I think the squirrels will be up in the air this winter

Back when I last changed my header photo two seasons ago, my friend Bill of Evil Squirrel’s Nest shouted that he saw one up a tree. A squirrel’s nest, that is. In a tree. In a photograph. In my blog header. Anyway, that’s obviously stuck in my head because walking Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle…

Keep your head high and your eyes wide

Snow kisses my backyard in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood as we stir on this Thanksgiving morn. It covers the ground and the shed, and hangs on the boughs of those towering pines in the neighbor’s house behind. Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle welcomes the sight and the feel of it. She’s ready for…

A walk with Ellie B takes flight

A long loop walk with Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle this week took us behind the apartment complex more than a few blocks away from our home in the Syracuse city neighborhood home of Eastwood. I noticed a Fed Ex truck stopped on the extreme right side of the lot, hugging the bit of unkempt…

Ellie B earns the dreaded double leash

My around-the-block with Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle turned into an unwanted adventure last week. The dog slipped her gentle leader. Oh, my wily beloved rescue mutt has managed to free her nose from the black circle of mesh before, but as we walked down the hill on our street, four houses from home in…

Looking out my back porch door

Stepping to the top step of the porch to let Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle out to do her backyard morning thing, I couldn’t help but look right and left to check out autumn’s progress in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. The empty lot to the right has a brightly yellowed tree hiding out…

Fall isn’t coming as quickly as I thought it would

Taking a walk with Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle around our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood in my shorts and T-shirt, I noticed the dog panting and myself working up a good sweat. So I stopped to snap a snot of the tree above with my iPhone 4, foremost to give the dog a breather…

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…