Hey, you're up and at 'em early today, Cynthia. Out to beat the heat.

You have hit one of my many weak suits with a geography question today, so I'll just hope that a clue or two may save me. To start with, I'll dig in my brain and see if I can come up with more than three European capitals.

TM

Hi all - lazy in this heat. They are threatening T-storms, we'll see.

Hmmmm....building on water routes, as well as promontories or hills made the cities defensible as well as suppliable(?) in time of war. Would this city be on another type of body of water?

Nancy.

Well, *#%@

I promise I will never use a trivia site again. I was doing more research once I got home and unloaded two Annabelle hydrangeas, three Incrediball ones, seven little plumbagos (annuals here for the pots), one Heuchera(30% off), and a pink Mandevilla (also 30%off) that I plan to try out front where the clematis I planted to climb a sign has never filled out. I know the Mandevilla won't survive winter, but for $10 it was worth a try for the summer. Hope it is a fast grower.

But I digress. So, the trivia site said Madrid is the only capital in Europe that is not on a river. Surprise! The Mananzares River runs right through the middle. Aaarrrggghh. Obviously, geography is not my strong suit either TM. :)

I am so sorry friends. Since it s too hot to really do much outside today, I will try to find another question for you. I will then head outside to do a pot or two.

Cynthia, who will be back!

Okay, here we go again.

Mr. P.H. Bryson was a furniture dealer from Memphis, Tennessee who was badly wounded in the Civil War. He was released from the military hospital to "go home to die so that he might have a decent burial." He returned home and went to his doctor who said his only hope was to rebuild his strength-he was down to 110 pounds and could not walk more than 100 yards without sitting down to rest. He followed his doctor's advice and became the first advocate in America for something as a result. What advice did his doctor give him that led to his being so proud of something else, leading him to urge the creation of what is now a fun competition that many of us like to watch? Points for advice and/or the competition he tried to start.

Cynthia

That's OK, Cynthia. No problem. I'll just switch mental gears and figure this new one out in no time at all. Ha.

I have a bunch of zinnias, a dozen tomato plants, and other things to put in the ground on this mildly warm and kind of humid day, but the weather guy says we might have patchy frost tonight or tomorrow. For Pete's sake, it's June 1. Enough already.

TM

Hmmmm, I know walking is one of the best exercises for many problems, so my guess it has something to do with walking, other than that I don't have a clue.

Annette

I wonder if it was two parts to the same type of exercise which led to one that people train for months to participate in now.

It has started to rain here again, 37 days in a row with some precipitation. Ugh, not getting those new beds finished so I can move plants. Also waiting to get beans, cucks, and some tomatoes planted. Supposed to have two dry days in a row starting tomorrow so maybe can plant late Monday. Then rain again until the weekend.

Meanwhile I will run errands, off to the library, nursery to get annuals for my front door pots and then to the grocery store.

I have been outside getting eaten alive by no-seeums while trying to plant a couple of the patio containers. I kept swatting at nothing and shooting the hose on myself! The dogs want to be out hunting chipmunks with me, but it is too hot for them to stay out for long. Lazy pups.

I am as dirty now as they are! No show dogs here, but I adore them nonetheless.

Yes, walking was part of his exercise, but there is a little more to it. Walking alone with no purpose can be a little boring. Companionship is good.

Cynthia

No harm, no foul, Cyn. Those trivia web sites tend to be lame. Most of them have done no research at all and use common misconceptions for knowledge!

Hmmmm...this may help no one, and I may be wrong, but the French word for 'tuna' comes to mind!! lol.

In the nineties here for the 3rd day in a row - yuck. No energy at all, no appetite. I need to weed and plant a few more bean seeds to fill in....we'll see if I have the energy.

Nancy.

Hi all,
What a fun day here! It's been brutally hot. lol Some spring !, freezing or broiling. I'll take broiling :)
Cynthia, I'm glad you switched trivial Q's. I was thinking Poland. Just cause my Paternal grandparents were from there. (ego) Not a geography person, unless it's my yard, I can tell you just about every rock I own. lol
I know this has something to do with cardio (sp), and 100 meters seems to stick in my head. I don't think it's the dash. Another thing keeps popping in my head. Dancing. LOL Oh well, my mind is shot from the heat. Need more clues.
:) Laura

I take it a dog is involved in this, I'm picking up on the 'hunting chipmunks' thingie. DH used to do a lot of duck and grouse hunting at one time with our German Shorthair Pointer Jayda. Before Jayda he had taught our German Shepard to retrieve but her mouth was a tad on the hard side, or was it she was just trying to reposition the bird in her mouth lol.

Annette

Ah Annette, hope others are taking note.

Bobbie and Laura, good thoughts (love the thon clue, Bobbie-very good), but not close.

Annette, now, how much did your DH like to show off his pointer? Funny about the shepherd! They don't have the soft mouths of bird dogs, do they?

Cynthia

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I have noticed the word show twice now from Cynthia. It must mean something.

Dog shows?

??

