Attribution: Photo by Amanda Frank on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper recognizes this time of year as the season of the great fox hunts when he and country cousins and comrades in northwest Wisconsin spent Saturday afternoons slogging through deep midwinter snow as they followed the track of a fox that …
Read
Category:Kickass
Kickass and the Thunderstorm
Attribution: Photo by Michelle McEwen on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in celebrating the magnificent thunderstorm that flashed and boomed over west Madison last evening. Its spectacular jagged slashing and eching rumbles as it dominated the landscape was a rare sensory embrace as the unseasonal storm moved in and over …
Read
Kickass and Car Experience
Attribution: Ford Model T, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper is fresh off one of those high-tech car experiences that discourages him from so much as opening the hood as corporate decisions and sophisticated techies make a big deal out of a simple dead battery. …
Read
Kickass and Spring in February
Photo by Phyllis Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper’s suggestion on what to do with a spring day that occurs early in February: 1. 2. 3. And when you have finished with 1, 2 and 3, do: 4. 5. 6. All of this will slow down the passage of …
Read
Kickass and Sigurd Olson
Attribution: Ville Kurki, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis frequently compare notes about various outdoor adventures in their earlier lives, with Phyllis citing her hiking in all the national parks and camping on Isle Royal, and the keeper telling Canada fish stories and …
Read
Kickass and Weather by Republicans
Attribution: Photo by David Moum on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes, along with the keeper, that the strange unseasonably warm temperatures are due to a systemic responsibility slipup in which the turtle-like US justice system somehow ended up in charge of the weather, and the Repubs then filed a petition for summer. A prominent …
Read
Kickass and Sharing
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, agrees with the keeper that in all relationships, sharing is the key to tranquility, and a stunning example of that occurred when Phyllis went to considerable effort to concoct something called “Sheet-pan coconut shrimp and sweet potatoes” and the keeper dutifully and enthusiastically ate …
Read
Kickass Message to Boo
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, seeks the keeper’s help in sending a message to Boo, a smallish schnauzer-type dog that once lived with the keeper and Phyllis on the Mazomanie hill and who could play the piano and dance, and who invalidated the keeper’s long standing custody arrangement and …
Read
Kickass and “My Shadow”
Attribution: Matthew Bowden www.digitallyrefreshing.com, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, hands it over to the keeper on this Groundhog Day of shadows, as he—the keeper, actually recalls from grade school days, the first few lines of Robert Louis Stevenson “My Shadow.” Impressed with the duration of such memory clutter, the …
Read
Kickass and the Groundhog’s Shadow
Attribution: Anthony Quintano from Mount Laurel, United States, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper passes along news that the Repub’s attempts to impeach the groundhog and replace it with a weasel has stalled as the entire weasel family—which includes the badger, serves notice that they …
Read
Kickass and Baby Photos
Attribution: Photos by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis shared an entertainment exercise with fellow Vista West residents in which the challenge was to identify baby photos with current subjects. While the results were mixed, there was one verity: at one point in their lives every …
Read
Kickass Has Battery Woes
Attribution: New York Public Library, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes that the keeper has lived with car battery woes his entire long life and it isn’t over yet—the battery woes, that is, as a Subaru battery warranty issue involves a loaner car and an indefinite wait as …
Read