The Tardiest Explorers

Going Elsewhere

2011-04-05T14:07:00.002-03:00

Okay, okay. I know. I stopped posting here.

Sorry.

This is done and I've moved on to something else. If you'd like to know what that is, gimme a shout.

Christmas Torture

2010-11-29T22:02:00.004-04:00

Winter weather is here, which means that Zelda is starting to molt and turn into a snowman.

It also means that Oliver can put his obedience training to use and stoke the fire like we taught him to. Put another log in the stove for mama! Good boy!!

Mark and I went on our annual "Let's Fight All Day and Buy Christmas Present in the City" field trip. Has anyone else ever tried to go shopping with Mark? Other than grocery shopping I mean. If it's for groceries, he's all over that. Shopping for presents though? A new pair of shoes? Or, perish the thought, new pants because SOMEBODY doesn't have a SINGLE pair of jeans that still contain an intact hem because he fidgets and picks them apart all day? No way. It's the only time he gets tense and uptight.

He stands stiffly inside the store, his jaw clenches, and he asks repeatedly if we're done yet, even though he knows the answer. It's the closest that we come to fighting every year. Over time, we've developed a strategy that works for both of us (more or less). We have to make a gigantic, detailed list of what we need to get for everybody on our Christmas list. I tell Mark which day we are going to go into "The City" to go shopping, and then he books a band practice on that day. I make him cancel it. I book the dogs into the kennel for the day. As the date approaches he makes plans to go hiking with a friend on the agreed-upon shopping day. I make him cancel it. He apologizes by claiming to have forgotten we were going shopping.

The fateful day arrives and we start out on the two-hour drive, stopping halfway to refuel on Just Us Coffee. Then the shopping begins, and we pick at each other for being too impatient (Mark) /slow (Julie), or too unrealistic (Mark) / unfocused (Julie). He tells me to hurry; I tell him to help me pick a gift then. He walks morosely behind me and I pretend not to notice that he's DYING because we're SHOPPING WAY TOO MUCH.

Magically, we end up tired and broken at the end of the day in Chapters. It's the same every year. The sun will have set and my feet ache. Our stamina is gone and we wander giddily around the store searching against all hope for the last elusive perfect present for our cherished friends and family.

Winter is here and the sun's strength has left us. It's less than a month until Christmas and we've made it back from The City relatively unscathed, and now we can look forward to chocolates, tinsel, family, friends, and warm celebration on cold, dark nights.

Rainy Days

2010-11-08T15:27:00.008-04:00

It's been raining - no, POURING for five days now. Our beautiful little Valley is so waterlogged that it's scary. Roads, even highways, are inaccessible and some of the outlying communities have been evacuated. I was driving by the river with Chani and we saw pumpkins - dozens of them - floating downstream in a big herd. It was surreal. Some farmer further upstream probably lost his whole crop, and I'm sure he's not the only one. The Annapolis River has jumped its banks in many locations, and who knows how bad this will get with the continuing rain in the forecast.

Stop it, Nova Scotia! I should have escaped this when I moved away from Vancouver Island!

Anyway.

So I'm taking a little road trip with my mom this week. She has to take care of some family stuff and wanted me to help her. It's so strange to be asked to help my mother. My mom is a strong person and has always been so reliable it's ridiculous. Have you ever been involved in an emergency, or a situation where stress is high and the right decision has to be made? My mom is seriously the person to have with you when that sort of stuff goes down.

So now I am the one to help the person who is usually helping others. I'm not a "people person" AT ALL, but when it comes to family I'm there. That's a big reason Mark and I moved back here from Vancouver Island (besides the fact that houses cost like a million dollars out there and I didn't have a million dollars at the time).

When we lived out there, visiting parents involved much prior planning, at least $2,000, and about eight hours in planes and airports. Now, we can be at Mark's mom's place in an hour and a half, and at my parents in just a little longer than that. When Mark's mom needs wood chopped or has a blueberry pie that needs eating, we can be there. When my parents need us to babysit the dog or take a chocolate-zucchini loaf off their hands, we can do it.

I've always gotten along with my mom and dad well. I was never the rebel child at all (unless you count all those damned tattoos I keep getting). I'm glad to live here now and be able to see my parents every now and again, even if we have many differing opinions. Which we do.

The thing is, you only get one family. Always do whatever you can to make the most of it.

Country Cops

2010-11-04T13:21:00.003-03:00

So I'm driving along one of the secondary highways outside of town when I hear police sirens. I look in the rear-view mirror and see the blue-and-red right behind me. Ack!!

Maybe he just got a call about an emergency up ahead. Yeah, that must be it. I pull over to let him pass me, but the damned cop car pulls in right behind me. I wrack my brain... I wasn't speeding... my stickers are up-to-date... what's the matter?

I try my best to remain calm, and roll down my window as the cop opens his door. I look in my mirror to see a familiar, jovial figure with a big grin plastered on his face, carrying something in his hand and waving.

I immediately yell at the cop for scaring me. It's an acquaintance and I know by now that I've been pulled over for a social call.

He approaches my car, still grinning, and says "I thought that was you!"

I laugh as he hands me the object in his hand. It's a little doggy rain jacket for Oliver, our Miniature Pinscher. This RCMP officer is a fellow animal lover and has shown up at my door in the past with little t-shirts and such for Oliver, whom he has taken quite a liking to. We chit-chat for a minute before going our separate ways.

I can only assume that city cops never pull these kinds of stunts.

On Sharp Objects

2010-09-29T13:21:00.004-03:00

I'm not good with knives. Actually, I'm pretty bad in general with sharp kitchen instruments, including knives. Many years ago when Mark and I had our first 'nice' date, it was at a quiet little dimly lit restaurant with white-shirted waiters and dark red linen napkins.

You certainly see where this is going.

It was a rare treat for two broke university students to eat at a place that didn't serve pub food or pizza, and we were enjoying ourselves quite a bit in the luxurious and subdued atmosphere. Then I ruined the mood completely by cutting open the entire palm of my hand while trying to slice a roll. I spent the rest of the meal with the dark red linen napkin clenched in my fist while Mark smirked at me. Romantic it was not.

Then there was that time a few weeks ago when I plunged my hand into a sink full of dishwater and dishes and cleanly sliced open my finger on the blade of a food processor, from my knuckle to my fingernail. Dripping blood, I went up to Mark's office looking for pity and bandages.

He knows I do this. In fact, it's an established rule in our house that I do not cut bread or bagels. Every morning before work, even if he's rushed, he will cut me two slices of bread with which to make a sandwich for my lunch. If he sees me trying to perform this sort of stunt on my own, he removes the knife from my hand - carefully, as though it might explode - and asks me what I think I am doing. Over the last few weeks the slice on my finger has healed to a fine white line surrounded by new pink skin.

Now, Mark has been out of town for a couple of weeks and is currently in British Columbia. On my own, I've managed to haul a giant double headboard, double boxspring, and mattress down our winding staircase and out to the curb for big garbage day (otherwise known as free yard sale day). I did not injure myself during this process. I've also moved our Ikea bed frame from the master bedroom to the guest room, and set up a 200 year old antique bed frame in the master bedroom. Still not injured! Add to that various little construction projects around the house, and the handling of dozens of dogs at work, and I'm still safe and free from injury.

But the loaf of sourdough bread from the farmer's market. Oh, that lovely sourdough bread with the crispy golden crust. I got cocky, and thought I could cut it with our big serrated bread knife.

Yep. Into the finger it went. I stared at the jagged, dripping edges of this latest clumsy misadventure and considered going to the hospital for a few stitches. I hadn't had lunch though, and the dogs would need to go outside. Also, it's at least a 20 minute drive to the hospital. On top of that, the new foster dog has a vet appointment this afternoon.

Meh.

Earl did nothing.

2010-09-08T19:58:00.004-03:00

We survived a hurricane on Labour Day weekend. Of course, by "survived", I mean that we watched it rain and then nothing else happened. Everyone around here goes all nuts since Juan hit like a million years before I moved here, and whenever there's a hurricane in the forecast, they all buy out the bottled water from the grocery store, and gossip breathlessly about how bad the upcoming hurricane might be, or how since the water's so warm it will be a terrible storm, or that the trajectory indicates that blah blah blah whatever.

It rained.

Also, these guys came and went.

Also, this guy is here.

Also, SOMEONE TURNED A GAZILLION YEARS OLD OMG.

Captain D's Birthday

2010-08-12T11:22:00.013-03:00

It was Captain D's birthday last week, and to celebrate we had a canoe expedition up the Annapolis River.

After getting slightly swamped and almost tipping in some minor rapids, we were on our way.

I rode with Laurie and Ernest, and Mark was in with hot ladies Shannon and Mickie.

Nay, Jay, and Chani piled into the last canoe.

Captain D, the man of the day, was the lone wolf in his kayak.

It seemed that my boat was both the coolest and the fastest by far, so after about an hour we decided we'd pull up on a rocky little beach to celebrate happy hour and give the slowpokes a chance to catch up. We drank our beers and watched the other canoes float by across the river.

After happy hour, we launched again. As we rounded a bend in the river, I saw the property Mark and I had bought this past spring! Sadly, we still haven't named it. Here it is, as seen from the river.

As the coolest and fastest canoe, we managed to overtake the other slow boats and land first at our ultimate destination, even though we had stopped for drinks and the others hadn't.

There was just one problem, though. We'd originally launched from a pre-arranged dock, but we hadn't really thought about where we would land. We pulled up onto a random little beach in the correct general area only to discover that the ground was not solid, but squelching, sucking, sinking mud. Ernest hopped over a little brook and landed in even squelchier mud. Then he discovered that he couldn't get back. He was stranded!

Jay bravely decided he would rescue Ernest in his canoe.

Then Jay got stuck in the shallows.

Chani waded out to rescue Jay. Meanwhile, Ernest got away. We never did rescue him.

After some minor chaos wherein many canoes went in different directions and people hauled themselves up the river bank at various different points, we all reconvened at Chani and Captain D's place for a birthday supper of tacos and pie!

Good times. Happy birthday, Captain D. You are older than I am, and that's the important part.

Hurricane Mark

2010-08-01T22:07:00.004-03:00

So we're trying to figure out what to have for lunch when I notice that Buddy, the latest foster dog, is chewing on something under the kitchen table. Because I am an EXPERT at this, I immediately know that he is not chewing on a dog toy.

I shoo him away and find the cut-off end of one of those infuriating molded plastic packages that make new purchases so very difficult to access. The rest of the package, empty of its treasure, is on the kitchen table and has been since yesterday.

I leave the end of the package on the floor. Am I being passive-aggressive? I don't know. When Mark re-enters the kitchen, I ask him to put his trash from the previous day in the recycling. I ask nicely, but even by voicing the request, the overtones of an oft-repeated-in-many-different-moods conversation are present. This is one of our 'things' that we have fightscussions about. We don't have many of these 'things', and the ones we do have are not bad, and this is one of them.

By this point in time, the kitten has found the plastic end of the package and scooted off into the living room with it. Mark follows her out to get it, returns, and makes funny faces at me until he feels that I am happy again.

I contemplate my role in this household, and wonder whether it would be better to be a silent maid or a nagging equal. I work less hours than him; should I just clean this crap up? On the other hand, I'm neater than him; why should his messes be my responsibility?

I ask him if there's any way I can get him to stop dropping things all over the house mid-stride. He ponders this for a moment but has no solution.

We make our lunches - a bagel for me and a sandwich for him. He takes the last sub bun from the bag and fills it with all sorts of fun vegetables. The empty bag remains on the counter.

We eat lunch, and because there is a client emergency this weekend, Mark goes upstairs to work for a while. The empty bag remains on the counter.

I rip up our bathroom floor for a while. I go back into the kitchen. The empty bag is staring at me.

I put it in the recycling.

Meeting my relatives

2010-07-24T20:41:00.002-03:00

So I'm back from visiting my sister and her family. I met her new kids and neither of them screamed or cried when they saw me, so I count that as a success.

The baby, Bhutan*, is chubby and hilarious. He pretty much never cries and ALWAYS WANTS TO EAT. In fact, the only time he really gets upset is when he hears the spoon scraping the bottom of his bowl of formless vegetable slop.

We went swimming and he learned about splashing. Unfortunately, he learned by splashing himself.

The little girl, Sophia*, is smart and personable and active. She LOVES to read and be read to, and will ask for the same book to be read to her over and over. She's only three, but her attention span for books is really long.

A girl after my own heart!

We did lots of stuff with them while we were there. We did a lot of firsts, like going to the pool and playing in the sprinkler. Sophia was very cautious about the water, but slowly got more and more comfortable with both the pool and the sprinkler.

The public kiddie pool we went to was very shallow. It was also warm - like swimming in a gigantic bathtub.

And full of filthy children.

We pretty much all got sick.

In spite of losing my voice for three days, I really enjoyed my trip and had fun meeting the kids. My sister and her husband are routine-nazis, which is cause for two thumbs up in my opinion. Kids are nicer when there's consistency.

Now I'm back home and things have been crazy. The population of our house rose to an all-time high right after I got back, as we were sheltering seven dogs and six cats for a short while. Fortunately, two dogs got adopted, my parents collected their dog, and today Mark's mother collected her two cats. Between fostering and pet-sitting for vacationing family members, it got a bit ridiculous.

But that's another post.

It was good to get to know Sophia and Bhutan.

I will enjoy watching them grow up.

Zelda

2010-07-02T22:49:00.001-03:00

It's hard to believe that we haven't had Zelda for a year yet. She's crazy, but I'm so glad we found her.

She loves running around in the yard - but since her legs are so very short and her body is so very long, she almost does a sort of rocking-horse motion when she runs.

I still keep in touch with Angel, the man who rescued her. I think he misses her and I'm glad I can tell him that she's happy and fits in so well around here.

Speaking of happy...

... that is all.

Brothers & Sisters

2010-06-29T11:00:00.008-03:00

I'm flying out to Ontario pretty soon to visit my sister and brother-in-law and meet their two new children for the first time.

My mom has been going a bit nuts over her first grandkids. I think she sends them 'care packages' weekly. My parents have been up to visit once already, and they're coming too when I go there this week.

My mom called me late in the evening a couple of weeks ago to get advice on attaching pictures to email messages. According to her, she couldn't do it because the computer kept telling her "she didn't have the right stuff". Hmm. That's not really the most helpful description. Seeing as how we were already in bed, I chatted with her for a couple of minutes and told her we'd try to help her with her computer problems in the morning. Instead, I woke up the next morning to find I had received about six emails from my mom. Most of them had one or two pictures attached. One email had 126 pictures attached.

Oh mom.

Since I'm leaving town for about a week, I've been holding off on taking new foster dogs into the house and had put the word out that we would not be able to take in new dogs until after I got back. Of course, there was an urgent case that cropped up. There's always an urgent case that crops up. I got a phone call asking if we could help out, so I handed the phone to Mark and left the decision with him, since he'll be the one who has to deal with it while I'm gone.

Consequently, we now have two VERY adorable Chihuahua / Papillon crosses - a brother and sister pair - in our house. Yay! Mark is as crazy as I am!

Glasses in the Mail

2010-06-23T22:27:00.004-03:00

I've recently become addicted to buying glasses off the internet. I found reviews to this website, Zenni, on a forum I read, and since the internet people said it was good, it had to be true. Either that or I was out a grand total of $20, so whatever.

I went for a peek and browsed the ginormous selection of frames. I found a pair I liked and ordered it, and the checked my mailbox at the post office every three hours for the next week and a half.

This is what I got.

I was ecstatic and quite honestly, probably a little bit obsessed. I think I still am.

