Grumpy Beagle and More

Hi, Charlie here! Sometimes I wake up grumpy. I don’t stay that way; it’s just a waking up thing.

 I like taking walks, especially when Miss Deborah brings Sadie. But I don’t like leaving my mom. She should come with us! 
 

I don’t have pictures of a lot of different animals to show you today. Here’s a robin. We hear birds all the time, but most of them are hiding up in the trees.

I saw Tripod a couple times, but he didn’t come close enough for a picture. One time he was under our deck in the shade and he wouldn’t come out at all. Another time he was sitting on his own porch and didn’t want to come play. Mom made a pretend picture of a yellow cat like him.

On Monday, I had to stay at day boarding. Here’s a friend bringing me out when Mom came to take me home. Usually I walk out, but I like being picked up.

We went to Riley Park twice this week. The first time we just went to the picnic area and we didn’t stay long because a storm was coming. The next time we went to the playground area.

I visited Sadie a couple of times this week.

Today Mom put up a new garden flag. The squirrel is different from the squirrels in our yard. They are gray.

I will close with a picture of me in my mom’s hat.

The Best Photo I Couldn’t Take

When I was on Skyline Drive with Charlie a few days ago, a bear crossed the road in front of us. By the time I stopped the car and got ready to take a picture, he was disappearing into the woods. That’s okay because I’ve taken pictures of a bear crossing the road before. [See this post and this.]

It reminded me of the time I missed a great picture of a bear that appeared out of the fog. The fog (actually a cloud covering the mountaintop), was so thick that it was dangerous to stop on the winding road because if another car had come around the bend, the driver would not have seen my car in time. 

Well, this bear was awesome because it was lumbering along the top of a stone wall, and seemed to just materialize out of the fog. What a moody picture that would have been!

Today I decided to re-create the scene using StarryAI. I uploaded a photo of one of Skyline Drive’s iconic stone walls and asked the app to add a bear walking on it in thick fog. It took several tries and revisions before I got anything that resembled what I saw. Even then, I cropped and refined the two best images in the IOS photos app. Here are final versions that I chose.

Last Night’s Moon

On our final dog walk yesterday, I watched the moon come out from behind the clouds. I took two pictures with my cell phone, steadying it on a mailbox while holding Charlie's leash in the other hand. Realizing it was too dark, I tried to change the mode, but Charlie was out of patience and pulled me along. I'm afraid I left a footprint in the mud next to the curb.

Both pictures came out pixelated. Still, I like the mysterious look of the sky.

I made an attempt at improving the second shot using a filter, but it wasn’t a success. Then I noticed that my app was trying to identify a “bird.” Oh, good grief! That’s the moon, Siri, not a snowy owl!

Not a Perfect Header Collage

At least It's Colorful.

This collage is an experiment. Maybe I will do it again with a better understanding of how to proceed.

I used digital images that I created using AI and combined them in PhotoCollage. I tried another app first, but it was not intuitive and I didn’t want to waste time trying to figure it out. Since I could not create the long image that I wanted, I combined two collages using Adobe Photoshop. 

My intent was to create a social media header that reflected my blogging interests. Out of curiosity, I asked Claude, an AI app, to list my top 10 interests based on my blog posts. It actually did a decent job. (I won’t get into why I think Artificial Intelligence is a misnomer, but I will say that its attempt to be ingratiating sounds insincere.)

So here is “Claude’s” analysis:

<<What a lovely blog! Based on the recent posts and post labels, here are your top ten interests as they come through in The View from Squirrel Ridge:

1. Birds — birdwatching, feeders, and identifying species like cardinals, finches, and sparrows comes up constantly 

 2. Dogs — Charlie is clearly a beloved companion and frequent star of the blog 

 3. Nature & Wildlife — squirrels, deer, cats, farm animals, and all kinds of critters 

 4. Gardens & Flowers — visiting gardens, photographing blooms, seasonal plants like Virginia bluebells and redbuds 

 5. Photography — the whole blog is built around daily photo-sharing 

 6. The Shenandoah Valley / Local Exploration — state parks, Woodstock, Strasburg, Winchester, and the surrounding area 

 7. Trees & Skies — a recurring subject in posts and photo linkups 

 8. Civil War History — you have a whole separate site (civilwarfieldtrips.com) and it appears as a post label 

 9. Arts & Crafts / Murals — street art, decorations, and creative sights you encounter on outings 

 10. AI / Technology — you have a separate AI image blog (Imagecroft) and tag posts with “Artificial Intel” 

It’s a beautifully consistent blog — clearly a daily practice you’ve kept up for many years!>>

I see that I left an important image out of the collages: a beagle! I did have one in the first attempt, the one I abandoned. I’ll just have to try again another day and put Charlie’s picture in it.

