Brrrrr....

Oh, man! This is just what happens when you don't get down to the business of hibernating early on. It has been just double-dog cold down the pdog hole. That extra long warm fall caught us all unawares, you know? Sunny days and warm nights. Couldn't pass up those extra seeds and grasses. Got plum fat. Mama Pdog had got all soft and round and I'll be darned if I wasn't feelin' pretty mellow, then Ouch! Down went them temps like a deflated balloon and here I sit wide-awake and freezin'. Shoulda sacked out when I had the chance.

Mrs. Pdog has taken a notion that she wants a Christmas tree like those two-legged critters up topside. Where does she get such foolish ideas, I wonder? She's drug in some sticks of red cedar and stuck some berries or something all over. Just makes me itchy. Think I've got me one of them prairie doggone allergies. Dang rash just under the fur. Makes me powerful testy.

Tol' the missus that she could stay up all winter if she had a mind to, but, me? I'm burnin' daylight and gotta hit the sack.

Y'all stay warm this winter, now. Drive careful when the ice hits. Always does, you know. I'll be up before that Punxsutawney fellow and tell you just what I think about next year's spring, but right now I'm takin' my itchy little body down deep and chasin' me a nap!

Uh oh--Where'd the Summer Go?

Gotta tell you, it's been a quiet summer down the pdog hole. Dern hot to start with. Just laid around and cooked for days. For sure, you could smell simmering pdog all round the town. Even the hawks headed for shade and we weren't too sure but the end was on its way.

'Course I told folks they didn't have to worry. All things pass, even scorchers under the sun. And sure enough, we've got them autumn rains freshenin' up everything now. Roses are puttin' on their last flashes of bloom and the grasses are growin' tall and sweet. It's a good time, time for takin' stock, you know? Totin' up the summer and checkin' the storerooms.

I'm telling you, this ol' boy didn't get a whole lot done this year. Gotta get after it now to make it through the winter. All of us workin' together. You gotta keep together if you want to make it through the tough times, you know. Watch those skies and look out for one another.

You never know what the weather's going to do.

Whoa, Nelly!

Tornadoes in February? Who'd a'thought it? Man! when I called up an early spring, I didn't figure on this! Mama Pdg is enjoying the crocus and tells me the daffodils are not only up but getting ready to bloom. What'd I tell you?

February 5th, the way you folks reckon, some time in the night, spring came tippy-toeing in. I felt it down in the burrow, slipped up topside and smelled it coming, wet and warm and early. The birds come in that night, the robins and the doves and those dang grackels. Dove song makes me misty, but those dang grackels just give me the calf back shivers.

Don't you get all excited and put out those tender plants yet, though. This is Oklahoma, don't you know. There's still cold weather ahead and, I'm tellin' you--watch out for that late freeze. It'll get you every time!

Karaoke, Anyone?

Oddest thing happened the other day, before all the ice came in--when it was still a warm Okie January day. There's this feller comes over to the pdog holes and sets out little microphones. We all wonder what the heck he's up to. Keep real quiet down below. You never know what kind of fool trap some of them human critters is going to come up with next. Don't want to end up in some pet store cage, y'know?

Anyhow, didn't seem too threatening, so we checked it out, talked it over, played with it a bit. Thought we might get up a quartet or two and try howlin' at the moon like the coyotes, but decided that might not be the best idea a pdog could come up with. The guy came back just before the ice came in. Guess he'd listened to his radio and figured he'd better collect his gear.

Come to find out, those human critters are studying our lingo! Imagine that? There's this Slobodchikoff feller out at Northern Arizona University who's researching our system of communication. Thinks we're smart! Huh! Coulda told him that if he'd come around these parts.

Sure wish now we'd got that quartet together.