I’m on my way outside, because it is beautiful and we have so brief a summer. But first I want to tell you why I hate TV.
It is important to get outside – there were winter storm warnings around the region this week. WINTER STORM WARNINGS in June!!
We had a winter storm advisory but only had very chilly winds and heavy clouds the past few days.
There is still snow in the mountains.
And rain, but that is a good thing. 
It is green and growing and hopefully will fight off the drought of last year.
Maybe there will be plenty of pasture and later, hay. 
Mercifully, we don’t have the flooding going on around Yellowstone Park.
I like to be outside, watching and helping mom, laying on the porch in early morning sun as it warms up, and in the breezy shade later. And of course, patrolling the place.
So I have to get out there and savor the day, but I want to tell you one thing I do not like in the summer.
Now I admit, in my younger days, I watched a little TV. When I first came here, I would watch if there were cows or horses on TV, and even went behind it to look for where they were coming from, because of course I was ready to help move the herd on out of the living room!
Now here is a Ladysmith List on why I hate TV:
It is all bad news. 
It is an avenue for lying politicians to twist the truth and promote false propaganda. 
It is no longer fun and innocent entertainment. It celebrates rudeness, anger and general nastiness in all formats.
It is the modern carnival sideshow, but with anonymity, so watchers can ogle the fat, deformed and suffering, crazy hoarders and melodramatic “reality” actors, neither real nor actors.
All news is not “breaking news”, but stations are still 24 hours, so they stir up alerts to sound vital and current. It only is anxiety-causing regurgitation of old news, most of the time. 
Even the commercials are awful. There is no creativity, humor or wit. Even dog food ones aren’t very good. And the insurance commercials are the worst. As a dog I don’t need it, but I would not be influenced to buy insurance from a company with truly dumb ads. They are just plain stupid!
There are 200 channels, most of which are infomercials, advertising, hard-sell shopping. There are ‘way too many phony reality shows, none real and none worth watching.
There are a few with great old shows, a few educational and edifying, a precious few worth watching. And then only for a little time.
Very few movies are any good anyway. Maybe a few with cows, cowdogs, horses or cats. or a person loving a dog.
TV interferes with dad playing ball with his favorite cowdog. It is true that the years have slowed us down, but I’m still up for an easy game of catch or keep-away, and it is always good exercise for us both.
You trade your own brief and priceless time for staring at a screen. Make sure it is a worthy exchange.
Gotta go. Make hay while the sun shines, they say. 
Or chase cows, 
run the creek bottoms,
or lay in the shade. 
Summer is here, at least here in the northern hemisphere. There are adventures galore outside.
Get out there! 