Oh, wait! I have some beagle pictures so…

Mosaic Monday

Beagle, Bunnies, Birds.

Hi! I had a pretty good week. I hope you did too!

Today I spent the afternoon with Miss Deborah and Sadie. That was fun!

Yesterday we went to recycling and then took a walk in Woodstock. Here is the store that we visited.

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On the day before, we went to the state park. 

Mom wanted to find flowers so I helped her. She already showed some other pictures.

Sometimes she stops to look at birds, like this red one. I don’t know why she stopped when we have red birds at home.

Finches:

Cardinal:

Well, I don’t have much else to show you. I hope you get some good treats for Easter if that’s something your family does. 

First Critter Report of Spring

 Hi, it’s Charlie! The week went by quickly. Our weather has gotten pretty nice, although it rained yesterday.

Did you know that Queen Elizabeth I had a small beagle?

AI Picture for Women’s History Month

Spring is here and we see lots of birds. I haven’t been able to get close enough to one to sniff it. They are strange creature.

We saw some more sheep.

This is a short report because it is already bedtime. Happy spring! 

Grackle Visits the Feeder

These are stills from a video that was automatically recorded by my Birdfy device. There are unfortunate glare spots because the sun was shining on the lens, including a round orange spot that makes it look like it has a red breast like a robin. I can’t avoid placing the camera where it gets sunstruck because the only direction that never gets direct sun is north, and that would be looking toward my neighbor’s window. 

This bird has character! The long beak and bright eyes give it a cartoonish look, so I found it worth the trouble to make still pictures from the video. Actually, this isn’t difficult once I download it. I just stop it where I want and tell Siri to make a screen shot, which I crop and save.

Speaking of Siri, she failed at identifying the bird when it faced downward, guessing that it was a beetle or a bear!

A Bit of Green for St. Patrick’s Day

Although it was very cold today, I took Charlie for a short walk at Seven Bends State Park this afternoon. I saw that the Virginia bluebells are getting ready to bloom. They are often found along rivers because the conditions in floodplains are ideal for their growth.

The sign for the trail is green. Gokotta is a Swedish word that refers to waking up early in the morning to listen to the birds sing and enjoying nature.

Sorry, Charlie did not pose because he was busy sniffing the ground in order to figure out what dogs had been there previously. 

Here’s an AI drawing of a beagle dressed for St. Patrick’s Day. 

The Weather Changes and Time Changes

 Charlie’s Report, First Week of March

Hi! I made it through this week, even though the weather was changing all the time. The first day was nice and I went over to Sadie‘s house to play. That was fun!

Sometimes we open the front door and it’s nice outside and other times, it’s raining. I don’t like rain because I get wet and cold when I go for a walk. Sometimes I look out and it’s snowing. I don’t like that either. It’s even colder.

Sometimes I look out and I see a cat in my yard. This one is the cat who doesn’t like me. I’m not mean to cats, and the other cats like me. This one stares, and then it hurries away without saying anything.

Filtered in ArtCard

Filtered in Picsart 

It’s snowed on Monday. It looked like a blizzard, but then it let up and it didn’t get deep at all. We watched it from the back door. The next day it melted.

I heard that my sister Lynn had a skunk living under her house. I think it looks like this. Lynn has a red dog that I haven’t met, but it got in the picture somehow.

Our weather turned warm so yesterday Mom and I sat on the deck, but then it started to rain. This morning was foggy, but this afternoon was hot. We picked up Mr. Frank and Deborah and went for a ride. Here you see me taking Deborah for a walk in Luray. 

We also went to a place and got hamburgers for Mr. Frank and me. On the way home, we saw some sheep and cows. The sheep had lambs, but Mom was driving and didn’t get pictures of them. Here are some cows for now.

See how clear it was? But later it rained. I hope tomorrow is nice again. I heard that the time is going to change, but it doesn’t really change for me. I still get up when I want to get up and I eat when I want to eat. Taking care of yourself is important.