I ordered another pair of glasses and some sunglasses, both in my prescription, and they arrived as promised too, and I STILL WANT MORE. Mark told me that I could order one pair every month.

Then again, he spilled boiling oil on me today and then laughed when I said 'ouch'. I'm not talking about a sheepish giggle, either. He was gut-laughing and knee slapping and not at all concerned about my well being. I got mad at him and pointed out that he'd just spilled boiling oil on my hand, and he laughed again and said it was funny. I don't think I have to listen to his opinion on glasses in light of this traumatic abusive episode.*

* Calm down there buddy; no actual abuse occurred.

Bright Blue

2010-06-14T17:15:00.006-03:00

Everyone's been whining about the lack of updates around here. I don't leave you hanging very often now, do I? SUCK IT UP. Naw, I don't mean that. Thanks for being loyal fans. I've been working more hours than usual, and Mark's been working more hours than usual, and there have been a million projects to do around here, and non-stop foster dogs until yesterday. Writing has just not happened, until now.

We said goodbye to Hope, the formerly feral dog, on the weekend. Her new family was so excited to take her home that her dad forgot her medication, then his wallet, and then his car keys in our house before he finally made it to the car with her.

The trim finally got painted on the house! Here's what it looks like now.

No, wait, this is what it looks like except the roof is half-ripped-off right now. WHEN WILL IT END??!

The weather has been fabulous lately and lots of things in the yard are blooming. Arlo tried to play with this guy in the picture below, but I shooed him away.

We LOVE our yard this year. It's fully fenced now, so all the dogs hang out with us as we dig in the garden, paint things, eat at the picnic table, and just relax while listening to birds during the day, and peepers in the evening.

Poo-Tee-Weet.

Happy Goodbyes

2010-05-24T22:40:00.001-03:00

After more than a year living in our house as a foster cat, Neville has been adopted! Yes, Neville. I KNOW.

There was a woman who was actually looking for a 'rebel' of a cat, and as soon as she met Neville she was in love. She understood him and his attitude. In fact, she was so happy to meet him that she cried.

The next day we got a phone call from her. My heart skipped a beat - had he bitten her? (Maybe.) Was he being mean? (Almost certainly.) Did she want to bring him back? (Hopefully not!)

There was, however, suddenly twice the cause for celebration in our house because she told us that she also wanted to adopt Betty - one of our other foster cats whom she had met while she was here - so that Neville would always have a friend with him. We already knew that Betty was not scared of Neville, and the two cats seemed happy enough together, so we were overjoyed to hear her request.

Now Neville is gone to a home that understands him, and Betty the sweet, sweet little tabby girl has a forever home too, which she very much deserves.

It's so quiet without Neville here!

Friends

2010-05-19T19:45:00.007-03:00

I took a vacation with my friends Chani and Nay a little while ago. We rented a log house by the ocean and sat around relaxing, reading books, and watching obscene amounts of the Food Network.

Chani, who thinks the world really works like a Disney movie, dutifully left out snacks of all sorts for the various woodland critters that we supposed lived near the log house. We saw very little of this alleged wildlife for the first few days, and watched the offered snacks get eaten mostly by sea gulls and crows, which are boring because we see them all the time.

Chani kept at it. Corn was scattered on the benches in the yard with shocking regularity. carrots were strewn in the driveway, and bread, zucchini, and raspberry cobbler was left on the deck outside the sliding glass doors to the living room.

After a few days, we started to catch fleeting late-night glimpses of a bold raccoon who liked to come up onto the deck to eat. One night as we all sat in the living room watching a movie, the little raccoon showed up for his supper.

Chani was immediately enchanted, and Nay and I quietly grabbed our cameras. We paused the movie and watched the raccoon for a while. Chani promptly named him Darian.

As we sat watching, another little raccoon crept up onto the deck. Darian half-heartedly chased her away from his food dish, but she came slowly slinking back for her share. We called her Marion.

The raccoons were very well aware of our presence behind the glass, and after a few minutes I guess they decided we weren't a threat. We could walk around and talk, and they stayed up on the deck, glancing casually our way every now and again.

Chani sat down on the floor by the sliding glass doors and cooed about how cute they were while Nay and I wandered around with our cameras. The food eventually ran out, and Darian started to explore the rest of the deck. He sniffed the barbeque next to the sliding glass doors, and Chani, mesmerized, pressed her hand to the window.

The raccoon walked up to the glass, looked Chani in the eyes, and PRESSED HIS HAND TO THE GLASS RIGHT WHERE HERS WAS. Chani said "I love you, little raccoon", and started crying.

Sadly, I suspect this will nurture Chani's unhealthy belief that real life really is just like a Disney movie.

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T00:16:00.004-03:00

To a mother who is celebrating her first Mother's Day, and another who has done this already 32 times...

The insanity cannot be quantified. I mean, uhh, Happy Mother's Day!

Mark would like the internet to know that he thinks my mom is "great in a pinch" and "always does the right thing when under pressure". We were having a conversation this morning and he honestly spontaneously said these things. I've heard him say before that my mom is great in a pinch - she doesn't panic, she's logical, she gets things done, and is just a strong person. For clarity, he also wants the world to know that he thinks she's great other times, too - not just in a pinch.

Chocolate Mark

2010-05-02T19:53:00.005-03:00

My sister asked me to email a few pictures of Mark and I to her so that she could show them to Sophia, her little three-year-old daughter that she just adopted.

I don't have many pictures of the two of us because one of us is almost always behind the camera, so I emailed four or five pictures from our big road trip we took around North America a couple of years ago. They looked at them together, and this is how - in my sister's own words - the conversation went.

"Kim (my sister): This is your aunt Julie and Uncle Mark.
Sophia (Kim's daughter): Aunt Julie and Uncle Mark?
Kim: Yup. She sent a few pictures of them for you to look at. Here is the next picture.

Sophia: What are they eating?
Kim: I think its cake. Does it look like cake?
Sophia: Yeah, its cake.
Kim: And here they are in front of chocolate world.

Sophia: They are Aunt Julie and Chocolate Mark.
Kim: Here they are in Las Vegas.

Sophia: Aunt Julie and Chocolate Mark. I want to see the pictures again!"

Apparently they looked at all the pictures like ten times, and Sophia called him Chocolate Mark quite frequently. Mark is very pleased with his new moniker.

Sophia is cool.

Un-Named

2010-04-27T12:39:00.001-03:00

I'm getting a big craving to start doing something with our big treed property. It's there, and it's nothing but trees and gigantic mossy boulders.

It also needs a name. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to throw them at us.

There's so much potential there - we can make our new home there anything at all at this point. It's fun to imagine different things to do.

Soon. Soon.

Out of the Woodwork

2010-04-15T16:41:00.003-03:00

I arrived home from running errands and Mark told me that someone had called asking about little dogs. He said he didn't recognize the number, and when he picked up, the first thing this total stranger said was not "hello" or anything civil, but "DO YOU HAVE ANY LITTLE DOGS?"

Huh.

She apparently rambled on just a little bit, like crazy people often do, and Mark told her that his wife would call her back. I arrived home a short time later and got the message. Ugh.

I didn't formulate a plan as to whether I would actually phone back or not. We're not all about adopting to crazy people, and I just don't like the phone. Fortunately, I didn't have to think about my next move, because the crazy lady skipped a turn by not waiting for a return call, but calling me back again shortly after I got home.

"ARE YOU THE LADY THAT HAS LITTLE DOGS?"

"Sometimes," I told her, "but not right now."

She told me she wanted to adopt a little puppy so I told her to go look online at our group's website because I didn't have any small dogs for adoption in my house at the moment.

She countered by telling me she didn't have a computer. Somehow, I knew this would be the answer before she said it. I told her to go to the library or phone a friend with a computer. Sorry lady, I'm NOT your personal shopper.

You guys might think this was mean, but I never publish my phone number in association with animal rescue, so I don't feel an obligation to help total strangers that somehow get it and don't bother mentioning how they found me. Especially strangers that live a half hour away from me. This person is not my neighbour, or a friend. I don't have a small dog in care. She doesn't have a particular dog in mind. I cannot personally help you, crazy lady.

So she asks for the website. I say "it's A... S... D..."

"--ASP?"

"No, D, as in "dog". A, S, D, rescue.com."

"A, S, P, D, rescue?"

"No A, S, D, rescue.com."

"A, S, P, rescue.com?"

"... yes."

I know. I could have maybe got through to her. I tried though, and I didn't. I got off the phone with her as quickly as I could, and then went upstairs to Mark's office to gossip about her with him. I was washing dishes a little while later, and the phone rang. I had a bad feeling. Looking at the caller i.d., I saw that it was the crazy lady calling. Again.

I continued washing dishes. Leave me alone, crazy lady.

Happy Gotcha Day

2010-04-13T09:58:00.003-03:00

Something unexpected started to happen around the same time that my Grandmother got ill - really ill - and the family all met up in Cape Breton to be with her. It was something my sister had been looking into doing eventually, but the timeline she was told and the timeline that really happened were completely different.

A few short months after starting the SUPPOSEDLY long and arduous process of adopting a little baby, today my sister is the proud mother of a three year old daughter and a four month old son.

Today is the day. They are moving in, and I have two new relatives!

This is my new niece, Sophia*.

This is my new nephew, Bhutan*.

I can only imagine the insanity that is occurring at their house today. Congratulations, Kim and JJ!

* - Not their real names, duh.

Getting Back on Track

2010-03-30T10:04:00.007-03:00

We went to my Grandmother's funeral last week. Mark was a Pall Bearer and was scared for some reason that he would fall down. He did not.

Mark was sick before we left on the long drive to Cape Breton, and by the time we were driving back, I was sick too. We both have a long-lived, miserable, energy-draining sort of mild flu. Congested sinuses, headaches, weakness, runny noses, hurty lungs, the usual wonderful assortment.

By the time I started to feel better, after being away and then being too sick to deal with very much, my house was unrecognizable. Visible piles of dirt, dog hair, and dust coated the floor. The kitchen was overflowing with dirty dishes. Papers, clothes, and other assorted debris covered every flat surface. To top it all off, my back had been hurting for about a week and I couldn't lift anything bigger than a cat. Laundry baskets were impossible, and the vacuum would have to wait. I swept, and my back twinged.

Slowly, things are righting themselves. My back is 95% better (even when I lift things), my flu is about 80% gone, and room by room, the house is returning to a somewhat un-embarrassing state.

Life is a series of chaotic events. I keep expecting it not to be, but that's what keeps happening. It's good to be feeling somewhat healthy again though, and when the clutter in my house is dealt with, I will feel even better. Time to go clean.

Another Goodbye

2010-03-22T12:05:00.003-03:00

Well, my Grandmother died today.

My poor mother sounded so very sad on the phone. It's my job to tell my siblings, but OF COURSE neither one of them is online or answering a phone.

I think she couldn't breathe any more. She was only really in pain for a short time, thankfully.

I am sad for my mother, and worried about my Grandfather. I guess some sort of funeral will happen. I don't know when.

Death in the spring seems sadder. It's like, we all lived through a cold hard winter, and now that things are renewing themselves, it doesn't seem fair that life should come to an end before the flowers bloom. It's been so many months since flowers have bloomed outside - and just as they are starting to poke their heads through the thawing earth, my Grandmother has died.

She made it through the winter. She should have been here to see the flowers.

Invisible Donuts

2010-03-13T20:46:00.003-04:00

So we've been staying in a hotel in Cape Breton for a number of days now, and our stay at this hotel has been, well, a bit weird. This is a fairly remote corner of the country with... ahh... a slightly different culture than we are used to. People here are friendly but boisterous and intrusive. It's kind of like they think everyone here is family, so people take liberties, even with strangers. It all seems very unmalicious though. Does any of this make any sense?

Anyway.

So we're at the hotel. On our first morning here, we straightened away a bit of our clutter and left for the day to visit my grandmother in the hospital. It was a long day and we didn't arrive back at the hotel again until after dark. We walked down the long, quiet hallway to our room and unlocked the door. Every light in our room was off, but there was noise within. We looked at each other and paused. Had they given our room away to someone else? What was going on?

We gingerly stepped into the room and discovered that our tv was on. It had most definitely not been on when we left. We laughed at the vision of the cleaning lady sitting on the edge of the bed amongst our luggage, watching her soaps. We turned off the tv and thought nothing more of it.

The next day we got up and repeated our routine, leaving in the morning and returning to the room after dark. Again, the tv was on in the otherwise completely dark room. We had a great laugh about that as we walked into the room.

My sister wandered over to our pile of snacks, paused for a moment, and then asked us how many donuts we'd been in possession of that morning. Out of a bag of a dozen, we were missing the three donuts we'd eaten that morning, plus one more.

The maid, while watching our tv in our hotel room, had helped herself to one of our donuts.

The maid ate our food.

I am dumbfounded. We cracked up laughing and my sister said she'd write a nasty letter to the hotel chain when she got home. I just keep thinking: seriously? The maid ate our donuts? Seriously?

Wow.

Strength in Numbers

2010-03-12T19:47:00.014-04:00

Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.

~Anthony Brandt

The Coal Miner's Wife

2010-03-05T16:24:00.007-04:00

Insanity ruled this week.

On top of all the errands and tasks associated with creating a non-profit organization, there have been animal health issues to deal with (everyone's okay) and family issues to deal with on top of that (everyone's not quite okay).

My maternal grandmother, a sweet little woman who has been fighting cancer for years, was rushed to the hospital in extreme pain a couple of days ago. It was touch and go but she is stable for the moment.

When this happened my poor mother was in the Dominican Republic - my parents were on a vacation they'd been planning for months. They're still there.

I think it's been torture for them for the following reasons:

Tropical vacation ruined.
Loved one deathly ill, thousands of miles away, while
they can't get an earlier flight home, and
they can't even really get a phone connection out of the country.

There they are, sitting in paradise, which is now a prison for them, waiting for the hours to tick down until their regularly scheduled flight, hoping that Nanny's health doesn't deteriorate further while they are waiting, and also hoping there are no flight delays once it's time to fly.

I've been calling my mother multiple times a day to give her updates. She has a lot of trouble phoning out of the country, but incoming calls seem to go through fine, and only get dropped once in a while. Every time we talk, we schedule the next phone call so that she'll be sure to be in her room. Then, when the time comes, I phone her old homestead in Cape Breton, get an update, and then phone the Dominican and relay information.

They'll be home tomorrow morning, and after exchanging bathing suits for snow boots, will be on their way to Cape Breton. I think Mark and I are going sometime next week.

I have memories of arriving at that warm little house as a child and getting to choose from three different kinds of home-made pie to eat. I remember wandering the wild blueberry fields behind the house. If we picked enough blueberries, another home-made pie would be made. It seemed that everyone in town stopped by that house at one time or another, long enough to enter the back door and sit at the kitchen table for a cup of tea or, as appropriate, a drink of moonshine (again, home-made).

It will be good to go back, even under these circumstances. I will enter the door and see my mother and her sisters busy at the kitchen counter, instead of my Grandmother. We'll have tea; we'll talk. Everything will be the same but different.

Photo courtesy of my mother.

Jung Test Comments

2010-02-28T17:37:00.002-04:00

Here's the part where I get to make fun of you using your Jung test results (and Mark got the same results as me, for those of you who are curious):

Kristie: it figures.

Chani: You? Judging? I have no comment. (ha ha!)

Megan: Dude, you're just not introverted. You obviously cheated on the test. Minus five points for you.

Angela: I actually couldn't have predicted what you would get. But, doing more in-depth research about it is TOTALLY YOU.

