New member of the family

A few months ago we lost one of our 4 legged family members. It's still to painful for me to talk much about but it lead to the addition of another member to our family.

My husband is a bird hunter (among other things which we do not see eye to eye on) and Arko his main hunting dog (who is really my dog unless it is hunting season) turned 12 years old this year..where does the time go. (all my pics of Arko were on the old computer....)

Anyway we decided that with Arko getting up there in years it would be a good idea to get someone to start training to take his place (which we did not really want to think about but....)

So....here he is:

Dylan at 8 weeks old.

And Dylan after I came back from Japan at 10 weeks:

He's a handful and is keeping everyone on their toes.

Japan - Buses, Bicycles, Subways and Trains

So many things have happened since I last posted:



Have been to Japan and back. What a trip. I walked more than I have in the last 10 years and rode a bicycle which I haven’t done in probably as long…

Things that stand out:

Hardly any homes in Japan have lawns. They have small rock, tree and flower gardens, if they have more room they have a vegetable garden and if they have even more room they have a rice paddy. Even in the cities.


If the bus, subway or train is crowded it is very quiet other than the announcements. They just don’t talk to each other, even groups, even the school kids. That was amazing to me. It seem that the more crowded the system was the less noise from the crowds.


Bicycles everywhere. Riding right down the sidewalk among the people or out in the roads with the cars and some really flying along.


Motorcycles. Do not obey any laws of traffic that I could see. They zipped in and around cars, buses and people and were always speeding.

The Japanese people do not stare. While on the train one day a little girl of about 3 years old was staring at my daughter and I…her mother quickly reprimanded her and told her to quit.

Other Americans or none Japanese people also seem to ignore you. When we would pass someone on the street, subway or bus they would not look at us, or acknowledge us in any way. I found this rather odd and ask about it, DD said it seems to be some unwritten rule that you do not acknowledge each other???? She didn’t know why but has found more than just herself has noticed it. I only ran into a few people who actually looked at me and returned my smile. They must have been tourist’s also.

I don’t care much for traditional Japanese food.


After a while all temples and shrines look the same. My daughter had said this before but for some reason I didn’t much believe her, but found it to be true.

I have way more pictures but haven't gotten them all downloaded and reformated...hope to post more this weekend.