It was a “screamy” day around here yesterday. It started off in the morning with the dogs screaming once they saw us heading out to the dog yard with harnesses and ganglines in hand. Both Mark and I took out a team, and needless to say got wet, but thanks to decent rain gear we weren’t soaked. Then in the evening the screaming of the dogs started again when the third team was taken out.

While Mark was out with the team, I thought it would be a good time to start adding straw to the dogs’ houses as temperatures in the low-30′s was predicted for last night. For the record, the weather folks were right and we woke up to white, frosty, crunchy grass…good thing we covered the garden! Anyway, I went out to the straw shed and had to take a bale from a pile that was above my head. Well as I pulled the bale down a freaking snake dropped off the bale onto the ground. For those of you that don’t know, I HATE snakes. Not just a dislike, a total and complete hatred for the slithery creatures. (If anyone gets any idea to play a joke on me with a snake, they best think again as they may just end up in the hospital or the morgue.). After recovering from the horror and scraping off the snake skin the disgusting thing had shed, I went about my business of strawing dog houses.

After Mark came back and we had the dogs watered and put back to their houses, he helped me with the last couple of houses needing straw. The last two were Willie and Ophir, the two “Old Gentlemen” (ages 14 and 12 respectively) that have free run of the puppy pen these days. While I went to fill Willie’s house, Mark headed to one of the two houses Ophir uses. Next thing I know I hear Mark shouting an expletive while running out of the kennel as fast as he can, waving his arms around his head. Neither one of us had noticed the wasp next that had been growing on the underside of a shade board above that house. Mark figures he was stung at least five times, with one close to his eye, one on his eyebrow and another on the bridge of his nose. I was planning on taking a picture of the nest/hive, but by the time I got the ATV trailer cleaned out, Mark had sprayed a can or two of wasp killer on it, threw it on the ground, sprayed it some more and stomped the tar out of it.

Today so far has only been the dogs screaming for their second run of the season. Hopefully tonight it will be a little less “screamy” for Mark and I.