K: It's suitable that you got "Feeling" instead of "Thinking". You're so compassionate - it fits. Disclaimer though: Mark is upset that I wrote this about you, because "it doesn't sound nice". I will try to make him feel better by announcing that K is not dumb. She's just compassionate.

The thing is, out of everyone who told me their scores, we ALL got "Judging" instead of "Perceiving". Does that mean that I can only stand to hang out with other judgemental people? Hmm...

Mastermind

2010-02-19T10:49:00.005-04:00

I took the Jung Typology Test today. It tells you what traits make up your personality. The title given to my particular combination of traits (INTJ - Introversion, iNtuition, Thinking, Judgment) is "Mastermind".

Huh.

It takes less than five minutes - go take the test! Come back and comment, or email me, and tell me what you are. We can have fun making fun of each other.

(Personal note to someone who reads this blog but shall remain nameless: I am indeed an INTROVERT. In fact, I got an 89% in that category. When I say I'm uncomfortable socializing with the vast, vast army of people who are your friends and distant relatives, I'm not just being difficult.)

In other news, I've made a bit of a leap in the animal rescue world. Although I am not a "small dog person" in particular, I do own two small dogs. I also became involved with the small dog rescue groups that are active around here a few months ago, but it really, really hasn't worked very well. The two active groups here are both based like a thousand miles away in another province. (I cut ties with one of them a few months ago and told you briefly about it here). I don't know what the hell the people in charge of these groups are thinking, but I wince every time I hear about some sort of decision they've made.

Like, when we fostered that Shih-Tzu puppy. A family applied to adopt him, but oops, would not be ready to actually own a dog for at least a month. The group approved the adoption (!!) with no input from me, and told (not asked) me to just keep the dog hanging around for another month until the people were ready.

I told them there was a dog in my local pound that I needed to take, as there are no other foster homes available to get dogs out of the pound during cold weather, but I was told that since I had the little Shih-Tzu, I was not allowed to foster for my other group at the same time. My other group would have been fine with it. So the dog, MJ, was expected to rot in the pound or be euthanized while I provided free babysitting service for A MONTH for this potential adoptive family that was not yet ready to adopt.

Then? Then? The approved adoptive family wasn't ready at the end of the month after all, and asked for more time. I suggested that we either ask the people to put him in paid boarding, or move on to another family who was actually ready to adopt, since we'd received multiple applications for this dog. Nope. Apparently there is free dog boarding at my house, and apparently I'm good enough to raise a puppy and buy his food, but not good enough to have input into the adoption process at all.

So yesterday, out of the blue, the president of that group sends out a condescending email to everyone that said a LOT of stuff that I won't get into because this is a blog; not a novel. Okay, just one thing: she chastised everyone for trying to adopt foster dogs out too quickly. The quality of the adoptive homes was fine, and all vet work has always been completed beforehand; it's just that we're adopting them out too fast. Mmkay. Do you KNOW how many homeless dogs there are out there?

It makes no sense to me, and seems quite counter-productive. The awful thing is, EVERYTHING they decree seems to make no sense and seems quite counter-productive. Then, we get long emails like the one from yesterday that make us feel like we're schoolchildren who have been caught passing notes in class. We're told that all the work we're doing to rescue dogs is breaking "the rules" in various ways, and that these "issues" needed to be "addressed" by us all following the long list of seemingly arbitrary rules, despite the fact that everyone in Nova Scotia is scrambling to deal with an influx of small dogs in the rescue system, and that following the (unhelpful) rules means that some dogs don't get rescued.

Yeah, I shared my thoughts with her in an email, then I quit the group, then I started my own small dog rescue group. Everyone that is/was a member of the other group and lives in Nova Scotia promptly joined. They were all pretty fed up with the mean emails/power trips, and some of them had also resigned after reading that latest email from on high.

I didn't really WANT to organize a small dog rescue group, but there are none based in Nova Scotia so it kind of makes sense.

Call me crazy. I know that's what you're already thinking anyway.

Saved by a Shoe Lace

2010-02-15T18:43:00.007-04:00

THIS IS A GORE WARNING. DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE GORE.

Okay, now that that's over with, I don't expect any complaints. Chani, I'm looking at you.

The weekend was so very nice, we decided that we would trespass on the property that we're buying (but don't yet officially own). Since it's winter and the property is just a giant forested tract of land covered in a thick layer of snow, we went snowshoeing to see what we could see. Our friend Jay went with us.

It was a great hike! We even saw a porcupine rambling around!

The boys admired all the giant granite rock formations, and we slowly meandered through the woods, occasionally checking the GPS to see where we were.

We found a strange little patch of snow that seemed disturbed and, well, kinda dirty looking. There were tufts of fur scattered around. Oh no!! Further investigation turned up this gem, among other things:

It was a deer. There were bits scattered over a wide area, so we figured lots of meat-eating critters had been in on the feast. A few minutes later we found some clear tracks and decided that coyotes had definitely benefited from the deer's demise. Maybe they caused it too; who knows. Circle of life.

I'm glad I didn't find this stuff when I hiked the property alone a few weeks ago!

We made it further on snowshoes than I had gone before, and really just thoroughly enjoyed ourselves out in the mild winter air. We eventually turned around to make the long trek back to the road, and then a pocket of snow collapsed under my snowshoes and I fell. I looked down at my foot, and discovered that the bindings on my snowshoe had snapped.

It had taken us almost two hours to get this far.

It would be dark soon.

My snowshoe was broken.

At least the coyotes wouldn't likely be very hungry.

The boys pulled me to my feet and put their clever heads together. They made a few jokes at my expense, and then they managed to rig my bindings back together with one of Jay's boot laces that he very kindly donated to the cause of "getting Julie back to the car".

The new and improved snowshoe worked, and we made our way back through the woods.

The trees were beautiful. The giant rock formations were wonderful. The views were amazing, and the hike was well worth it. Nature is cool.

Chunk

2010-02-12T10:50:00.006-04:00

So we have a big clumsy clown of a Pit Bull in our house right now, and he is named Wilbur. Only I can't help but call him "Chunk" instead. It just really fits - trust me on this one.

Chunk is a sweet and happy and cute young dog, but also a stubborn, strong, overly excitable bull in a china shop at the same time. He's a good dog but needs... patience? Is that the word I'm looking for? The fact that he pulls the door off his kennel (from the inside!!) when we're not home, and then eats all our Q-tips, and then later on gets so happy when our friends come over that he accidentally pees himself, and then immediately proceeds to drown said friends in the most lovable kisses imaginable, results in some emotions that I feel I cannot accurately describe in writing. Chunk has to be experienced in person.

I got a call from a person who had been approved to adopt him yesterday! Yay! Most people who call about our foster dogs have a list of questions, or are unsure and want me to lead the conversation, and talk reticently about meeting the dog before making a decision, but this lady? She was all like "when can I come get him? Is tomorrow too soon?" She was confident, bold, forward, decisive.

This is EXACTLY what Chunk needs.

I liked the woman right away, but carefully tried to warn her about Chunk's less wonderful qualities, which mostly have to do with his lack of self-restraint, with a little bit of clumsiness and immense pit bull strength thrown in. I wanted her eyes to be open. He'll be a superb dog in the right home, but a terror in the wrong home. In either case, he needs work.

She was absolutely unflappable and told me she was taking him home tomorrow. Guys, I am really hoping that she and her family love him to death. I hope they love everything about him, and I hope he fits nicely into their household. They'll have a one-week trial sleepover, and if all goes well he'll be theirs forever.

She'll be here in two hours - wish our Chunk luck in his new life!

Girly Weekend

2010-02-08T13:35:00.005-04:00

The group of friends that I have fallen in with have a few traditions. One of them is that all the girls get away for a weekend once or twice a year, go to a cottage or cabin, and just chill. The rules are: no pets, no partners, no kids.

We had ourselves a girly weekend this past weekend. It was the first one I've attended. It was relaxing, inspiring, and completely ridiculous, all at the same time.

From the piñata to the scorched pine nuts to the horror movies to Chani drunkenly passing out and waking up like three separate times during the same evening, it was an unbridled riot of girly giggling.

We stayed at a little cottage overlooking the ocean that was only about ten minutes outside of town. It was fun times and good food.

There was just one thing that really bothered me. Should I say it? Will it ruin any friendships? Okay, here it goes: What the *%&$* is going on in the film "Eraserhead"? Chani is no longer allowed to choose the movies.

She can make cupcakes whenever she want to, though.

Avascular Necrosis

2010-02-02T11:23:00.007-04:00

It snowed a lot on Friday. The consistency of this particular snowfall was powdery and fine, and because it's been so cold, the snow has stayed that way instead of condensing into a manageable viscous mass on the ground. The wind has been blowing this snow (about two feet of it) all around the valley and we have been forced to re-shovel little paths in our back yard for the dogs about two or three times a day for like four days now, even though it hasn't snowed since Friday. We shovel, and the wind continues to blow and an hour later the paths are filled in with this vindictive powdery snow.

Anyway.

We had a jam party on Saturday night. Not jam as in preserves, but an unrehearsed rock concert staged for a smattering of friends. Mark played guitar and a bit of bass until the wee hours of the night, and Captain D. set up his fancy high-tech drum set and kept an enthusiastic beat the entire time.

Me? I hung out near the fire for the most part.

We got home late that night to discover that Minerva, our miracle kitten, was dragging her back leg and in pain. Crap! We examined her with concern, and went to bed in the hopes that the boo-boo would correct itself by morning. After all, kittens do stupid things all the time. On Sunday she still seemed hurt, but occasionally walked using the leg. We made a vet appointment anyway for Monday morning and took her in.

The funny thing is, she's had leg trouble before. When she was a tiny kitten and just learning to walk, one leg and then another suddenly went lame and veeery slooowly improved over time. She'd been to the vet numerous times at that stage, and even had x-rays done, but as her bones had not yet fully formed, the x-rays showed nothing but a blur of cartilage.

We had thought nothing more of her early leg issues until now. She's almost six months old, so when the vet took x-rays this week, we were able to see what the problem was. The ethereal images of bone and flesh showed that her femur - the upper leg bone - ended strangely with no ball on the end of the bone - it was as if the bone just petered out. This is actually exactly what happened. Likely due to her traumatic start in life, Minerva's leg bone in that leg does not join up to her hip bone in any sort of sensible fashion. As the leg bone was developing, the blood vessels simply did not provide an adequate supply of blood, and the bone died off on the end. She now has a sharply ended bone and some loose fragments where a ball joint should sit in the pelvic socket. Those pieces are currently rubbing painfully against her pelvic bone.

It's called Avascular Necrosis.

She's too delicate to do a hip replacement surgery. In fact, the vet says she is currently about the size of a three-month-old kitten, and is not likely to get larger because her growth plates have already fused. She won't lose her leg, but they may have to perform surgery on her to remove the bone fragments and grind down the sharp end of her femur to create a false joint. She's getting spayed in two weeks, and if her leg is not working properly by then, they'll operate on her leg at that time.

I feel so bad. This poor little girl has had to fight all her life, and now this. It's manageable and she'll be okay, but this poor kitty deserves a break.

Lots To Tell

2010-01-25T22:54:00.001-04:00

Wow, long break from posting.

I've been sick for a bit (THANKS A LOT, NAY) but today I feel better than I did yesterday, and I can breathe through my mouth AND nose, and I can also speak. My head no longer hurts, and I'm hopeful that the unpleasantness going on in my lungs will subside shortly.

Soooo much has happened. I neglected entirely to tell you about this guy:

and he's now at Nay's kennel because we got this other guy out of the pound on Friday.

I'm pretty sure both will be adopted quickly. We've got to keep the revolving door turning though, as there are reportedly two more dogs still waiting in the pound. We're the only family in the county who can quarantine during cold weather, so it's a needed thing. I'm glad to be making a difference.

Now.

Onto the bigger news.

Much bigger news.

185 acres big, to be exact.

Remember, a while back, when we started our grand hunt for property, and the big messes we were constantly getting ourselves into? Like, submitting a total of eight offers, for - I dunno - maybe four or five different properties, and how it took months and months and was very painful, and involved things like, sellers taking their properties off the market after verbally agreeing to our offer price, and people putting bleach down wells, and me having to call the Real Estate Commission to recover my deposit on a house that a seller didn't sell me? Remember all that fun?

We found a property.

It's right down the road. Nobody did anything weird when we made an offer, and now it will be ours in a few weeks. When we drafted up our offer and sent it on its way, Mark glanced at me with a far away look in his eye and said 'remember when we used to do this every week?'

Sadly, I do. Anyway Mark's been talking about this particular property for months. Word around the county is that the seller really wanted to get rid of it, so when the price came down - significantly - I went up to take a hike through some of it.

Of course, this is January in Canada. The going was not that easy. I parked on the side of the road, hopped a big ditch into a snowbank, and started to plow my way uphill among the trees and undergrowth. The property has large, whimisical boulders and rock formations scattered all around it.

As I went along I came across a large number of well-used deer and rabbit trails in the snow. It didn't take me long to realize that the snow was shallowest where the deer trails were, so after a while I stuck to their meandering paths.

Every now and again I would stop scrambling through the snow long enough to take out my GPS and see how far towards the back of the property I had gone. The answer was always: not very far. There was rumoured to be a logged and re-planted area behind the untouched trees at the front, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally hit it. I was sure I could see the replanted red spruces sticking their little sapling heads up through the snow, but as the snow was now thigh-deep and almost impossible to walk in due to the uneven ground, scrub, and logs hidden under its pristine white cover, I had to turn around. It had taken me an hour to get that far, and I was tired and out of breath. I was also not yet halfway to the back of the property.

Having seen all that I needed to see, I turned around.

Mark and I looked at pictures, considered our acreage wish list, made a decision, and submitted an offer. It looks like all systems are go, and next month we will own the fabled property that escaped us when we tried this last time.

Journey's End

2010-01-14T10:12:00.007-04:00

An early morning phone call.

A duffel bag, hastily packed.

We dropped our dogs off at Nay's kennel and drove through the snow to Mark's mother's house where we greeted her with silent hugs. Her mother, Mark's Gran, had died early that morning.

Gran was a hilariously cantankerous human being who never lost an opportunity to let loose with a witty comment or dry observation. Originally a war bride from London, England, she possessed the famous British 'stiff upper lip'. I think Mark inherited his love for animals from her in addition to recently inheriting her two cats, Puff and Toby, whom we have since renamed Snuff and Stogie.

Mark's mom Deb was with Gran when she died. They'd both had a very nice time the evening before, visiting with each other and playing cards. Deb even taught Gran's gentleman friend to play their favourite card game, and they all three passed an enjoyable evening in each others' company.

Then, well, things went downhill and Gran died during the night of a massive heart attack. Like I said, Deb was with her the whole time, and I'm very glad of that.

When we arrived at Deb's house she was sad but composed. We spent the day with her running the sort of errands one needs to run when a family member dies. Gran had not wanted a funeral, so instead we are having a sort of wake for her this coming weekend. Instead of flowers we're asking everyone to make a donation to SHAID in her memory.

Thanks for the condolences we've already received. Don't be sad for Gran. She was ready. We will miss her though.

Pictures courtesy of Mark's brother Matt.

Where's my flying Car?!

2010-01-11T20:52:00.003-04:00

So it's 2010. Elvis is dead, the Roman Empire fell long ago, and this is the year that I'm supposed to get a flying car.

Because it's 2010, you know.

So far, for me, this year's notable activities have mainly consisted of both recovering from and cleaning up after holiday celebrations from 2009. Also, due to living in an "underserviced" area of the world in terms of actual physical proximity to real live doctors, this year's notable activities have also consisted of a series of long and short car drives, followed by another series of long and short waiting times, to renew perscriptions for medicines that keeps me alive and healthy.

It's LOADS of fun waiting for five hours in a hospital emergency room in order to ask the doctor to take five seconds to write out a perscription that I've previously taken and now need renewed. Why can't I just renew that mofo myself? On the other hand, I also have the option of booking an appointment in a clinic two hours away. So... short drive, long wait; or long drive, short wait. Either way it takes up a lot of time and does not fall within the realm of "fun leisure activities" for me.

ANYWAY. Please don't take this as an indication that I'm ungrateful to live in a country with such affordable health care. Yes, I have to wait five hours for a perscription, but if my head was falling off? FRONT OF THE LINE, BABY! I'd be waiting less than fifteen seconds if that was my ailment!

Oh, right, where's my flying car, anyway?? Maybe if I had one of those, I could fly to a doctor.

So happy new year. Here's to 2010.

Holiday Hijinx

2009-12-30T21:51:00.004-04:00

So Mark went over to a friend's house today to help her set up a new computer. She's a woman 'of a certain age', recently separated and soon to be divorced. While he was there, her estranged husband phoned.

She promptly told him she was busy; she had a man in her bedroom.

Thankfully, Mark made it out alive.

And now for something completely different - we had a dinner party last night and deep-fried everything we could think of. Our friends showed up with lots of different ingredients and even brought an extra deep fryer.

Today, after cleaning up the fallout, I looked on top of the fridge and noticed something wonderful. Somewhere between the deep fried bananas with vanilla ice cream and the deep fried Mars Bars that accidentally got thrown under the couch a little bit, we had forgotten about a bunch of Christmas goodies that other people had brought for dessert.

Mmm... Opera Cake, some sort of Scotcheroo-type squares, authentic Italian baked goods, fudge, and truffles.

Wow, what a score. We couldn't help but have a bit, but we'll bring all those goodies along to the New Years celebration tomorrow, and reunite them with their proper owners. And then hopefully eat some more of them.

She Sees You When You're Sleeping...

2009-12-24T16:12:00.005-04:00

Well it's Christmas eve, and we've been going nuts with all the usual holiday stuff - lots of visiting and socializing, which is sometimes enjoyable (ahem, Mel, our friend from university, and her husband Dave) and sometimes throws me into an anti-social panic (ahem, neighbourhood Christmas party).

Tonight there are presents to wrap, parties to attend, and friends to visit. There were also biscuits to ruin, but I already did that.

Virginia Melinda requested updated pics of Minerva - here she is playing with Zelda, who is her best friend.

Happy holidays to everyone. Yay Christmas!

Triumphant Return

2009-12-20T10:33:00.005-04:00

Well Mark and Jay got back safe and sound and tired yesterday. They had driven pretty much non-stop and had made it to Philadelphia around noon on Saturday. The dogs that they were transporting were very nice and well-behaved in the car and both of the boys liked them quite a bit.

After about 20 hours of being in the car, when they were about three blocks from their home in Pennsylvania, the dogs got restless and excited. They knew they were home. At last they arrived, and the dogs' owner was absolutely overcome with joy. She was happy to have her dogs safely back home, and extremely grateful to the boys for bringing them so far and doing such a nice deed for a total stranger.

Mark and Jay visited with them for a few hours and were treated to all the best types of food that Philadelphia had to offer. It was a really pleasant visit, but there was a storm on the horizon, so the boys said goodbye and started on the long trip home again.

Along the way they worked out how to solve a few of the world's problems, drove, slept, and asked a lot of total strangers what the capital of West Virginia is. I think naming all the state capitals was their little way of staying awake and alert, and that one stumped them. When they were stopped in traffic, they would roll down the window and start a conversation about state capitals with people on the street or in other cars near them. Silly Canadians!

They drove for something like 17 more hours, crossed the border again, and made it to the ferry terminal in New Brunswick with a whole hour to spare before the ferry left. Then, after a three hour ferry ride and one more hour of driving, the heroes returned triumphantly!

They made it through a magic window of (almost completely) good weather, with storms here while they were gone, and storms in New England chasing after them as they drove home again.

3,700 kilometres on the road.

52 hours of traveling.

2 provinces.

2 countries.

7 states.

1 feel-good Christmas story.

PS - The capital of West Virginia is Charleston. Who knew?

Mark's Hitting the Road!

2009-12-16T15:49:00.007-04:00

Much to his surprise, Mark will be on his way to Philadelphia tomorrow.

It's a long, convoluted story. I will tell you the parts that I know.

There was this lady from Philadelphia, I don't know her name. She was in Cape Breton helping out a sick relative. She had her two dogs with her. She took very ill (I know no details) and had to be flown back to the U.S. and admitted to a hospital. I think she is still in the hospital. Her dogs are still in Canada though!

Side note - Cape Breton is in the middle of nowhere. No, actually, it can be more accurately stated that Cape Breton is on the very edge of the middle of nowhere. If you drive to the eastern edge of this country, and then drive across a long bridge to a seemingly uninhabited land mass that can be seen off in the distance, you end up in ~~Prince Edward Island~~ Cape Breton (which is actually even further off the beaten track than P.E.I.). Then, just keep driving for another couple of hours. That's where the woman's dogs are, in a boarding kennel.

The dogs can't be flown this time of year, and I don't think there's anybody that the woman could even ask to buy dog crates, get the dogs to the airport, et cetera. My friends and I all got an email about this sad situation forwarded from our rescue group. I read it and closed it, thinking "too bad; nothing I can do". Our friend Jay is obviously much more kind-hearted than I am, because he promptly decided that he would drive to Cape Breton (which is off the edge of the middle of nowhere), get the dogs, and then drive to Pennsylvania with them for a magical Christmas reunion with their sick mama.

Mark is going to be his co-pilot.

Those two are gonna have A TONNE OF FUNNE together. All I can say is, they'd better not get stopped by bad weather, because there are only so many days in a row that I feel like going to work (yes, I am working this week) and then coming home alone to take care of our three dogs, six cats, and the foster dog, who has to be walked separately from our own dogs because she has Whipworm and Hookworm.

What's that about a foster dog? I forgot to tell you guys - the little fluffy puppy is adopted, and a beautiful black dog is sitting in quarantine in my mudroom. She's VERY sweet, and her name is M.J.

She is fabulous and I expect her to get adopted very quickly once the holidays are over.

Wish the boys luck on their trip.

Winter Weather

2009-12-11T08:22:00.009-04:00

The Annapolis River froze over briefly this week. I don't know why I was so surprised to see it as I rounded the bend by the riverbank. I mean, the river froze last winter. I guess I'm just not used to being back in a cold-weather climate. There's been snow off and on for the last week and the temperature has taken a definite plunge.

Remember when I mentioned the house next door to us, many months ago, and I said that Santa Claus lives there? Well, now that it's December, he seems to have taken a little trip, and has asked us to feed his cats for him. This is more evidence. He is Santa Claus! I will report any further Santa-Claus-like activity as it occurs.

The dogs (except for Oliver) have been enjoying bouncing around in the snow. Arlo and Zelda chase each other all around the yard, and Zelda barks these shrill barks that sound like she's being murdered, the entire time.

We got a Christmas tree yesterday, but the decorations aren't up yet. We also went out and did the last little bits of our Christmas shopping yesterday, and it wasn't a moment too soon. The stores were all crazy-busy-insane. Since being in crowds pretty much makes me have a heart attack, it was a tiny bit stressful. Oh well. All done.

Small Dog People Rant

2009-12-10T15:26:00.001-04:00

Although she has Swine Flu, Chani has scraped together the energy to whine about the length of time between posts around here.

It's about quality, not quantity.

But, to make her happy, here is a post. While we're at it, congratulations Chani and Captain D. on their new dog, the Earl of Doozer:

Alrighty. On the weekend, Nay and I attended a party for the small dog rescue group we recently started volunteering for. Now, all dogs deserve good homes, regardless of size, but I really get frustrated with the small dog rescue groups I've encountered so far. It's like they're immune to actual knowledge about dogs, to the point that someone on a mailing list recently pointed out that Chihuahuas that live in Canada should not be taken outside AT ALL during the winter because their lungs are too small. Nobody on the mailing list refuted this claim. I didn't either, I admit it, but it's because I try not to communicate with these people beyond saying whatever needs to be said to foster the dogs.

So my thought, when I read about this cold weather claim, was 'Uhh, what?' Our Oliver, who is the same size as - but has less fur than - the average Chihuaua, went to the Yukon and back with us in an unheated travel trailer, and he survived. He thrived, even. He also goes outside multiple times, every single day, even in the winter. We are clearly neglectful parents.

This begs the question: where do the small dogs, er, use the bathroom? Well, if they're not doing it outside, it's safe to say that they're doing it inside. I'll just let you think about that.

So.

We went to the small dog party, where there was a towel by the door for the dogs to do their business on. Other than that, it was actually not too bad. By some fortunate alignment of the planets, the Nova Scotia people who participate in this rescue group seem to have brains for the most part. (The Ontario people, one of whom made the infamous Chihuahua lung claim, make me mad. Too bad they make ALL of the decisions regarding dogs in foster homes.)

We brought our foster dog Remi, and left him there to be handed off to his new owners, who are officially adopting him within the next few days.

Nay and I sat down and watched all 14 dogs run maniacally around the house and had pretty pleasant conversations with the other people who attended. It was festive, so that was fun.

Disclaimer: I do own small dogs. I expect them to behave themselves, and I don't pretend that they are human infants. They are small, yes, but that does not mean that they can't eat the same food other dogs eat, and go on walks like other dogs. Even in the winter.

I don't know how much longer I can bear to try to cooperate with these small dog groups. These people, aside from their interesting philosophy on small dogs versus real dogs, don't seem to operate with the same basic rules that other dog rescue groups use. Rules that were designed to keep the dog's welfare in the forefront. It's a lot of "industry talk", so I won't get into it, but suffice it to say I'm a bit frustrated. I'll try to hang on though, simply because it makes for good reading.

Lilac Wood

2009-12-03T13:00:00.000-04:00

A Lilac tree fell down in our yard, so Jay came over with a brand new chainsaw, and he and Mark made us some Lilac firewood.

Smells niiiice. Also, I noticed when I was stacking it that the inside of the tree is naturally stained with purple. I've never seen this before. I think it's kind of cool.

Anyway, life goes on here. Our current foster dog, Remi, has an adoption pending, but is still here.

On Saturday I'm taking him to a puppy party hosted by the Tiny Paws people. There are apparently going to be about a dozen little dogs running around at this party. They also said that there would be a "big dog" there, and other big dogs are welcome, but I strongly suspect that the "big dog" they are talking about is a Beagle.

I had made up my mind that I would bring Arlo and see if anyone panicked (and then laugh if they did; come on, it's ARLO), but then I thought about how much all the little dogs would bug him, and I couldn't do it. Zelda the Dachshund, our newest permanent dog, is not ready for an event of this caliber. Oliver, now. I can just pick Oliver up if the other dogs are brats, so he's coming too. We bought him an awesome new winter hoodie to wear.

I'll try to take pictures for y'all. Should be fun.

Getting Festive

2009-12-01T10:42:00.006-04:00

So it's December 1st, and we're all gearing up into Christmas mode. Which means, in reality, we're getting stressed out, power-shopping for presents, wearing toques on walks because it's finally cold, and juggling travel plans and social events.

We were grocery shopping last week in the far-away town that has a big grocery store, and they had Soy Egg Nog in the hippie section. Against my better judgment, I picked up a carton. There was no way it would be any good, but I couldn't not try it. I really do like Egg Nog, but we try not to buy a lot of milk products so I didn't want to buy any of the real stuff.

So we we had a little dinner party with our friends the next day. Right before the company arrived I brought out the Soy Nog and tried it and... it is effing delicious. I promptly poured a shot of rum in it and it became the drink of the evening. Chani had some and loved it too. This is too exciting for words! I have to go back to the grocery store now and buy like five cartons of that stuff. With my luck they will be sold out.

The dinner party was pretty cool - it was the usual group (Mark, me, Chani, Nay, and Jay) minus Captain D., who is always working, and plus Chani's mother, who got tipsy off wine and wandered into the living room after dinner and slept on our couch.

Earlier that day the house was clean, the food fixings were mostly ready, and I was power cleaning our new kitchen table, which we had salvaged from Chani's barn. I had baking soda and vinegar all over my hands when I was done cleaning the table, and so I went to wash them.

Turned on the tap.

Nothing came out.

It was t-minus two hours til party time, and our house had no water. This was nothing new. We'd lost water the previous week for about three hours, and a few days before, our power had decided to permanently go on "halfsies" power. Which meant, our stove lights turned on when you turned the dial, but the elements did not heat up. The microwave went full power for two seconds when it was turned on, but then did a really creepy half-power slow-down. The overhead light in the living room flickered randomly between bright and dim. Then out. Then dim again. Then we woke up the next morning and our electric heat, which is what heats our entire house, was no longer working. The house was coooold.

Yay for the holidays! What a perfect time to lose power and water!

So we called in an electrician, who told us to unplug all major appliances and call the utility company. I called the utility company, and through a magical holiday miracle, they had their giant elevator-basket truck out to our house about a half hour later. Then they replaced a whole bunch of crap - actually pretty much everything - in the power pole we are connected to and told us that it had been in very bad shape. It's been almost a week, and the halfsies power seems to be gone for good.

I was feeling a bit manic, so I called the power company back and waited on hold. A tired-sounding operator took my call and looked up my file, noting in an emotionless montone that I'd called them an hour ago. I said that yes, I had, and the problem was already fixed, and I wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you for doing it so quickly. She let out a startled giggle and voiced her surprise that I'd called again. I told her that I figured everyone always called when they took too long to fix a problem, so I wanted to call because they'd been so very quick about it. Her voice lost the monotone and she seemed genuinely pleased. She asked if she could send my comment to her supervisors. I think I made her like her job that day.

Oh right.

I was talking about a dinner party, and water.

That was actually not such a big deal. They dug a hole down the street from our house and had water running again about an hour after it had stopped. I finally washed the crusty baking soda from my hands and the rest of the night was a rousing success.

So. Christmas will be here in less than a month. It sure would be nice to get some nice pots for plants, or even some nice house plants. Or a sturdy cookie jar for the dogs. Or a Fiskars splitting axe with a 4 pound head for Mark.

Ahem.

From The Heart

2009-11-23T08:48:00.009-04:00

Okay, so apparently, my last entry was cryptic and kinda misleading. I went back and re-read it, and it really is.

We had a good vacation.

We had a lot of fun with our friends from Victoria, who were kind enough to put us up in their houses and feed us DELICIOUS food.

I just, I just... I didn't want to make a big shopping list of all our activities, but I didn't know what else to write about it without going too far into detail about the personal lives of our friends. You guys hear personal details about my life here, because I choose to write and publish them. My friends didn't make that choice, and thusly deserve a measure of privacy, which is why I started using fake names when writing about our new friends here in Bridgetown. I still don't write very personal things about our friends here - for instance, if one of them had a set of "magic wishing nipples", would I blog about it? Well, apparently I might mention it, but you still don't know details and don't know who it is. We see or talk to our friends here almost every single day, but I'd say you guys have heard about less than ten percent of the interesting things that happen with them. In fact, there are a few people who we socialize with quite often who've never even been mentioned here. They didn't choose to have their lives published on the internet, so I try to keep a big privacy barrier there. There have been some pretty controversial things that have happened with our friends and family, but it wouldn't be nice for me to go writing about all the sensitive things going on in other peoples' lives here, so I don't.

