Hello:

My niece tells me that a good blog needs to have a story people can follow and not just the photos explaining a newspaper column she can't read from the other side of the country.  I used to make up stories of the farm in Texas.  We named some areas and special plants and wove a whole line of fantasy fiction stories into the land.  Neighbors and friends would do the Sunday walkabout and B-B-Q lunch and it got to where they started adding to the storylines.  I began taking a sketch pad and creating drawings to go with the stories.  I took a few movies of our escapades along with photos.  Some people wanted me to blog it all then.  My confined to the city relatives and friends love my stories of green land and running water.  We called it the "Great Walkabout".  Now that we are in West Virginia I guess we will have to start calling it the "Wild & Wonderful Walkabout"!

Every good story needs a cast of characters.  The main characters in my stories are the dogs that became our "keeper pack".  When you live at the end of a rural dirt road and the economy gets bad, people dump dogs, cats, and other animals on you.  We have gotten some of the greatest joys of our life from the dogs other people threw away.  Let me introduce you to the first member of what my husband has dubbed "The Dead End Gang".

Chance is American Standard Bulldog and Border Collie.  He is the Chosen One in the stories.  We got him out of a shelter on August 5, 2004 when he was about 10 months old.  He had three days left so the shelter gave him the name Chance like the Homeward Bound Dog.  He is the father of some of the other characters.  He is a very good father and leader of his pack.  The others pay homage to him using the love bite on his lower jaw.

  

Chance is a talking dog who loves to give you that perfect Nipper the RCA dog imitation.  He has the softest fur of any dog I've ever met before.  People can't quit petting him and he is a friendly ham.  In the car he rides shotgun and causes people to do a double take at his profile and antics.  We went on a walkabout this morning and I caught him coming over the hill.  A very happy fellow, he is.

...to be continued

Bette