Sometimes you have to grab the tools and do it yourself

Another advantage to the freed weekday hours that showed up this week was when something inside told me I simply had to tackle a couple of house projects that I thought I’d get done with just one movement: hand into cash pocket. Instead, I pulled the screen all the way out of the porch door,…

Why we like our neighborhood walks

As Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle were completing a big loop around our street in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood the other day, we encountered a project obviously completed just moments prior. In fact, the gentleman who’d done the grunt work was still putting away his spade, his wheelbarrow, the tools of his good…

Ellie B got the skunk shot right between the eyes

I relaxed for a moment too long after dusk fell last night, typing on the recliner my weekly film news blog that will be posted a bit later this morning on syracusenewtimes.com as my dear wife Karen relaxed with a bit of TV. Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle came inside from out back at a…

Keep the walk to the street, please

I was working on my film blog as the sun fell Wednesday night, and Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle starting bouncing around the living room with her mean bark on. Up she leapt on my recliner, practically knocking me off my half as she woofed out the front window. Off she bounced to the couch…

It’s time to take notice of the Eastwood Bears

One week until the Syracuse Orange starts the 2014 college football season with a Friday night game in the Carrier Dome against the Villanova Wildcats, and so it’s time to pay tribute to … The Eastwood Bears. The youth football teams are also gearing up for their seasons at their home base, a grass field…

Even at 75 degrees, there’s that certain aura in Syracuse

An afternoon walk around the block in the Syracuse city neighborhood on Eastwood with Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle on August 16, 2014 allowed a glimpse of change to come. Not every tree, but every once in a while, a certain tree had that look. Autumn is on its way to the northeast. The changes…

Operation Skunk Be Gone, so far, so …

I do not want to jinx it. The halogen light has been shining from the back porch for seven nights, flooding the area between the butterfly garden and the backyard shed, the space where our Syracuse city skunk shot its spray into Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle at dusk eight days ago. Saturday and Sunday,…

The skunk makes us miss the days of the gopher

My dear wife Karen let out Ellie B in the backyard for a few minutes just when the sun was setting Monday night. I heard the bark, the frantic one, the I’ve-got-an-animal-bothering-me pitch. I heard Karen calling my name with an equal amount of panic. I smelled the hint of trouble as I saw my…

You smell it before you see it

I woke up at 5 a.m. with a smell in my nose. Something burnt. Without opening my eyes, my groggy mind sorted the scent. Not a skunk, not wood, not food, not quite electrical, we’re safe … I felt Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle press close to my lower leg just as the final tumbler…

Welcome to Woofstock, a day of peaceful barking, loving face-licking and musical tail-wagging

Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle survived the Woofstock Festival Saturday afternoon. She mingled with mutts, listened to music, let two women wearing veterinarian scrubs scratch her head, ate only half a cup of ice cream and never had to roll through a mud puddle. The dog days of late July were pretty good in this…