I guess I screwed this thing up concerning our trip though. It was such a strange mix of emotions, going back to visit a place that we had loved living in, because we'd decided with a good deal of finality and surety that we didn't want to live there any more. This vacation was kind of handed to us by Mark's work, and before we knew it someone else had made the decision that we would be visiting Victoria again for the first time since we'd moved away.

When Mark told me that his work wanted to fly us out there, I was instantly stressed out. (You guys know how I get.) We didn't have a lot of notice, and there were contractors working on our house, racing the clock to get siding on before the weather turned too wintery. How would we deal with that if we were not here? As it was, we had to hand someone else an envelope with thousands of dollars in cash in it, and ask them to please inspect the new siding and give the money to the contractors when they were done (thank you Nay and Jay). Also, the sheer number of cats and dogs that now inhabit the house makes travelling more difficult. Minerva the kitten is finally weaned and big enough to manage by herself most of the time, but she's not big enough to be unsupervised in the house for nine days. Chani was kind enough to babysit her for us. Then there's the weather around these parts. As you already know, we ended up leaving for our trip by driving to the airport in a snow storm.

I am happy that Mark's work paid for us to go out to the west coast. It was nice of them to do and we had a lot of fun, but by dictating our travel details they took some of the control away from us, and that made travelling just a bit weird. I'm not used to 'business trips'.

Thus, it was a lot harder for me to write about than I thought it would be. When we were in Tofino, I just blathered on about the beaches and the weather and such. I went to write about the days we spent in Victoria with our friends and I. Couldn't. Do. It.

Victoria, we broke up with you. You're a nice city - it wasn't your fault. It was strange going out with you again last week. Yes, Nova Scotia treats us well. We're sorry you got custody of our friends, Victoria. Now, when we want to see them, there you are too, and it's a bit awkward. We miss them, Victoria. Be good to them.

So thank you Megan. You took time out of your hectic life to host us, and you don't have a spare bedroom so you gave up your living room so we could camp out at your house. You put up with me getting sick and being a zombie, and didn't even make fun of me too much for it. We like your new boyfriend and hope that all the huge plans you have for the next couple of years work out for you. You deserve it.

Thank you Kristina. You went with me to my favourite sushi dive, and mourned with me when I found out that the sunomono lady was no longer working there. You even became a spy and told me where she works now. You drove around downtown with me, and you hate driving as much as I do. You are cool.

Thank you Jeff. (Where's my magic trick??!) You are Mark's secret non-biological twin. You two think all the same insanely obscure thoughts, and like all the same insanely strange jokes. The one thing I hate about not living in Victoria is that we don't get to see you so often any more, and we've been apart so long that you think it might be possible that we don't have fun when we're with you.

We did.

I should have said so even if I didn't know how to say it. We hope you had fun too!

Not My Style (of dog!)

2009-11-19T20:36:00.006-04:00

Well we had a great time in Tofino and headed down to Victoria for another few days of vacation before flying back to Halifax.

And, try as I might, I haven't been able to expand on that sentence all week.

You guys want a synopsis of our vacation? We went to BLANK restaurants, the weather was BLANK, and we saw all our old friends BLANK, BLANK and BLANK.

Y'know? As much fun as all that stuff was (and it really was), I think it makes for boring reading.

So...

We came back to this little pile of rags.

He's the latest foster dog, Remi.

He arrived a few days before we were set to leave on our trip. A new group we are fostering for, Tiny Paws, asked if we could take a ten-week-old Shih Tzu / Lhasa Apso cross in. Those of you who know me well know that this is not my favourite kinda dog. Little wussy puppies? With buggly eyes and smooshy noses? And prissy little haircuts with bows on top of their heads? Uhh, no. I HAVE met Shih Tzus I like before. Precisely three, and two were owned by the same people (must have been how they were raised).

So very smugly, I told the rescue group "oh we'd LOVE to help you out, but you see, we're leaving town for nine days, otherwise we could do it, but oh well" and I thought that was the end of the story. Didn't the sneaky people ask Nay and Jay if they would babysit the puppy for us while we were gone! And they AGREED!

So we're stuck with a puppy who jumps on Oliver's head and makes him growl, and pees on the carpet, and runs directly at your feet while you're walking so you either fall down or step on the dog and break it's spine. To add insult to injury, EVERYONE ELSE LOVES HIM. We go out walking and all our neighbours coo and go on. The contractors who are working on our siding all smile when we walk past with him, and say "he's some cute!"

I just don't get it. Yeah, he's a puppy, and some people go in for puppies, but he's just so bleh.

The good news is, he has an adoption pending. His new family can't adopt him for another week or so, but they are coming to meet him tomorrow. We will smile politely when they say how cute his brown-streaked tear-stained face is.

Tofino to Victoria

2009-11-11T20:49:00.000-04:00

We spent a few beautiful days in Tofino. The weather was as nice as I've ever seen it there, which means it only hailed once for five minutes, and it only rained a leetle teensy bit each day.

I spent the time quietly, wandering the beaches and going to bed early. Mark? Mark got drunk off Tequila with his co-workers and spent the final full day with "self-inflicted flu".

The rest of the time I think he had as much fun as I did.

After the first night, we had all moved to a quiet lodge on the Middle Beach Resort property. There was a beautiful staircase leading from the deck of the lodge directly to the tidal pools below.

That staircase was one of my favourite parts of the area - the thought of it was just so comforting to me; I don't know why.

This was the view from our room at the lodge:

We left Tofino this morning and had a leisurely drive back to Victoria, where we met up with Megan and promptly went out for sushi. I have to make myself sick of sushi before we leave so that I don't crave it for a while when we get back to Nova Scotia.

I'm going to go to work with Megan tomorrow and walk dogs - should be fun.

Chillin' at Middle Beach

2009-11-09T19:05:00.006-04:00

The nerd conference is ramping up into high gear. We spent the first day here in Tofino helping Mark’s boss prepare everything, and now every employee and a number of selected clients have arrived and we have taken up residence in a secluded lodge at the Middle Beach Resort.

It’s a strange mix of computer talk, real estate talk, poker, and drinking. There’s lots of free time to lounge around or walk on the beach though, so apart from some internet connectivity problems it’s all very pleasant here.

Mark's co-worker's 16 year old daughter Haley has set up her room as a refuge from nerd talk. There's an open invitation to all the non-nerd girls to crash there when we have to get away - she even made a sign. It says "Princess Room - Girls only. Males will be shot if caught entering room."

The weather has been surprisingly pleasant and we've had a few long and relaxing walks on the beaches already. We discovered some great tidal pools so I'll have to take my camera down there later.

For now, though, it's time to call our friends who are taking care of our dogs, and then go laze around somewhere.

Montreal to Tofino

2009-11-07T20:44:00.004-04:00

We've arrived in Tofino at last!

So we finally got out of Montreal on a plane that was about two thirds empty. Despite the plethora of empty seats, the airline in it's wisdom seated Mark and I four seats apart from each other.

I moved.

We hadn't sat next to each other on the earlier flight either, and it turned out that the next flight, out of Toronto, had us sitting half a plane apart too. I guess Air Canada really wanted to make sure we didn't have any fun at all for the whole day.

We made it to Victoria, BC just after 11pm. We had been awake for 22 hours and travelling for 20 at that point. We DID get our rental car as Mark the optimist had predicted we would, and drove straight to our hotel and crashed in the comfy bed for a few hours.

When we arose early the next (that same?) morning, we found that someone had crashed into a couple of cars in the hotel parking lot. Really hammered 'em. Thankfully, our rental car was unscathed. We wandered to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast only to hear the continuous wail of police sirens. I thought it was a bit of an extreme response for a hit-and-run, but then our waitress noticed flashes of light in the building next door. There were reports of an explosion, and a million old people started streaming out of the building. We all watched the action as we ate our breakfast. It was bizarre. The lack of sleep and jet lag made it seem even more fun.

We set out on the final leg of our trip to Tofino in the rental car. Of course, the weather remained uncooperative. We drove through Victoria in a torrential downpour and started up the Malahat Mountain where the rain abruptly turned into a thick, slushy snow.

Yes, more snow.

Thankfully, the famously treacherous and unpredictable Alberni Pass on the way to Tofino was clear, and the winding drive through the mountain range was as beautiful as I've ever seen it.

We're in Tofino now. The sun is shining and I can hear the crash of the waves as I type. We are being put up in an amazing resort and treated to high-end Tofino dining, and Mark's work is footing the tab for, well, absolutely everything.

Tofino is spectacularly gorgeous as always - here's our room:

and here's the view from our balcony:

I'm starting to feel better about being here, but I do still miss my dogs. Thankfully, we've been invited to our friend Megan's house once we get back to Victoria, so I'll be able to cuddle with the world's best Pit Bull and other assorted dogs, since I can't cuddle with my own guys yet.

It's time to go walking on the beach now. Later y'all.

En Route

2009-11-06T15:25:00.005-04:00

We're in Montreal.

Stuck.

Wouldn’t you know it; we took a flight out of Halifax to go (ultimately) to Tofino, and drove into a snowstorm on our way to the airport. My mom called my cell phone in a panic when we were ten minutes from the airport but even with the snow flying the roads were pretty good. So… no need for panic, mom.

We got to the airport and the flights were a huge mess though. I’m pretty sure our flight was one of the first ones out since the snow had started early that morning, and we didn’t leave until about 1pm – an hour after our scheduled departure time.

Now, it’s not always fun to get from one end of this country to the other. We missed our next connecting flight out of Montreal, so they put us on a later flight.

Five hours later. Here we are still.

We’ve wandered from one end of the building to the other, drooled at overpriced sushi kiosks, argued with Air Canada agents over meal vouchers (verdict: they are jerks), tried to find free internet (verdict: $10 price tag means no internet for us), and tried to re-work our rental car reservation on the other end (verdict: Mark thinks we’ll be able to get a car and I think they will be closed by the time we get there).

I’m sitting now, waiting for the time to pass and listening to Montreal business people talk about boring things on their cell phones. Soon it will be time to buy a muffin.

After this, it’s off to Toronto where we wait for another ridiculous amount of time before boarding yet another flight that finally takes us to Victoria, where we may or may not find our rental car waiting for us in the dead of the night.

The thing is, I don’t really want to go any more. I’d kinda like to see Tofino again and walk on the quiet sandy beaches surrounded by lush rainforest trees, and I want to see all our Victoria friends, but this day is no fun and will be very long before it’s over, and I’m sure I’ll get Swine Flu on one of these flights. My bag has already been sneezed on.

I miss my dogs.

The Facelift Begins

2009-10-26T20:36:00.005-03:00

This can't be happening.

Can it?

Are we ACTUALLY going to have a respectable-looking house soon?

Three energetic men showed up pretty much at first light this morning and started ripping the old weather-worn clapboard with the chipped paint from the side of our house. Then they started putting up new, environmentally friendly, state-of-the-art concrete fibreboard siding that will last for, like, forever, y'all. And it doesn't need painting.

New stuff next to the old stuff:

Ah, so satisfying. It almost makes up for the fact that a puppy pooped on my hand at work today.

Speaking of puppies, our new little one sometimes sticks her tongue out while she's sleeping.

We like her very much. My mom came down for a visit this past weekend to meet her, and we went for a hike with our friends to Valley View Park, and proceeded to view the valley. Zelda spent her time slowly making friends with everyone, by sometimes letting them pet her but then sometimes growling and freaking out.

Fall is in full swing so walking in the park was very pretty. It's pretty everywhere - there are brilliant red bushes in the graveyard behind our house and they're so very noticeable from our window that I had to go down and take pictures of them.

The Legend of Zelda

2009-10-21T09:45:00.007-03:00

Sucktober's not over yet, but something good has happened.

Remember Dexter, the little deaf 'difficult' dog we tried to adopt a while back? That attempt ended horribly. I'm not placing blame - the rescue group did all they could; we just entered the situation too late to save the dog.

Although I don't blame the rescue group, it was awful. But, we never really 100% stopped our search for a new dog. I've been trying to find a little rescue dog about Oliver's size - I want him to have a buddy. Mark, meanwhile, has been shrieking that we are not small dog people, and then smiling at every picture of every Chihuahua in need that I show him. We recently tried to find a new dog through some breed-specific small dog rescue groups. One of the groups was bad. Very bad. Extremely bad. They strung us along for more than a month and did some sneaky and hateful things to us. It ended with me sending them some nasty emails (not so effective) and then the Atlantic Regional Co-ordinator of that rescue group resigned her position in protest over how we were treated (a bit more effective).

The good thing was, I made some great local contacts in the small dog rescue community, and they've been throwing leads at me right and left.

The day before yesterday I received a short email from Lavender, a woman here in Nova Scotia who is deeply involved with small dog rescue. She said there was a Dachshund in need, and would we be interested in fostering? Now, I think Dachshunds are freakin' cool dogs. Mark also loves the breed, and Oliver the Min Pin has taken a shining to any Dachshund we've ever met on walks. They're normally about 25 pounds, which was bigger than I was looking for, but I absolutely couldn't resist.

I sent her an email, gushing about how cool Dachshunds are. I said we could definitely foster, and depending on what the dog was like, we'd be interested in adopting.

A rush of back-and-forth emails ensued, and it turned out that the dog was not yet in the care of any official rescue group, but was being cared for by a kind-hearted man named Angel, who had had her literally dumped on his doorstep after being told that the dog's family never wanted to see her again. There were also some veiled hints that if he didn't take her, she would be euthanized.

He didn't even know the dog's owners! It turns out they knew from seeing him out walking that Angel already had two Dachshunds, so apparently they reasoned that he wouldn't really notice if there was one extra.

The owner left, and our friend Angel reached for the little dog. She bit him and then ran and hid under a chair and stayed there until about 1:30 in the morning. Meanwhile, Angel had set up camp in the next room. He was dozing on his sofa but heard her start to move around in the dead of night. He walked into the sunroom where she had been hiding, sat down on the floor without turning any of the lights on, and stayed there.

After a while, he felt a wet nose bump into his arm. The dog retreated, returned, and bumped his arm again. He didn't move. A moment later she crept into his lap, put her front paws up on his chest, and gently licked his face.

That was three weeks ago. Since that time, Angel has become quite close to the scared little Dachshund. He knew he could not keep her himself though, and started to spread the word that he was looking for a good home for the damaged little girl with the rough past.

He spoke to a friend of Lavender, who emailed Lavender, who emailed us. She knew that we wanted to give an imperfect dog a second chance. I phoned Angel and we hit it off immediately. He lives five hours away from us on Prince Edward Island, and after a long phone conversation we had a plan set up to meet halfway. I was ecstatic - it turned out that the dog was a Miniature Dachshund, so she actually was very close to Oliver in size. Also, female, which we had a slight preference for, and young but not too young (puppies really don't thrill me).

So yesterday morning I threw Chani in the car with me and Oliver and we drove to the designated meeting spot three hours away. I was SURE something would go wrong. Angel wouldn't show. The dog would be unsuitable for our house in some way. Angel would decide he didn't like me.

No, no, and no.

He pulled into the parking lot and out hopped a beautiful, mottled-brown, long-haired Miniature Dachshund. She and Oliver made friends in almost no time as Angel and I talked. After about forty minutes, it was time to go. Angel handed the little dog's leash to me as he rooted in his truck for her bag of belongings.

When he turned back to me I could see that tears were welling in his eyes. I said "don't worry - we'll give her a really good home".

The little dog jumped against his legs and wagged her tail. He looked down at her and a tear rolled down his cheek. "I know."

Zelda is home now. We're working on gaining her trust and teaching her the household rules gently - she will never be hit in anger again.

It's been a huge week of ups and downs. I'm so happy to have Zelda home, but our friends Nay and Jay lost their dog Fritz today. They came over to be distracted from their sadness this evening, and I felt bad as they were gushing about Zelda. Their dog just died, and I didn't want to seem like I was showing my new dog off - it felt like rubbing salt in their wounds or something.

Sucktober's a rough month.

Any BC people reading this? We're coming to the island in a couple of weeks. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Just, y'know, makin sure that you read to the end of these posts. Heh.

Sucktober

2009-10-17T16:51:00.008-03:00

I haven't been posting much lately, and it's because there's just been a lot of negative stuff going on around us. I like to post happy things and not tell you all the tragic things, so keep this in mind: I'm telling you a few crappy things below, but I am leaving out a few sad and disturbing things.

EmmyLou Hairless - beloved pet pig of Chani and Captain D. - died today, due to complications related to an abscess on her leg. We sent Chani out of town and Mark and I went out to be with Captain D. when it all went down. Let me tell you, veterinary practice on large farm animals is veeerrrry different from the cat-and-dog stuff that most of us are used to. It was a pretty intense day but it's over. I left a bouquet of wildflowers on her grave. I will not answer any questions about this on the blog.

On top of that, recent events include:

Nay and Jay's dog is dying from a rare and aggressive form of cancer at the age of six.
Mark and I caused the implosion of the Atlantic chapter of a nationwide breed-specific dog rescue group.
We thought we had someone to (FINALLY) put our new siding on our house just in time for winter, but they got just as flaky as the last guy and kind of halfway backed out of doing it. It's not done. It will probably not get done this year.
I'm sick.
Mark's getting sick.
October sucks.

I'm not depressed, so don't worry. It's not been a great month but there ARE nice things happening too - I'll post a happier post soon!

Free Yard Sale Day

2009-10-11T20:25:00.000-03:00

Gratuitous horse pictures. I'm done taking care of these three beasts, but it was fun while it lasted.

A week or so ago, our town had "big garbage day" - I've also heard it called "free yard sale day", which I like better.

People slowly started making large piles of random objects at the curb. Sometimes it was bags of garbage or recycling. Sometimes it was broken bits of wood and other assorted materials. Sometimes, though, sometimes it was TREASURE.

We got some good finds this year. Last fall, someone put out an old couch and we quickly snatched the big foam cushion off of it before it had a chance to get ruined in rain and stuffed two big dog beds with it. Score!

This year's first find was a really cool retro tin bread box. It had two stickers on it and was scuffed, but otherwise fine. I took the stickers off and cleaned it, and now it sits on top of the fridge awaiting the day when we are planning on (coincidentally) painting our kitchen with a very complementary colour scheme.

Find #2 was this year's bizarre object. We were walking the dogs past a pile of really interesting-looking free yard sale items when I saw something that really looked a lot like a milk crate, except it was made of metal. It's pretty darned cool and verrrry heavy - I think it's actually iron. I've never seen something like this before. Score!

The third and final item was very timely. We were driving along a secondary highway outside of town when I shouted out that we had to stop and turn around. Mark was a bit confused, but complied. Leaning against a tree by the highway were the components for a baby crib. What I wanted was the barred sides - I'd seen a friend use bits of baby crib as dog gates in their house and figured we could do the same thing.

We lowered the back seats in our car (thank you for being so handy, Kia Rondo), and threw in our new metal gates. It just so happened that we were almost done putting up the fence in our yard, but had not yet installed our gates. Well, these side rails from the crib fit perfectly - I mean, perfectly - into the openings in our deck. They are now makeshift gates while we finish the permanent parts, but since they fit so well one will become a permanent gate as soon as we attach it. Score!

Catch-Up

2009-10-06T16:17:00.007-03:00

Okay, I have TOTALLY been neglecting this blog recently. We've been busy busy busy, and a lot of the stuff we've been doing has been quite physically draining, which makes me not want to write for some reason. To catch you up - we've been:

Working.
Bottle feeding a tiny kitten.
Erecting ~450 feet of fencing.
Bottle feeding a tiny kitten.
Driving to Bridgewater.
slinging wood from two giant felled trees with Mark's mom (IN THE POURING RAIN).
Bottle feeding a tiny kitten.
Taking a tiny kitten to the vet. Continuously. (She's okay.)
Taking care of our friends' animals - 21 cats, 4 dogs, and 3 horses - while they are away on a road trip. Add this to our own household full of 6 cats and 2 dogs, and it adds up to hilarity and entertainment! And insanity.

Anyway, it's been mostly the fence and the kitten that seem to take up all of our spare time. Happily, the fence is coming along nicely. The yard is now effectively contained for large dogs, and there are only a few small things left to do to make it small-dog proof. After that it's all finishing touches. We are happy with it and it's very nice to see Arlo joyfully running all around the yard.

Minerva the kitten is coming along as well. Although we are still bottle feeding her, she is getting better and better at eating solid foods and drinking liquids from a bowl. She's using her litterbox now too.

She was featured in the local paper last week (click on it for larger version):

Pretty melodramatic, huh?

Fall has arrived and the valley is full of spectacularly-coloured leaves everywhere. They are all enjoyably crunchy underfoot. We drove to Bridgewater this past weekend and it was just amazing to be on the country roads with the autumn breezes sending whimsical waves of red and orange leaves through the air all around us, with red, green, and golden-coloured hills rolling in the background and numerous farms and orchards in the foreground. Mark and I kept looking at each other and saying "oh, it's so pretty!" Then we would round a bend, see a variation of the same, and say "wow, everything's gorgeous!"

Anyway. We got to Bridgewater and it started to rain. Actually, no, it poured. We'd gone down to help Mark's mom move some wood - she had two giant Maple trees next to her driveway and they became unhealthy and needed to be cut down. Once they were cut, she was faced with a giant pile of wood that simply could not be moved by one person in a reasonable amount of time. We frowned at the rain and started slinging wood anyway. At the end of it all, we were all absolutely drenched, but the wood shed was full and the yard was pretty much empty. There were about 20 large pieces that were so wide and heavy that we were unable to move them off the ground, so we kind of rolled them into a row next to the tree trunks to make them look neat and left them.

It took us all morning and was pretty tiring work, but none of us wanted to stop for a break and either sit around in wet clothes or change into dry clothes that would get wet if we went out again. I think we were all pretty stiff and sore later but man did we ever move a pile of wood.

Then. Then. Mark's mother, to show her appreciation for our efforts, gave us a Wii. For freeeee. It was amazing.

Now we only need a tv.

No Water but Many Dogs

2009-09-21T19:25:00.009-03:00

There's so much going on! Where to start?

Hmm... well, Minerva the kitten is still doing well in her quirky, anti-statistical way. She's still waaaay too small, but is developing and flourishing otherwise.

She's starting to get bored with the bottle, but hasn't got the hang of solid food yet. That's probably because she REFUSES to even LOOK at any solid food that is not hard, dry kibble. No rice gruel (even with kitten milk in it), no wet kitten food, and not even any dry kibbles that have been soaked in water OR milk. So she only wants to try and eat the hard, dry kibbles, but she's not very good at chewing. Or swallowing.

Sigh.

A local news reporter showed up at work today to take pictures of Minerva and interview me about her. I guess we'll be in the news next week.

In slightly older news, I drove home from work on Friday to find a geyser in our road. Then they closed our road, and then our house lost running water. Uh-oh! Unfortunately and tragically, we discovered we had no water when we were trying to refill the kitten's hot water bottle that keeps her warm. They had the pipes fixed in under five hours, but still, I mean, c'mon, we got kittens here.

Then, on the weekend, we helped out with a big fundraiser for CAPS. It was a dog walkathon that Nay organizes every year. This year we had 37 dogs (and many more people) all go on a walk through our town at the same time, and Nay managed to raise almost $2,700 for the animals with this event, mostly through individual sponsorships.

It was totally fun times, but it turned out to be on the only cold day we've had so far in September. Our little Oliver got cold and had to be put in my jacket, and Nay's new dog Chili, a rescue Chihuahua, had to be put in hers. I had to show her. She's new at little dogs.

A Parade and a Party

2009-09-13T16:41:00.006-03:00

Sometimes, you just have to see something to believe it.

Who thought this was a good idea? Really, who? I think I'm going to have nightmares about the balloon on lady legs.

Anyway.

It was Ciderfest in our little corner of the Annapolis Valley this past weekend and we caught the parade by accident when we were out walking the dogs. Arlo LOVED the cows and the fire trucks.

On Saturday night we went to a party. It was hosted by one of our friend's relatives, and seems to have been a tribute party on the anniversary of someone who was killed... during a drug deal? Or something? And a bunch of metal heads, drug dealers, and bikers all got together? And there was live music, a giant party tent, and a lit up picture of the deceased? And, for some reason, we went too. Oh, and we took a three-week old kitten with us just to make the situation more bizarre. It's hard to explain to a drunk lady why you are in her friend's kitchen during some sort of death-metal murder tribute party, warming a miniature baby bottle under the tap.

They were actually all very nice people, but it seriously was a rough crowd.

As the night wore on, we sat around a fire on the fringes of the crowd, listening to surprisingly well-equipped bands of varying degrees of talent play loud music.

To amuse ourselves during the bad music, we made faces at each other and tried to sing along.

Would you like to hear some of the less talented musicians that performed? Here ya go:

Anyway, it was a pretty entertaining evening.

Back on the home front, we are eagerly anticipating fencing supplies. All of our posts were planted by Thursday - I kind of enjoyed all the digging and measuring and throwing around of dirt and rocks.

The wire fencing will hopefully arrive some time during the coming week, and then up it goes! I'm excited!

Holes and Posts

2009-09-07T20:43:00.004-03:00

A long weekend!

And we thought we'd actually relax or something. HA HA, no.

We woke up and had a pleasant morning on Saturday, taking our time to do a few small chores and errands. One of Mark's chores was to call Willie the Farmer and try to set up a time to get him out to our house to dig holes for a fence. Willie the Farmer has an excavator and had mentioned that he'd be happy to come out and give us a hand some time.

Getting contractors out to do work is a tricky thing though. We've been waiting on our other contractor for months now to get new siding put on the house. We call and pester sometimes, but no luck yet.

So Mark called Willie the Farmer about digging the holes for our fence, and Willie said "how about right now?"

Aaaahh!

We rushed to the hardware store to buy fence posts, sonnet tubes, and concrete. As soon as we'd agreed on what to get, I left Mark to load the truck and started to walk home in case Willie the Farmer beat us there. Good thing - as soon as I left the hardware store, Willie drove by. I ran home (it's only like three blocks) and chit-chatted with Willie while he unloaded his excavator from his trailor. That took all of two minutes, then he looked at me and asked me what I wanted him to do.

I panicked.

Mark was nowhere to be seen, and I really didn't want to direct the guy to start digging holes in the ground all by my lonesome. I sucked it up though, pointed to the ground, and said "start there".

He did. Thankfully, our friends Chani and Captain D. showed up for moral support shortly after the digging started. Fifteen minutes later, Mark arrived with a big truckload of supplies, and I ran away so that he'd have to direct the digging of the holes.

Nay and Jay eventually came over too, and it turned into an impromptu Labour Party (on Labour Day weekend, no less) and all the guys got going on sinking the corner posts, which needed to be cemented in. Chani and I got started on dinner for everyone. Okay, Chani actually made food in my kitchen and I helped by buying groceries and cleaning things up. We all had a pretty good time - Willie the Farmer dug 33 holes, the guys got 5 posts cemented in, and everyone had a great dinner/party afterward.

Mark and I have gotten 16 more posts in the ground in the past two days. There are 12 to go, then a bunch of T-posts in the treed area where we aren't putting wood posts, then actual fencing. Sounds like a lot, but we already did the hardest part. ACTUALLY STARTING.

In other news, Minerva the kitten is finally putting weight on. She'll be three weeks old tomorrow, and although she's still very small for her age, she's doing great.

Almost Two Weeks Old

2009-08-31T20:54:00.005-03:00

Minerva has been by my side for every moment, waking and sleeping, since we got her. She goes to work with me. She goes to my volunteer meetings with me, and she also goes to social events with me.

At twelve days old she weighed as much as the average just-born kitten. Although she has opened her eyes and is developing, she is incredibly small and does not do much in the way of gaining weight. I've made an educated guess that she was a premature kitten, which sucks, because it's hard enough to hand-raise a normal kitten.

We go everywhere together. We stay home together. When she eats a big meal I am so proud of her strength, and the whole world seems a bit brighter. When she seems suspiciously, scarily tired or just won't eat, I'm convinced she will die.

Slowly, slowly, she is stabilizing. She will be two weeks old tomorrow and she weighs as much as a granola bar. Although there are no guarantees at this point, she's doing well.

I get up at 2:30 in the morning to feed her, and as I do so I will her to live. To drink her milk and grow. Live.

How Could We Say No?

2009-08-22T20:13:00.005-03:00

We'll be taking care of this tiny kitten for the next month, if she lives. She is about four days old now and was found in a wood pile. We've named her Minerva.

We still have the other three young feral kitties at the moment, but they are leaving tomorrow. They are no longer sick and space has opened up for them in a room of other kittens that are up for adoption.

The little lady of the bunch, June Bug, looks a bit uncertain here:

... but what kitten in its right mind can resist a camera cord:

She's so feminine and cute.

And Crosby here, well he has the attitude. Perhaps because he is older than the other two, he feels he can beat everyone else up.

He's such a punk.

And of course Cricket, the blue-eyed heartbreaker of the trio.

It's a good think they're all so cute, because man are they stinky.

(... but still cute.)

Mark's New Job

2009-08-13T16:10:00.005-03:00

So on the weekend, when Emmy Lou got out, Willie the Farmer lent Chani and Captain D. his cow trailer to transport her home in. As a thank-you, Captain D. and Mark went out with Willie that afternoon and helped him to hay. Willie the Farmer is (of course) a farmer, and he is ALWAYS on the go. I see him puttering all around his small community in his tractor or his beat up farm pickup, doing outdoorsy farm things with a smile shining out from under his wild mountain-man beard. He's kind of a hoot.

In all, the boys spent a few hours hauling bales of hay off the field and onto Willie the Farmer's truck with him. When they were done, some country haggling went on. Willie the Farmer was grateful for the help and wanted to pay Mark.

Mark said no.

Willie the Farmer insisted.

Captain D. told Mark to just ask for ten bucks and be done with it, so he did. Willie the Farmer made a face at this amount and gave him twenty instead, and told him how hard it was to find anyone who was actually willing to work.

Mark had fun haying and slept well that night. He had done something productive, even if it wasn't one of the many projects we have around our house that need doing. There's a lot to get done around here, and the list is growing all the time. In particular, I'm a bit discouraged by the lack of progress we've made in our grand plan to fence in our yard. I had such visions of the dogs running and playing in perfect safety right in our own back yard, but it just hasn't happened yet. We've priced materials and made a general plan, but the kicker is digging the post holes. This is going to be a loooong fence. Lots of big holes. Can't realistically do it by hand.

Ah well. I mentioned it to Nay at work a few days later, and she quietly suggested that we give Willie the Farmer a call. After all, he owns a backhoe.

Well how 'bout that? It was a good thought, but as it turns out we didn't have to call Willie - he called here tonight to ask Mark if he felt like haying. Mark said he had plans but would be up for it next time. He asked Willie the Farmer about helping us with our fence, and ladies and gentlemen, we have a backhoe at our disposal.

Things have a circular way of getting done out here in the country.

