The past 5 or so days have been busy.  Okay, so most of my summer days (in particular) are busy!    Enough so that I took 1/2 a day off last Friday so I could not feel so overwhelmed by the weekend's activities and weather forecast.  Yes, it got very wet and very cold.   However I am getting out of sequence....

My Friday afternoon (and most of the morning - the advantage of going to work at 6 a.m. is that a 1/2 day off means you get to leave at 10 a.m.) was filled with poodle washing and grooming.   Sterling had his therapy visit scheduled for Sunday so he HAD to be done and Epic was beyond filthy (as in the crate mat was even brown) so I set up the bath works in the front yard where it was warm (85 degrees) and sunny.  Bathed them both and let them air dry out there with fresh raw bones to keep them occupied (and not rolling around in the grass).    Later it was on to the back yard with the table and clippers.   All done except for Epic's feet which my energy and my back were just not able to suffer through at that point.  I have two that look like real poodles again!  YAY!

These two are glad they could nap and not have to get a bath! Saturday morning we loaded up (Mom, the poodles and me) and headed to Bozeman.   The dog club that is putting on the draft test this fall (which the poodles are both entered in) was doing a Dog Wash fundraiser for the test.  Super small club so any and all funds are needed to pay for judges, equipment and the like.  For $20 we would bath and blow dry your dog (a steal to be sure) and for another $5 do the nails.    In the couple hours I was there we had a little of everything - from a mastiff to rotties to berners to a havanese to goldens to labs to....   Even a super cute little boxer girl.   A lovely day for having it before the weather was to turn and great people!   I sadly didn't even think to bring the filthy chinese crested I have to get him bathed.  Oh well.

I wanted to make a stop at World Market to have a look around (you never know what you'll find - but that day it wasn't much).    On the way home the poodles, Mom and I stopped at our favorite walking spot at the lake.   I had hoped to be able to let Epic swim (yes even after a bath) in one of the ponds as they "looked" more full than they had been.  Sadly they were not as full as they usually are so no swimming for poodle.  We also got to fight off the skeeters on the walk down there but still we did about a mile and the boys got to stretch their legs and I got some exercise in.  Unfortunately my knee was SCREAMING at me by the time we turned to head back to the truck and that made for a rather uncomfortable 1/2 mile walk even on the flats.  Icing that was the event for the evening.

Sometimes it is good he has a long tail!  Off looking in the tall grass for his stick - found it once but not the second throw.

Sunday the clouds, rain and cold arrived so the morning was just relaxed putzing around.   I had found that my trailer heater vent had been invaded by wasps so I went out early morning in the cold and worked to get them extricated and the vent taped over until my little mesh covers show up this week.  Glad I caught it early as it was difficult to get the nest all pulled out through the vent cover as it was.  Sterling and I headed to town for his therapy visit and had a really nice time there as we always do.   The afternoon was seriously stormy with downpours of rain.  I have always loved living where I do and watching the weather patterns.  There were layers and layers of clouds, some light, some white, some dark but really no wind - at least not on the ground.   As I looked out about 6:30 I saw a funnel cloud!  

Mind you I grew up in SD so I get what they look like and what to watch for but they are so rare (like 1%) here in western MT that this was stunning.   The phone photo isn't great all zoomed in and about 10 seconds earlier it was WAY cooler looking.

As I watched another storm cell come across the valley I recorded this funnel cloud as well.  It was truly fascinating to watch and no I won't be doing any tornado chasing in the future.   Cool to watch from the safety of my deck that is.   It is about 5 1/2 minutes long.  Again, phone video zoomed in so not the greatest quality. Not 10 minutes after that passed and the torrential rain stopped the skies were like this....

It really was like that all day!   As I said, fun to watch from up on the hillside.    Monday dawned windy, cold and still raining off and on.   The other good thing about the cold wet weather was I finished the main portion of my afghan.  The stripes are done and now to weave in all the ends (ick) and work on getting the edging on it.

Tuesday it warmed up just a bit and the raspberries were falling off the bushes so Mom and I took an hour out after work and finally got the ripe ones picked.  YUMMO!    Razzleberries on vanilla ice cream for dinner that night!