My wife, Rose, and I will be going away this weekend to celebrate our 26th anniversary, which is actually on this coming Wednesday. She ordered a gift for me and gave it to me early. It is a picture of Chris, hand drawn by an artist we met while up in West Virginia.

It is taken from the picture I used for his book.

My gift to Rose was not as perfect, but it was similar. During our move to West Virginia, the movers lost ten to twenty percent of our stuff. Among the lost was a picture that Rose’s son drew for her of St. Augustine. She was stressing about how she would explain to her son that the picture was lost. I had already found a high-resolution photo that I took of the drawing back in 2014 and guessed it to be 20×24 inches. I then ordered a frame and had a print made.

I wanted to wait until our anniversary to give it to her, but her stress became too great, so I gave it to her last week. I think the original was matted, but I couldn’t find a larger frame with a 20×24 matte.

For some reason, the WordPress “reblog” button brings me to a blank page on both Firefox and Chrome, so I decided to recreate this post from October 28, 2016.

In spite of the fact that Chris dominates Puck as the self-appointed alpha male, he really cares for him. You saw it in the last post and here is another example of the two of them hanging out as best buddies. I took this picture last night in low light with no flash, so please forgive the less-than-perfect quality. I’m actually surprised it came out as good as it did.,

This post is from October 2016. Nine years later, Floki still chases wads of paper, but not as often as he used to.

The following morning, after Frankie encounter the two daring squirrels on a palm tree, we returned to the same tree and found the same two squirrels. This time, one of the squirrels was a little too confident and it almost cost him dearly.

Here is a photo of Chris and Tigger taken thirteen years ago tomorrow, on September 27, 2012.

Abby’s bed is empty. I don’t remember exactly when she died, but I think it was about two weeks before this picture was taken.

In unrelated news, I sent someone the Kindle version of my book, The Last Healer, almost two years ago, and just noticed they never accepted it. I don’t remember who it was, but I vaguely remember that person preferred a physical copy. I’m unsure how to reverse the transaction and get my money back, so I will send the link to the first person who expresses interest in it. I cannot guarantee that the link will still work, nor do I know if it needs to be approved by a specific person, but it’s worth a try.

Some of you don’t know this, but Chris ran for president in 2016. I know he got at least one vote.

Frankie encountered a couple of squirrels on a palm tree this morning, who seemed to take great pleasure in taunting Frankie. they came down very low and I was certain Frankie would try to catch one of them, but he didn’t. He even showed a submissive posture at one point.

I was fascinated by watching the squirrels. My face came within twelve inches of one of the squirrels a few times, but the squirrel had no fear. I did put my hand out once, but they avoided that. I found the most interesting aspect was watching the interactions between the two squirrels. Because of the angle, it’s not easy to see, but one squirrel would sometimes put its front paws on top of the other squirrel. This video is a little long, but I think it is worth watching.