It’s true: The Beanster is now 14 years old! Due to her pesky (very) little sister and other constraints we weren’t able to mark her special day with a big adventure, but we did manage to have a number of mini-adventures, the first of which occurred in the kitchen on the previous day.

Susan prepared a beef-flavored cookie mix then let Beanie, Biggles and myself loose in the kitchen with a rolling pin, various bone-shaped cookie cutters and a bowl of grated cheese.  Things went surprisingly well for the first few minutes; I made a splendid mess of the worktops as I rolled out the dough and cut out bones, Beanie forced her snout into one of the bins (the one containing sharp-edged empty cans, naturally) and Biggles grabbed all the tea-towels. As the bones started to fill the baking tray and the remaining dough dwindled in size, my attention turned to the next task: decorating the cookies with cheese.

This wasn’t easy as Biggles had maxed out on the tea-towels and was now intent on grabbing things from the worktop. Somehow I managed to put cheese hearts on most of the cookies, get the number 14 on one of them, and lock them safely away in the oven without any mishaps.

Baking was due to take around 12 minutes, so we passed the time by tasting samples of the remaining dough.

Even in an uncooked state the cookie dough seemed to be a hit, and we were all keen to see how the finished bones would turn out. In due course the cookies came out of the oven, and as they were cooling on the worktop, Biggles decided he couldn’t wait any longer to try them. Just as I was extracting Beanie’s snout from the bin one more time, he launched himself at the baking tray and grabbed a corner of the grease-proof paper on which the cookies were lying. He could so easily have brought everything crashing to the floor, but instead he pulled off his own version of the tablecloth trick, withdrawing the layer of paper so quickly that the cookies were left largely undisturbed. It was an impressive feat, but I decided to withdraw Beagle kitchen privileges before a repeat performance could be attempted.

On the morning of Beanie’s Birthday we all headed out to Stewarton for a sniffy woodland walk. Stewarton is only a short drive from our home, but with all the lockdowns and restrictions over the last couple of years, it’s been some time since our last visit. It’s at its most beautiful at this time of year, with the autumn colors starting to appear. Little Poppy was great on the walk (I’ll give an update on her progress in the next post) but she only did a shortened version, giving Beanie & Biggles a chance to explore and enjoy the sniffs as a team of two as they have done so many times in the past. Once back home the pressies came out and so did those beef and chicken-flavoured bones.

So our first little Beagle is now 14 years old, and though her hound colors have faded a bit over the years the light in her eyes is still burning strong. Happy Birthday Beanie Girl!