Because Joy now works most weekends, I spent most of this past weekend working on the web site. I am finally getting all the critter pages up. Once those are done there’s a lot of other stuff I want to add such as a page with info on the dogs’ new diet…but anyhow, yesterday I was putting together some captions for pictures and suddenly happened to notice that I was sitting in complete darkness. It’s not unusual for me to get so wrapped up in something I am working on that hours pass unnoticed, but since a glance at the clock showed it was three in the afternoon I knew something was up. After looking out the window and seeing big, black billowing clouds and the trees whipping back and forth, I quickly shut down the computer. I don’t take any chances with that — even with everything running through a UPS — as I have had two modems and a motherboard toasted by lightning in the past.

After the storm passed, I decided to take the dogs to the park up the street, since the temperature had now dropped a good ten degrees or so. They had a great time and came back covered in mud and sticky seed pods. Lindsy got to wade out into the duck pond and drank a bunch of nasty pondwater before I could reel her back in…yech! This was Lilly’s first real walk in about three years and I was worried it would be too much for her, but she was fine and doesn’t even seem to be stiff and sore this morning. It is so wonderful to see her actually able to enjoy life again!