The Porch and The Pig

2009-08-09T18:52:00.019-03:00

So a few weeks back our friends Nay, Jay, Chani, and Captain D. came over to our house to help us rip down an old plaster wall and rebuild it with drywall. This had been a pre-planned Labour Party, and we're supposed to return the favour at their houses now, too.

This past week, Nay and Jay were ready for their Labour Party. They have an old porch on the front of their house that had been enclosed in years past and used to house chickens. You can imagine the disaster that became. When they bought their house, they ripped off the exterior walls because they wanted it to become a porch again. The floor was rotting out though, so that's where we come in.

On a balmy evening we made our way over to their house to shore up the foundation for the porch and build a new floor. My job was to ~~take pictures and drink wine~~ get boards out of the barn.

And take pictures.

And drink wine.

But I also helped cook dinner and stuff, and I did get a lot of boards out of the barn because Chani went there to do the same and got scared away because there were too many bats flying around. So naturally, when I was done getting boards I went back to try and take pictures of the bats. This is the best I got, but at least it's a record of the little guys:

It was very peaceful. There was a big swarm of bats and they were silently dipping and weaving everywhere, eating insects. I left them to their hunt and went back to the porch-building party, where Chani was still swearing and ducking from bats.

The porch was almost done by this time, and just as the boys were running out of screws, the last board was suddenly on and it was complete!

Huzzah! Next it will be Chani and Captain D.'s turn to get some work done on their house.

Earlier in the week, Chani and I had made a little field trip into The City to get special groceries and other supplies that aren't available around these parts. We picked up her mother on the way back and brought her to the valley for a visit. In the car on the way home, I got into a bit of a militant but polite discussion with her about the ethics of vegetarianism. Chani's mother looked at me and said "so, is your husband a vegetarian too?"

I told her yes. She blinked, looked at her daughter, and said "so, what, did you put out an ad when you bought your house?"

Honestly, it's a valid point. This is a rural area that has no particular, concrete draw for people of our ilk. None of the six of us had ever lived in Annapolis County before buying our respective houses, but here we are. We all volunteer for the same animal rescue group, we're all first-generation vegetarians ('cept the traitor Captain D.) who love sushi and other ethnic foods (which can't be found around here AT ALL), and we all have a large multitude of animals in our respective 100+ year old heritage houses. You guys think WE'RE crazy for harbouring the eight cats and three dogs right now? I'm not even going to tell you what the other two households have. I'll give you a hint though: they both have more animals in total than us, and their pets include farm animals.

We've only been friends with these people for about six months, but it already feels like years. It's strange.

This morning we got home from walking our dogs and had a phone message from Nay, asking for help with Emmy Lou.

Remember Emmy Lou?

She's Chani and Captain D.'s pet pig. Their 700 pound pet pig. She got loose again, and had been on the lam for two days now.

She had been discovered in a farmer's field down the road from their house, and the farmer was threatening to shoot her. Chani and Captain D. grabbed Nay and her truck, borrowed a cow trailer from their friend Willie the farmer, and drove down into the field to retrieve the wayward pig.

The problem was, Emmy Lou was not co-operating. They had been out for three hours trying to load her on the trailer by the time they phoned us. They were fighting all 700 pounds of her and were worried sick at the same time that she would be shot if they couldn't get her to go, and three people was simply not enough manpower to do the job.

Mark and I drove down with a big bag of peanuts and spent an hour in the field, helping them coax and corral Emmy.

I should probably mention that she's not afraid to bite, and could easily kill a person by trampling them. She was hot, hungry, sunburned, and grumpy by the time we got there. The pictures look very peaceful, but honestly, we were screaming, swearing, running, wrestling, and pushing her with boards to get her onto the trailer.

Emmy Lou was also screaming, running, wrestling, and chasing cows to boot.

I joked to Captain D. that this was his Labour Party, and then I immediately felt bad. The guy was near the end of his tether - he'd been chasing his pig for two days and wrestling with her on this particular day for four hours already, in the hot sun in the middle of a farmer's cow field, with visions of the farmer's shotgun running through his head.

It was pretty intense to be that close to an angry 700 pound animal, and to reach out and smack her on the butt to get her moving, only to have her turn around and GROWL at me. It honestly took all the strength and cunning of all five of us to finally, finally get her in the trailer. She was pushed/pulled in by Mark and Captain D., and as she finally ascended the ramp screaming and writhing, the rest of us shrieked and went into gear raising the back gate. Mark came shooting out of the trailer, ran up the gate we were closing, and jumped off into the field. It was like a car chase from an action movie. Moments later, Captain D. climbed the walls of the trailer and jumped down as well. We were done!

Or so we thought.

We drove her home to her pen, nailed boards to the sides of the trailer to make a secure hallway to her fenced yard, and lowered the trailer door.

Emmy Lou didn't want to come out.

Sigh.

It took about another half hour of prying her out with a giant board as lever/sheild (it was the top of a ping-pong table, actually) while she screamed and tried to bite Captain D., and then she walked down the ramp and was home.

We all went to the house and had a beer.

What'll You Do...

2009-08-01T19:43:00.006-03:00

... when you get lonely?

Laila!

This is our latest foster dog. She's only a young thing and still acts very much like a puppy. It's been hard for her to be in quarantine, because she's a typical Pit Bull and typical Pit Bulls love to be around people. Not stuck in an empty room listening to people on the other side of the door.

Anyway she's young, she's cute, she's friendly, and she has no obvious issues. I would think she would get adopted pretty quickly after her quarantine's over and she's spayed.

Or, in a perfect world, that's how it would be able to happen. But... for the SECOND time in a row, mere days after landing at our house, this darned dog has gone into heat. Buttercup did the same thing.

Sigh.

More blankets covering the carpets and couch. More constant mopping of floors. To make things more fun, the neighbour's extra-large young Mastiff dog is an un-neutered male, and constantly loose. I'm certain that at some point over the next two weeks we'll have to kick a 130-pound dog off of Laila while we're taking her on a walk.

Excuse me Mr. Mastiff, but she's not that kind of girl.

Low Tide = Bigger Beach!

2009-07-30T14:38:00.008-03:00

The space bar on my keyboard is kind of broken - gah, it's so annoying to use right now!

So Mark's brother and his kids have been visiting from B.C. and we all went to the beach. The kids are six and eight, and know the names of like every single type of rock on the beach. They collected a bunch, and I took pictures of the ones I liked.

We happened to be at the beach when the tide was sort of low. The beaches in our area experience the lowest tides in the world, so "sorta low" was plenty good enough to see neat things. You can see the high water line in this here picture:

The kids liked the beach even more than the go-carts we'd taken them on earlier in the day, so we stayed for quite a while - until sunset, actually.

I wandered around with my camera and breathed in the Atlantic air and looked at all the neat things to look at, and thought to myself: "we should come here much more often".

It's a valid thought, but I just don't see it happening unless we make an effort to jam it into our schedule. Maybe we should make it the Sunday afternoon walk or something, every week.

Mark's nephew fell on some sharp barnacles at the beach.

It just occurred to me that when this happened, I should maybe have offered some assistance instead of asking if I could take a picture.

He lived though, so all is well. Except my keyboard. My spacebar is still broken.

The Frenzy Peaks

2009-07-18T20:05:00.007-03:00

Yesterday I found myself running frantically down a crowded street in an unfamiliar town, pulled along by two dogs and watched by a large, laughing crowd. I've already mentioned that life has been pretty busy for us lately. This moment felt like the pinnacle of the craziness.

I had been going full-speed all day, and now the pace had suddenly increased by a very substantial amount. How on earth had we arrived at this moment in time?

Well, it all started with the entrance of a horrible person into the local animal hospital. No, that's not quite right. Let's start somewhere else.

Her name was Buttercup, and she was a wonderful dog who had been atrociously abused before landing at the pound. As part of our usual volunteer efforts with the Companion Animal Protection Society, we took Buttercup in as a foster dog until the group could find her a permanent family. We managed to find Buttercup a superb home to go to, but her new mom had asked to delay the adoption until this past Thursday evening, which was when her summer vacation started.

Earlier that week, a horrible person entered our local veterinary clinic with two young dogs. This person presented the healthy animals to the vet and requested that they be euthanized.

Why?

They were moving.

The vet declined the request, took the dogs from the horrible person, and called my boss Nay for help. Nay, like us, is heavily into animal rescue and occasionally takes dogs such as these two from the vet and offers them for adoption from her boarding kennel. The problem was, this is the height of summer and the busiest time of the year at Nay's kennel. She had a period of three days where her kennel was already booked solid, so she would have no room for "the twins" as we now call them.

This is the part where we come in. Knowing that Buttercup was about to be adopted, and that space was only tight for a few days at the kennel, we agreed to take the twins while we still had Buttercup, and our own two dogs, not to mention our own two cats, the three adult foster cats, and the three sick feral kittens.

Were you counting? That's 13 animals.

So on Wednesday I loaded "the twins" - overweight but handsome Spaniel-ish looking littermates named Fat Jack and Riley - into my car after work and brought them home to meet the rest of the pack.

It was supreme chaos that Wednesday night and the next day. Mark left town early Thursday morning and I was left alone to supervise the thirteen animals, and take the five dogs out on their walks. That evening our dear Buttercup got officially adopted and went home with her new mom. Mark arrived home about a half hour too late to see her off, but we're used to these goodbyes so it was no big deal.

On Friday I left for work early in the morning. It was a big day at the kennel - the boarding facility was stuffed full of dogs and our grooming schedule was nothing short of gruelling. I stayed late to help Nay finish the day's work, and we decided she would come home with me around 6pm so we could all go to a parade that our rescue group was walking in together.

Around ten minutes to six, a client with six dogs showed up to have their animals boarded. The last great rush of the day occurred when all six dogs went running through the kennel to their room, and set all the other dogs off howling and barking. We rushed to set up their beds and get instructions from the owner and realized we would be tight for time getting to the parade.

I called Mark and asked him to order a pizza - we would pick it up on the way home, eat, and run to the next town for the parade. Nay, her cousin Cheryl, and I clambered into my car, drove to my house, and ate a rushed pizza dinner with Mark before piling back into the car with "the twins" and our own two dogs, Arlo and Oliver.

We arrived at the designated parade spot - the community college in the next town. We were a few minutes late, but that wasn't a big deal. What was a big deal was, nobody was there. Not a soul.

???

!!!

After a few frantic phone calls, we realized we were in the wrong town. The parade was actually about four towns over from our own; not at the next town as we'd thought.

We drove to the real meeting area and promptly got stuck in traffic driving between floats that were in a line-up to get into the parade. We were going at a snail's pace, the parade was starting, and we couldn't park and find our group until our queued lineup got closer to the community college parking lot that we were aiming for.

Slowly, tortuously, we inched along. Then Mark saw a clear path, jerked the car to the shoulder of the road, and zoomed past the waiting parade floats. We parked but couldn't find our group. The beginning of the parade was already snaking down the road as far as we could see, and our animal rescue group was nowhere to be seen - they must have already gone on!

Three of us started to run. Then we all looked back at Cheryl, who was awaiting surgery on an injured leg.

She would have to be sacrificed. We gave her our car keys, apologized, and left her standing there.

I had our dogs Arlo and Oliver, and as I ran Arlo pulled me as hard as he could. I leaned backwards to keep from falling on my face as I ran, and my shoes slapped hard against the pavement. Nay and Mark ran on with me, each with one of "the twins" running along next to them.

I had no idea that a parade in a little town in the valley could be so very, very long. I was sweating and my face burned. Crowds of people lined the sides of the street, and laughed as I ran past.

"How far up are all the dogs?" I asked one woman who was sitting in a lawn chair. She turned toward me with a wall-eyed stare and laughed. "Do you know?" I asked, prompting the answer "YEAH", as she laughed harder.

Thanks, crazy lady.

Both of my dogs had to stop to poop. In front of everyone. While I was trying to run. At different times.

We continued to run. Finally, just when I thought the agony of it all was too much, we spotted a crowd of people walking proudly and calmly in the parade ahead of us, each with a dog. We had reached our group!

We slowed down and greeted the familiar faces. I was red and sweaty and my dogs were keyed up from all the excitement, joyfully pulling as hard as they could at the ends of their leashes.

This was the pinnacle of the crazy month we have had. I found it difficult to regulate my walking speed and kept shooting ahead of the other people and dogs, and having to pull myself short and wait for the group to catch up.

Finally I relaxed enough that I was able to walk apace with everyone just like a normal person. The parade was huge and entertaining, and everyone was having fun. We reached the end, found our abandoned friend Cheryl with almost no trouble, and all went for ice cream afterwards.

Later that night, enough space opened up in the kennel that Nay could take the twins, and Mark and I found ourselves with only two dogs at home - our own sweet boys.

The absolute rush of activity we've been caught up with - in seemingly every part of our lives - has abated just a bit, and now I feel like I am floating in a gentle current, whereas before we were crashing on frenzied waves.

I really do feel like I'm floating, honest-to-gosh.

It's nice.

Strawberry Slacking

2009-07-16T13:38:00.004-03:00

I can't resist posting this little sequence of pictures from the Strawberry Supper a few weekends ago.

Someone was supposed to be washing dishes. Someone chose to wear a pot on his head and bang it with a spoon instead.

Captain D. is such a slacker.

Of Pirates and Dogs

2009-07-14T18:22:00.004-03:00

I've been obsessing a bit about pirates lately.

This is not a pirate ship - this one obeys the law - but it was the best one I've happened across lately.

I could be a pirate.

I like rum.

I like parrots.

It's not gonna happen though, so let's move on.

We went to the other end of the province this past weekend to visit my parents, and in addition to seeing the ship that reminded me of a pirate ship, we also saw some bag pipes.

That was all well and good. We had a nice time with my parents - there was wine and a bonfire and all that - and then we came home again.

I haven't given you an update about my job at the kennel in a long while. Would you like to know how it's going? Well... let's put it this way:

- Have you ever tried to hold an angry cat still while someone else tried to shave it?

- Do you know what the phrase "expressing the anal glands" means?

- Ever been punched in the face by an Irish Wolfhound, or bitten by a Shih Tzu?

All these things make my job what it is, and my job is effing awesome. It beats working in some boring corporate office ANY DAY OF THE WEEK.

Ha!

Weekend Play-By-Play

2009-07-06T21:22:00.005-03:00

We've been hiking in pretty places recently.

I feel like we're running five million different directions lately though. I think the addition of three cats too many has made the house feel hectic when it comes to the daily clean-up. (Remember? Kittens are messy.) But outside the house we've been doing tons of stuff every day. It's all fun, but it's making life feel really busy these days.

We went out of town shopping on the weekend and bought a new bathroom counter on a whim. I felt so very satisfied when we easily slid six feet of counter-top into the back of our new car - yay, Kia Rondo! Way to be handy!

Then we rushed back to town to support our friend Chani, who is the mayor of her community. She was putting on the community's famous Strawberry Supper this past weekend, and mmm-boy was it good. Chani ran things in the kitchen and fed upwards of 200 people a hot meal (with no power or potable water mind you) and the boys stayed outside and washed dishes. They even had uniforms.

One of the people in the above picture is a computer programmer. Another is a dentist, and yet another is a trucker. We don't know what the fourth guy does - let's call him Mystery Man. Extra credit: make guesses. Who is who?

The next day our friends showed up bright and early (with home-made, still-warm cinnamon rolls even!) and helped us rip our house apart.

Literally.

We finally pulled down the crumbling plaster surrounding our new front door and put up drywall. It's not even painted or anything, and it already looks a million times better.

