Hoho begob *

Well, my cruel parents have upped the ante to get me home by carrying out a long threatened bribe. They finally went to the animal shelter and picked up a new puppy! Now, when I talk to them and request to see the adorable, furry, wiggling beast, they tell me that I just have to come home to see him. So evil!

I am not sure how they knew my special weakness for Bernese Mountain Dogs, but this puppy seems to be a mixture of that lovable, docile giant breed and random NM mutt. They have finally settled on a name of Obie or Ob, not sure how they are officially spelling it now (Mom, comment?).

Here are few pictures of my new pupther in action. My mother captioned this photo:
“Puppy follows Puppy Poppa around the house.”

This is the flagstone paved area behind the house. For many years, this was a gentle dirt slope, but after several floods, my dad decided to make more of a moat with sturdier reinforcement against the runoff from the mesa behind the house.

Contrary to appearances, the walls of the house are not made of the traditional New Mexican building material, adobe, used for hundreds of years by the Pueblo Indians, and coincidentally, in Spain as well. Most modern homes in NM are now built with stucco (often coating over a fieldstone, brick, log or wood frame), which requires less upkeep and labor.

Here we can see that the puppy is already being spoiled with a piece of chicken barbecued over our backyard firepit:


And it was delicious: