Today was a very exciting afternoon! Since mom has class every Tuesday night, Dad took me to the Nose Creek dog park after work. Work is so BOOOOORING so this was really exciting!

It was really warm but also really windy. I smelt some pretty purple flowers that were coming up everywhere on the way down to the bottom of the valley. I visited a couple dogs and smelt a bunch of plants and animals and dirt and stuff.

After a while I was getting really tired and hot, my tongue was all the way out! I figured it would be a good idea to drink from the creek so I went down to the edge to drink. I tried a few different places but the edge was a little steep, so I stuck my front feet in. Everything was all hunky-dory when I slipped and fell into the creek!!! Dad ran and caught up but I was able to swim back to the edge and climb out… whew! That was exciting. I was also cool again!

Dad lost his cool on the way back along the ridge. A jogger ahead of us started yelling and pointing. All we could hear was “Sn—! Sn—!” and Dad couldn’t figure it out… he kept walking for a few steps deep in thought, suddenly looked down, yelled, “SNAKE!!!” and jumped really high! There was a snake on the path! He wasn’t doing anyone any harm, and he eventually slithered into the grass. We were both really excited after that, so I ran back and forth as fast as I could.

We walked back to the car and now I’m going to have a rest after such an exciting afternoon!

I posted this to a discussion about muddy dogs on CORGI-L but I thought I’d share it here:

Lizzie and I were playing in a field behind my office building, throwing frisbee during a break. It’s been very warm during the days but overnight it drops below freezing so in the morning, there are giant puddles, half frozen over.

One frisbee throw landed on the edge of one of these large puddles and Lizzie picks it up, the ice cracking a little under her feet.

I try my best to convince her to come towards me, but she was in a possessive mood and didn’t really want to give me the frisbee… so she walks a few steps away from me, towards the middle of the puddle! The ice cracks even more.

I start calling her loudly and doing my best to convince her to return to the “shore” but no, she turns and walks three more steps… and then the ice breaks and her two front feet fall all the way into the puddle full of muddy brown water! The puddle turned out to be about six inches deep, so her front legs were all the way in! Surprised, she dropped the frisbee and gave me a “what is HAPPENING?!” look.

Now, it REALLY got muddy because I put one foot on the edge of the puddle to grab her frisbee… but by doing this, I pushed on the ice and brown muddy water started spurting to the surface through the two foot holes, all over poor Lizzie. I convinced her to finally come back to dry land, but she was completely soaked and muddy… gross!

Since the weather has improved a thousandfold in the last week, we’ve been wanting to get out there and get little Lizzie some more exercise. We decided to check out the Nose Creek walkway area, since it’s just off Beddington, right after you take the flyover from Deerfoot. We’ve found the area to be in pretty nice condition and despite the wind (which, frankly, you can’t escape anywhere in Calgary) we’ve found it to be most agreeable. We’ve found a loop that goes down across the valley, up the other side and around back up to the car which takes just over 45 minutes. We’ve taken Lizzie on it the last couple days after work; since we leave work about 3:30 PM, we’re home at 5:30 and Lizzie’s all tired out!

Here’s a picture of the valley (courtesy of Flickr!):

Here’s the path we’ve been taking (courtesy of Google Maps):

There’s a fair amount of up-and-down but there’s nothing wrong with that! Hopefully walking this much will keep Lizzie’s weight down and maybe help us with ours

Hey, it’s me, Lizzie! I wantcha to watch this super wonderful video starring… super wonderful ME! I’m running in the snow, playing with my neighbour Chewie and rolling around in the snow and stuff! Check it out!

>> Watch Video (MP4, 15 Mb)

Chris Jernican on the Corgi-L Mailing List posted a tidbit about KORGI, a new graphic novel from Christian Slade and being published by Top Shelf Comix. It looks like it’s got some roots in the Corgi myths of being fairy steeds and such. The art looks rather nice — apparently Christian was a Disney Animator at some point — and I always enjoy seeing Corgwyn in any form. Book One hits shelves this April, and I believe that Top Shelf’s Free Comic Day book will have a short stand-alone from Christian as well.

> Check out the KORGI trailer here!