thank goodness for raw

There is one day of the year that is more special than all the others - my birthday.

There is one day next to that - Kate's birthday.

THEN comes ..... Doggie Dip Day. 
Doggie Dip Day is the beautiful day of the year, at the end of the summer season, when the pools are open to dogs. I put on my calendar to find the Doggie Dip Day and pool. Samuel has had such extraordinary fun these days. There are so many stories of these days, many of them involving how much fun he has even though he is scared to swim anywhere that he can't touch the bottom. The days we cannot go - because there is a contagious dog disease that year - or Covid - these are sad years. 

Today was Doggie Dip Day. 

There was a big white dog in purple booties. There were two white dogs of different sizes in matching blue floral swimsuit/floaters. There was a rottweiler with an uncut tail too scared to get in the water. There were little dogs who were being carried in the water. There were also two dogs, not together, who had these hysterical swimsuit/floaters with shark fins. 

Alas, every picture I took was massively blown out. This one is only saved for Silly Saturday thanks to raw. Ooops. So let us go with this one!!

The FCDO is the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, a department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' ministries of foreign affairs, it has an office in Ukraine. Yesterday morning the entrance was covered with flowers. The British Ambassador tweeted "Thank you for the flowers and for all your kind words. Amid an invasion, so much kindness and sympathy."


Ukraine fooled everybody. This is not true, there were people who said it was a trap, but they sure fooled me. Ukraine made a big deal, for an extended period, of how they were going to take back Crimea. Russia moved their soldiers from the north and the east to the South. Then Ukraine cut off all their supply routes in the south, destroyed their supplies, and then went after them. Meanwhile, they continued to after them in the east and, finding no Russians there anymore, took back territory in the north. Their gains in the northeast are their largest in months. "In total, more than a thousand square kilometers of the territory of Ukraine have been liberated since the beginning of September." When they recover a town they raise a Ukrainian flag. There is real concern that they will run out of flags. There is concern that they don't have enough room for all the Russian prisoners of war. They did so well that pro-Russian bloggers are admitting that Ukraine kicked butt. They are ..... criticizing Putin!!! Ukraine destroyed so much Russian equipment it would bore you if I listed it all, plus a ferry crossing and two ammunition depots.


By the end of the day the news reported that Ukraine retook the eastern city of Izium, a strategically important railway hub. This spares nearby towns from being shelled. It makes it much harder for Russia to provide supplies. AND then there are all the tanks and armored vehicles that Russia left behind while running away. 


Zelensky gave Haluk Bayraktar a medal, Order of Merit of first class.


An American family farm in upstate New York created a corn maze as a tribute to Ukraine. They are sharing part of the proceeds with Humanitarian Aid Fund for Ukraine.

More crowdfunding weapons - $1.73 million - was raised from Ukrainians to buy 40 "Warmates" - little drones. I would describe more about them but it is all gobbledygook. 

In the Czech Republic citizens are raising money to buy Ukraine a tank under a program called, "Gift for Putin."