Barking at beetles

Yesterday our dog Squiffylugs died. She was diagnosed with bone cancer just over a year ago, and we were told that the prognosis was not good, and that we couldn’t expect to have her more than a few weeks. So her death, though sad, was not unexpected, and we had her for another year.

In May, expecting her time to be short, we got a puppy, Pimen, so that when Squiffylugs died her father, Samwise, would still have a canine companion.

Pimen, watching beatles

Pimen has grown a bit, and his latest hobby is barking at beetles.

Harassed beetle

The beetles crawled out of the compost heap, only to be pawed at and barked at, and eventually our son Simon rescured them and put them over the road, where they would be safer from Pimen at least. This bettle looked patriotic, a bit like the South African flag, or perhaps it supports the ANC.

Trimming a tree

Back in the spring we took some photos of the thorn tree in the corner of our garden, all over yellow catkins. Now it is autumn, and the catkins have all turned into seedpods. We thought it might be interesting to take pictures at various times of the year to show the changing of the seasons, but then a couple of weeks ago we lost half of it, when some of the bigger branches broke off and fell down.

Fallen branches from our tree

So we had to get some people to cut up the fallen branches and take them away. They made pretty quick work of it with chain saws.

Workmen cutting up the fallen branches

Within a couple of hours the fallen branches had gone, and they trimmed a couple of others that looked a bit dangerous.

And now our tree reminds me a bit of Aslan, when he was shaved for the slaughter.

The trimmed tree