TM

Hmmmm, dog shows??? Cyn, although Jayda was purebred she was also spayed so no dog shows. We also had a Black Lab (Babe) way back when, on one occasion when DH and friend were duck hunting and not having any luck, Babe totally disgusted and frustrated with them helped herself to one when walking passed some other hunters, she had made up her mind she wasn't going home skunked.

Annette

SSShhh! don't tell anyone, I shoot chipmunks and squirrels.
We used to have a long branch, to cut notches in, to keep score. (wow, now I sound redneck) sorry guys :(.
Here's the worse part... I would toss the kill in the road, for the crows to eat, after being ahem..., er... tenderized. Turns out, I'm not the only one around here doing this. ( hail Mary, full of grace....)
OK back to the Trivia, Fox hunting? Foxes are sooo cute, but kill poultry around here. NO, that can't be right! I wouldn't watch that.
Clueless.
:) Laura

Haha, Laura! Your first sentence gets you very close to the prescribed activity...actually, pretty much right there! :)

TM and Annette, you ole bird dogs you! Never gave up until you got it!

Cynthia

Was dog breeding part of what Bryson did?

TM

Skeet shooting?

Is it a winter Olympic event?
:) Laura

Whoops, Nancy, the thon clue was yours. Clever if marathon had been the answer, but no.

This is from On Point with Tom Ashbrook:

"Here in the United States, we were too busy spearing each other with bayonets to make time for something as frivolous as selecting the finest dogs, so it wasnâÂÂt until the end of the Civil War that things got moving. And we owe it all to Mr. P. H. Bryson, a furniture dealer from Memphis, Tennessee, 1 credited in a history of the Memphis Kennel Club as âÂÂthe First Advocate of Dog Shows in Americaâ (their caps, not mine). Like most able-bodied men of his day, Bryson served in the war, and he survived his service, but just barely. He was so badly wounded that when army doctors discharged him from a military hospital, it was to âÂÂgo home to die so that he might have a decent burial.â Once home, Bryson went to see his family doctor, the honorable D. D. Saunders, and when the doctor got a look at the skeletal presence in his office, a 110-pound weakling who âÂÂcould not walk a hundred yards without pausing to rest,â he told Bryson his only hope of carrying on was to try to rebuild his strength, and he prescribed exercise "in particular hunting, with the help and companionship of a bird dog.

Bryson went out and got himself a gun and a dog, a âÂÂbobbed-tail Pointer,â and commenced killing birds. The exercise, and the dog, saved his life. His vigor returned, and he put on a hundred pounds. Bryson and his brother would move on to setters, importing top specimens from England, and founded the Bryson Setter Kennels. But hunting and breeding werenâÂÂt enough for old P. H. Bryson. He wanted to show his dogs. Bryson began a campaign to get the sport off the ground, lobbying via a series of articles in the magazine Turf, Field & Farm, which despite its name was not a periodical about sod. Apparently people were reading, because before the Bryson brothers could even put together their own show, the Illinois State Sportsmen Association beat them to it, staging AmericaâÂÂs first-ever dog show, in Chicago, on June 4, 1874. It featured just twenty-one dogs, all of them setters and pointers."

So four stars (well, one very special one and will add another below that just makes me laugh, but is most definitely one that wants to be a dog star-haha) for Annette, TM, Laura, and Bobbie for getting all or close. Stars for Nancy just for checking in during her recuperation!

Thanks for playing and excusing the first wrong-so-wrong trivia. With luck, I will have more time this week for reading and thinking!

Cynthia

Here is one just to make you smile!

Laura, I gave you stars for the mention of hunting in one post. Good enough for me!

Have a marvelous week.

Cynthia

ahahaha! darth vader. His eyes crack me up!
thanks for the partial star, I'll take it
:) Laura

Great question, Cynthia, and fun to read answer. I like the dog star.

We were a one-litter breeder of English Setters. We had a female that came from a good line and bred her to a champion grouse dog. There were ten puppies and they were a blast. We planned to keep one, but DW and I had different ideas about which one to keep, so we kept them both. It was a fun experience.

{{gwi:604862}}

Thanks for the fun.

TM

Good fun - hunting! Well, interesting to note, I had never heard of English setters till moving here and our neighbour has one, Glory, that she used to show. Very pretty, like the pup above, but with tan freckles!

Nancy.

Oh, what a sweetie she is! I love English Setters. Well, I pretty much love any setter, retriever, hmmm...dog.

Most I have seen were freckled, too, Nancy. Do the freckles come out as they get older like Dalmatians?

Cute story, TM. We ended up with two when we went to adopt one. So much fun.

Cynthia

Right, Cynthia. The freckles come out later, though most of our dogs turned out mostly white.

TM

I would have never guessed hunting. Send a veteran out to shoot a gun, not what I would have expected. I was going with walking, then running, and marathon, until the shooting clues.

I haven't had a dog so didn't even think about dog shows being a spectator sport. Should have as used to watch Martha Stewart and she would do a yearly show on the Westminster Dog Show.

Love the dog star and the cute puppies!