Prairie Dog People!

    Any chance I get I try to run and play. I love running around the hotel rooms playing fetch and wrestling with my toys. I have to be quiet, though, and there is not much I can do in other parts of the hotel. Sometimes, though, I can take rides in the luggage carts.

Little Dog on a Wagon

    Today we drove from Peoria Illinois to Rochester Minnesota. Corn fields were everywhere! And rolling hills and farms with picturesque barns. I was going to sleep again instead of listening to a Laura CD but something very curious was happening. In On the Banks of Plum Creek Laura's family goes to live in a dugout house on the prairie in Minnesota! That is just like the prairie dogs! And it is one more thing that I understand perfectly. I don't live in a hole in the ground, but I do love to burrow. Every night when I go to bed I burrow deep under the covers where I sleep all safe and cozy. Well, that is what Laura's family does! They live in the ground!

I love to burrow, just like prairie dogs.

    Last night outside the hotel I was walking along and heard a very loud insect. I think it was a cicada. It was jumping and buzzing and making a whole lot of noise! It was just like a windup toy, so I started to play with it. Then today, in the story, I heard about the millions of locusts that swarmed around Laura's fields on the prairie. They made such a racket as they ate everything in sight. It was hard for Laura's family to know all their crops were being eaten, and very scary, too because of the loud noise they made. If just one insect like I heard last night could make so much noise, I can't imagine how awful thousands of insects chewing and chomping and buzzing and flying could make. It makes me want to cover my ears!

Too much noise!

    One day Laura's Pa brought home a beautiful white cow with spots like a wreath of roses on it. Ma and Pa were excited because now they could have milk. Laura was excited because it had a wreath of roses. It had been called "Reat" (for "wreath") but they were going to give it a new name. I listened excitedly, hoping they would name her "Rose," but it was not to be. The cow's name was "Spot." Oh well. 

"...they had bright round eyes and crinkling noses and wee paws..."