started with music and a poem and then had the Brownies cross over.

After we went through all of the girls we had a big friendship circle and then cake and lemonade.

Blondie and "A" are the two I've had since first grade and I'll continue on up with them as long as they want to participate. Super good kids, and next year they'll be doing the bigger projects. I'm very proud of both of them.