Broken Pawn: Beagles on the Bright Side

It's once again time for America's favorite beagles – Baxter and Daisy,
to guest write a post in the Broken Pawn. It seems these most literate of beagles are in a surprisingly optimistic mood.

Hi Everyone! It Daisy… … and Baxter here with another blog for our readers. It sure has been a while since Hank let us take a turn at his blog, Daisy! I know Baxter. It's a shame because this was one of the most eventful winters ever. That right! And a lot of stuff happened too! Sigh…I suppose that’s one way of putting it. The big news was Hank spent two of months home with us. His last job ended in December and he took a whole month off spending time with Kathy and us before he even started looking for a job. He was doing some part-time programming but that was only a few hours a week and he spent the rest of his time walking us and eating at home. I like it when Hank is home with us. Me too! We love Kathy and she is home with us a lot but Hank does one thing that Kathy never does. Eat Meat! YUM!!! I love Meat! Kathy is a vegetarian and doesn’t eat any meat. But Hank eats lots of meat. When Hank works he makes a bologna sandwich to take to work and share with us but when he was home he ate lots of soup. That’s because in the winter all the grocery stores had sales on Progresso and Campbell’s Chunky Soup for 99 cents a can or less. Hank got lots of soup with beef and chicken in them. YUM!! I love beef and chicken. Every day Hank would heat up a can of soup and share it with is. My favorite was the Campbell Chunky Sirloin Burger soup, Baxter. It had lots of Sirloin Burger pieces for Hank to share with us. You certainly can’t go wrong with Chunky Sirloin Burger soup but my favorite was the Progresso Beef Barley Soup. It had lots of cubed beef chunks for Hank to share with us and there was so much barley in the soup Hank would get filled up and give us almost all the Beef! YUM!! That was wonderful to have soup every day but now that Hank is back working all was get is part of his bologna sandwich. It’s so sad. Cheer up Daisy! Maybe Hank will get laid off and then we can get back to eating soup every day! That’s right Baxter! There’s a bright side to almost everything if you know where to look.

Here's some of our favorite soups! Campbell;s Chunky Sirloin Burger is my favorite!! I like Progresso Beef Barley! YUM!!

Sure! Like when our neighbors Gary and Linda’s car got stuck in their driveway. It looked like they were going to be stuck in the driveway until spring but we were walking by with Hank and Kathy. Another neighbor was also walking by and Hank helped push the car out of the driveway. We helped too! That’s right! We barked and howled and were so loud that Hank and the other neighbor pushed extra hard so we would get back to our walk and stop being so noisy. The next day Gary gave Hank FIVE DOLLARS for helping him. And because we were such good helpers Hank decided to get us a treat with the five dollars! Hank got us a bag of Jack Link’s AM Dried Breakfast Sausage made with applesauce. I don’t care much about applesauce but like the Jack Link’s website says “Sausage is delicious and amazing!” The website also talks about the “magic of portable sausage” and I agree 100%. The sausage tasted even better than our beef stick treats and I didn’t taste any applesauce. We didn’t get the sausages every day so they lasted over a month! Now every time it snows we head over to Gary and Linda’s driveway to help if they get stuck but it hasn’t happened yet. It just snowed last weekend. Maybe we’ll get another blizzard before spring so we can get more of Jack Link’s AM Dried Breakfast Sausages! YUM!!

Jack Link's breakfast sausage treats are the BEST!! I wish our neighbors car would get stuck more often!

Most things have a bright lining, but there was nothing good about what happened at the pond by the cemetery this winter. That’s right Daisy. First Mr. Goose died. It was very cold and when we went there for our Sunday morning walk so Hank could take pictures he was curled up in a ball. He didn’t even move to get any of the bread Kathy brought to give all the ducks and geese. Kathy threw some over to him so he got something to eat but he barely moved. Hank thought he was sick and then on Tuesday the paper said he died. I guess everybody dies but I’d hate to die on a frozen pond outside in the winter. Me neither! I’m glad Kathy and Hank have a nice warm house for when we get old. Not that that’s going to happen anytime soon. A few weeks after Mr. Goose died, a loose dog attacked Bob the Swan at the cemetery. He went to the vet but he died a few days later. It was so sad. I was afraid the cemetery would ban dogs but it’s still Ok for us to go there if we are on leashes. We’re always on leashes when we are outside so we don’t run away or get hit by cars. Sometimes we go to our backyard and then there’s no leashes so we can run around a little. I miss seeing Bob and Mr. Goose at the pond. I miss them too, Baxter. There are still plenty of ducks and geese at the cemetery though. Lately there is the funniest duck – he is all black except for some red on his face. He’s funny looking but pretty cool also. I hope he sticks around for a while. I like seeing the different animals at the duck pond but it is very dangerous living outside all the time.

Rest In Peace Mr. Goose and Bob the Swan...Welcome to the neighborhood red-faced duck!

A big thing happened just last week, Daisy. Last Saturday it snowed but then Kathy left and didn’t come back until Sunday. She had to go to a bridal shower for her niece, Lauren. We were lucky that Hank stayed home with us. Hank walked us a lot but he left for the entire afternoon to help the Boy Scouts with some chess stuff. We were so lonely. I was lonely too but I just took a nap and Hank came home while I was still sleeping. You are always sleeping, Baxter! It’s what I do best! I stayed alert for intruders. Of course no one would dare intrude when I was on duty. We didn’t like Kathy being away for a whole night but there was a bright side, Daisy! There sure was! Kathy made us a slab of corned beef for us to share with Hank! No one can make corned beef like Kathy!! YUM!! It was moist and tender. And it had a layer of juicy fat around the edge of each slice! It was the best corned beef ever. I thought Kathy was going to be gone a whole week to give us time to eat all the corned beef. But Kathy came home the very next day. It was the best of both worlds! We didn’t have to stay home alone while Hank went to work on Monday… …and we got a whole corned beef! Not only was there a bright side to Kathy leaving, there was a side of corned beef! YUM!!