South African Basket

Reportedly made from telephone wires. Who knew there were that many spare telephone wires lying around Capetown? Perhaps they have been made obsolete by firbre optic cable, or something. This one was brought to me by my neighbor Ann, who just got back from a visit to her family there. I love the creativity in this design....

We had quite the scene in the middle of the night with Spike compulsively licking his paw and me trying to see if there was anything stuck in his foot. He has very furry feet and didn't take kindly to me trying to get through the fur to get a closer look at his foot. I didn't take kindly to the fact that he kept jerking his foot away, nor did I care for the freezing darkness outside the covers. His foot looked a bit red ,but I couldn't really see feel anything in it, so I  rinsed it in peroxide and  put some neosporin on it . Of course I couldn't go back to sleep after that, even though he eventually did. He seems perfectly fine today, but I am really tired....

My neighbor Cindy, the one who was responsible for us adopting Spike, called me today with another dog, Jed, a 15 month old black lab, from the same trainer, and like Spike, born in Ireland. He was being trained as a bomb sniffing dog but figured out that if he alerted in front of a box he would get a treat regardless of whether the box had the scent of a bomb, or bomb making materials in it. He's a lab, what did they expect? Anyway he is now ready to be someone's pet. It's very tempting, but I don't think there's room on our bed for another dog! Peter is coming for dinner (lamb shanks) tonight so we'll see what he thinks...

Dana and Jim are on their way to Punta Arenas to see penguins. I'm putting a photo of sunrise on the Torres del Paine in Patagonia in extras.