Holiday Lock Down

As many of you know I am not a fan of holidays, for various reasons, but the 4th of July and New Years are on the top of my hit list. I used to like the fireworks and the festivities but since Ive had dogs those days of the year have become a nightmare. The pups do pretty well compared to most, but I still worry about them. Aquila used to be really bad and Ichabod is still very, very afraid of the noise.

Every year the fireworks seem to get larger and louder... if we had our property out in Talkeetna already I would talk James into loading us all up to head out. A quiet weekend out in the woods is far, far better than all this noise and worry!

Fortunately we still have a lot of daylight so the fireworks in the sky are pretty much wasted but the noise remains. I'm not sure if the military is doing anything over there (the base is just down the road) but something went off that shook our house windows. Now this is all getting quite insane!

Tonight will be a lock down night, no one gets to run just in case one of those big ones goes off again and someone decides to jump the fence. The shelter already has enough scared dogs ending up at the shelter this time of year and I am not about to add to that number.

Hopefully tomorrow will be quieter and we can get back to normal...

On a more positive note I had a particularly strong nagging in my brain to start another smaller piece while I'm resting at night after dinner. I cant stay still in front of the TV and my hands are getting cramped again from spinning so much dog fur. So to take a break I worked up this sketch of Ursa last night and will continue to color her over the nights I have the evening to relax.

Ive been meaning to do work of her for some time. I wasn't going to post the sketch but I liked the way this one turned out. While I was working on her last night I had an eerie feeling, as if she was alive again at that moment... perhaps she is, my memories of her are still so strong.