Then everyone ripped apart part of our kitchen, and then they left. The house looked like a demolition site. I guess it was, actually. We madly cleaned up, went to two more social engagements on Sunday, came home and mowed the lawn as the sun set, and got up and went to work this morning. So much stuff!

And on top of it all? We have this to deal with:

Oh, kittens. Cute, fuzzy kittens.

It's now past time for the daily animal clean-up, so I need to wrap this up. I half-promise to post before/after pictures of the new drywall by the front door once we get it painted.

Let's Hear an "Awwww"

2009-06-30T08:13:00.001-03:00

It's kitten season. We were asked to take three feral kittens and tame them up for adoption. Kittens are freakin' messy and we have to clean up all the time after them, but they provide endless hours of amusement for us and the dogs, so it's not all bad.

Oliver has made friends with the older boy, Crosby. I think they're planning a slumber party on the weekend - nobody over 10 pounds allowed.

Buttercup the foster dog gets really excited whenever she gets to be near the kittens, and licks them practically to death. We were on the couch last night with all the kittens, and Buttercup jumped up, and then this happened:

Yes, he is latched onto something there. They must have stayed that way for five minutes. Buttercup was so happy, and the kitten seemed pretty content too.

Kittens are messy, but they're also fun. Now we are up to eight cats and three dogs in the house, but the three kittens are only temporary so we're not that crazy really.

No, really.

Saturday Outing

2009-06-28T11:22:00.005-03:00

Yesterday Chani and I decided we wanted to go to an auction that had been advertized in a nearby town. We woke up bright and early, got to the auction before bidding started, decided we didn't want anything there, and instead took off on a mini road trip for the day.

We drove down the western coast of Nova Scotia. It's an amazingly beautiful drive and the area is full of little French communities. We stopped at a million yard sales, two community markets, and wherever else we felt like stopping.

That included this here redneck truck rally:

We also visited a lighthouse and climbed the little tower to the top.

We ended the day by stopping at a building supply/salvage depot where Chani fell in love with a big sculpture of a pig. It turned out that neither of us could even budge it, let alone pick it up, so she didn't buy it.

Inside the door to the building at the salvage place was this gem. In case you can't read it, his name tag says "Dump God". Further down on his body, it says "Hugo 1 Million Faces".

There's just nothing else I can say about that.

What's Up, Buttercup

2009-06-23T21:28:00.000-03:00

Our current foster dog Buttercup has had quite the saga that I haven't been keeping you guys up to date on.

Two days before she was scheduled to be spayed, she went into heat. Vets don't like to spay dogs that are in heat because it's hard on the animal, so we had to cancel the surgery. Any adoption will have to be delayed now until after her heat and spay.

Then, we noticed that a few funny looking little nodules/pimples/bumps that have been on her face since we got her were starting to look worse. I hadn't worried up until that point because I had assumed they were leftover irritations or indications of stress that would go away on their own.

When they got a bit worse, I got worried. Then, one abscessed. Her face swelled.

We went to the vet. She gave Buttercup a hard look, asked a few questions, and diagnosed the problem: porcupine quills. They had been in her face for at least three weeks, and probably longer. Her former owner had not taken her to the vet for these injuries, and as a results poor Buttercup has a whole lot of tiny quill tips still in her face, aching and festering. Her body is trying to eject them, which is why the raised bumps are appearing on her skin.

The vet managed to drain the abscess and sent me home with instructions to help keep down infection while the quills are working out. Then, a few days later, another of the quills abscessed. This one was different. It got bigger than the last abscess and was in a more difficult spot. This time the vet had to sedate her to drain it, and sent me home with more instructions and medication.

So here's poor Buttercup, in heat, with a face full of needles. This dog has been through a lot.

Something went right, though. In the midst of her medical troubles, a kind-hearted woman with a soft spot for Rottweiler mixes found Buttercup's adoption profile online, excitedly submitted an application, and was approved to adopt her!

We've had a few long phone conversations and the woman has been here once already to meet Buttercup, although we still can't send her home until she's spayed. The woman will be coming again this weekend to take her on a walk.

We're very happy. They seem like a really good match. We get to keep her for another few weeks, and she's so easy that we're happy to do it. I think Buttercup's luck in life is slowly turning.

Summer Plants

2009-06-21T11:22:00.009-03:00

Our friend Nay drove us to the car dealership on Thursday. Since it's an hour away and close to lots of places we don't normally get to, we decided to make a day of it and do a little shopping. We got our new car and the three of us drove in it to Wolfville, the town where Mark and I first met! It's a university town (we met in school) and the town if full of eclectic little shops and restaurants.

We got lunch at a vegetarian café that Nay knew about. It was fabulous in so many ways. Being vegetarian, you get used to censoring a menu - after all, there are usually only about three choices for non-meat eaters. To walk into a restaurant and be able to order anything--anything on the menu was really very nice. We got Mexican chocolate cookies for desert, and both Nay and I have resolved to try to make a similar type of cookie. They were amazing and chocolaty and spicy all at the same time.

So we did a little shopping after that and drove back to Bridgetown. I drove the new car to work the next day and didn't even crash it!

This weekend CAPS, our animal rescue group, put on a Father's Day Luncheon as a fundraiser. Chani spearheaded the effort and made about a million chicken pot pies and also a number of veggie pot pies. We held the event in a quaint little community hall that is probably at least 150 years old. It was a really nice atmosphere. Here's our ticket counter that was by the front door:

Nay and I took turns being the ticket taker. Meanwhile, Mark helped Chani in the kitchen:

The luncheon proved to be a success. We raised lots of money for the animals and Chani got a lot of complements on the pot pies, which were seriously tasty. Mark and I bought three uncooked ones at the end (the only vegetarian ones left) to take home for future meals.

We decorated the tables with fresh wild Lupins that we found on the side of the highway.

I always think of Nova Scotia when I see Lupins. They grow world-wide, but appear in such numbers everywhere in this province that it's hard not to make an association. I've never seen them growing wild in such extravagant excess anywhere else.

Meanwhile, life goes on. Our tulips and lilacs are no longer in bloom, but a bush by our driveway has suddenly burst forth with beautiful flowers. I think it's a Peony bush.

The vine growing on our shed is doing well. This is a... Virginia Creeper? Any guesses?

I really need to learn all these plants. I'm going to take a survey sometime and start calling all these guys by their proper names.

Sorry Y'all.

2009-06-16T14:13:00.006-03:00

In what seems to be an established pattern now, I've welcomed your advice on a purchase, carefully considered your opinions, and then failed to buy what you guys recommended. The only person who actually recommended Kia over Mazda to me was also the only person who had actually owned a Kia (thanks Kim). Consumer Reports scored them pretty much dead-even with each other, so either choice would have worked in my mind.

Yes, we went with the Kia Rondo instead of the Mazda 5. After going to both dealerships and test driving them, the decision was an easy one.

Don't get all twisted up. We had very good reasons. First of all, the Kia people were willing to knock almost $6,000 off the listing price of the Rondo. Mazda? Well, Mazda didn't even really want to knock $1,000 off. I'm just getting started here.

We went to the Kia dealership first because I was honestly expecting to buy a Mazda 5, and I thought "test drive a Kia, then go test drive a Mazda, buy a Mazda = minimal driving between places". We took my parents with me to be back seat drivers. The sales guy at Kia sent us on a test drive and we all piled in. It was a fun little drive and we all oohed at various little components and features we liked, and everyone was comfortable. The car felt well-made and visibility was great. There were handy places to store things everywhere, and everyone had a good time.

We negotiated, told the guy we were going to Mazda and might be back, and left. So we go to the Mazda dealership and all get into the Mazda 5. Immediately, my parents (who are not tall people) began shrieking about how the headrest to the back seat was digging into the MIDDLE of their backs. Apparently the back seats are made for a midgets or six-year-olds or both, and we don't hang out with either of those types of people so that doesn't work well for us. Also, even when the seats were pushed all the way back, there was NO leg room in the seats where they were sitting. Have I mentioned that they are not tall people? The last row of seats had even less leg-room. Also, those seats are not comfortable, and they are all buckets seats, which wouldn't work out so well for my large dog.

Aside from that, the car felt cheap. Much cheaper than the Kia. Where the Kia had a nicely laid out series of lidded storage compartments between the two front seats, for example, the Mazda had a plastic bucket with no top. (Apparently nobody in the Mazda engineering department owns dogs.) The whole thing felt cheaper than the Kia. Mazda as a company might make higher end cars generally, but between these two models, all four of us felt strongly that the Kia seemed like a better quality car. I'd be derelict in my duties if I didn't mention that the Kia has much better safety features, too.

The Kia also had better versatility. You can fold down the last row of seats in the Mazda 5, but not the middle ones. In the Kia, you can fold down the last row AND the middle row to make a very flat, very large cargo space. We actually opted not to get the last row of seats - we wanted storage bins in the floor instead - but we can still fold down the other seats if we're transporting something big. Not so with the Mazda 5.

So, we all went back to the Kia dealership and finalized our deal. The sales guy told us that Kias today are a much better quality car than when they first entered the market in Canada.

I don't have to believe him.

I don't have to worry that much if he's lying though, because we have a five year bumper-to-bumper warranty, and a free LIFETIME warranty on the power train (which is engine and transmission). Oh, and also, our first year of service is free.

So the way I see it, Kia is fighting an image problem. They started making better cars, but have not yet shaken the junky reputation. So Kia won with the better price, nicer accessories (storage, stereo, etc.), better versatility, better safety features, smoother ride, better visibility, much better warranty, and pretty much everything else. Keep in mind, I went into this with a slight preference for the Mazda 5. Unfortunately, I can't think of a single thing that was better on the Mazda 5 than the Kia Rondo.

We're happy that the decision was such an obvious one. We got a really good deal on our new car and we're picking it up on Thursday!

My Birthday, Mark's "Gig"

2009-06-12T08:17:00.001-03:00

Exactly one year ago today, a hard-fought real estate deal disintegrated on us. Oh, wait, that wasn't exactly it.

Exactly one year ago today, I turned 30. Wait, it wasn't as simple as that.

Exactly one year ago today, I turned 30 and a hard-fought real estate deal disintegrated on us at the very same time. Yeah, that was how my day went.

Here's to another year. It got pretty fun after the real estate nightmare was over!

Mark told me his band had a gig earlier this week. I was super-excited!

Then I found out that by "band", he meant only him and the lead singer. The other two guys were busy.

Then I found out that by "gig", he meant "open mic" at a coffee house.

Ah well. Performing their songs in public would still be a good thing to do, and fun for me to watch. I asked Chani if she wanted to come along with us, and she did. Yes, her husband is also in the band but would not be going, but who cares about those kind of details. We joked that she was more dedicated to the band than Captain D. was.

Then I found out that by "coffee house", the guys really meant "the cafeteria at the high school in the next town" (where the lead singer is a teacher). My dream of ordering a nice Mexican hot chocolate and enjoying myself in an eclectic atmosphere while listening to local musicians perform original compositions was replaced by a dream of sitting in a cafeteria on an orange plastic chair watching awkward 15 year-olds perform Guns 'n Roses covers. And by "dream", I mean "obligation".

Chani and I were delighted to see that they had covered our tables with large pieces of paper and provided coloured pencils. Then a skinny blonde 15 year-old stole our coloured pencils RIGHT OUT FROM UNDER OUR NOSES, laughed apologetically, and gave us four white pencil crayons with broken leads instead. I think Chani came close to swearing at her loudly--but I hear you get in trouble for that kind of thing, so I'm glad she didn't.

We made do with what we had and spent our time drawing caricatures of the various teenagers who performed.

Mark and Derick (lead singer) did a few songs and sounded really good, so at least the night was not a total loss.

Buying Stuff

2009-06-11T10:28:00.010-03:00

We might be getting a new car this weekend!

We've decided on either a Kia Rondo or a Mazda 5. (Basically the same vehicle put out by two different car companies.) They're pretty compact vehicles that offer a good amount of dog and passenger space. You all know where our priorities in life lie.

Bring on the comments - this seems to be a subject that people have strong opinions on. And before you ask, yes, we have considered every other vehicle choice.

One of our friends has asked for a follow-up on our carpet buying adventure. If you remember, we wanted some sort of area rug in our living room and ended up buying from Flor, because it's high quality, environmentally friendly, and very adaptable.

Flor rates each of their carpets for the amount of traffic it can take, and the one we bought was not the highest rated kind. Nevertheless, it's held up very well in the six months since we installed it, with no visible wearing, fading, or fraying at all. The cats pick at it sometimes and that hasn't wrecked it either.

Our carpet is a series of 50 cm by 50 cm squares held together by special stickers that are provided by the company. I pulled back the carpet this morning to check on the stickers, and they are still holding strong.

None of them have come loose on us yet and the entire assembled carpet has stayed intact despite fairly heavy traffic and the occasional dog stampede. For those thinker-aheaders, you can order extra stickers if anything ever comes loose or in case you want to re-arrange the carpet tiles. We did not use up all the stickers that came free with our carpet tiles when we installed it, so we have spares.

I'm happy with it. We are still planning on buying more carpets from Flor for our bedroom, and possibly for Mark's office. Would I recommend it? Yes. If you're planning on buying it, go to the website and get on their mailing list. There are occasional sales and free shipping deals that they put out, so you could save some money that way.

K, end of review.

So it's my birthday tomorrow. Mark is going to make me some Vietnamese spring rolls to take to work tomorrow and share with Nay and Jay, and I think there's a vegan chocolate cake in the works. Chani, who doesn't care that someone else is already making me a cake, is making another. I think they will both be EXCELLENT!

My parents are coming to town too, so we are dragging them car shopping with us. They are bringing sushi for us, even though they don't like it. Isn't that sweet?!

Dogs, Ninjas, Pecans, Magic

2009-06-04T20:15:00.005-03:00

Yes yes, another new week, another new dog.

We named this one Buttercup. I think she has been treated very harshly in her life, and I don't say that lightly. I've encountered horribly abused dogs before and I have to say, most of them don't give much of an indication of an abusive past. For example, we had a dog come into the SPCA once who had been beaten so badly that her leg had to be amputated. She was as happy as a clam in the shelter, and loved to be around people. You would never know anything had been amiss - she was just a contented friendly dog.

Then I would see dogs who tried to bite when they were handled, and they had the opposite sort of past than what you'd think: they were loved too much. They had been spoiled and coddled and never knew a moment of discipline in their life, and had learned that they only had to snarl to get their own way all the time.

So Buttercup is very timid and hand-shy. At the same time, she genuinely likes people. Despite her own fear, she slinks meekly toward people with the hope of being cuddled. She is quiet and low-key, and walks perfectly on her leash without pulling. I think she'll be pretty easy to adopt out.

So we were walking downtown today with our own two dogs (Buttercup is in quarantine right now) and we saw a ninja run down the road and into an alley. An honest-to-gosh ninja, running around with a black hood and mask and everything. It was pretty cool.

We're planning on going into The City this weekend to buy things we can't get around here. I need new work clothes, we have to go to a decent-sized hardware store, and we must socialize with Kristie the city-mouse of course.

Fun things always happen when you socialize with that family. We socialized with her sister Tanya last weekend, and ended up eating home-made sushi and being given a truck-load full of furniture, small appliances, and plants that they claimed they didn't need and had no room for. Oh yeah, and Tanya gave us a jar of AMAZING pecans that had been candied by a friend of hers, and I don't know what that person did to them, but they were pure magic. I would have taken a picture, but like I said they were magic, and they all seemed to disappear in a very short period of time. This is where they were:

If you find any more, please let me know.

A Dinner Party

2009-05-28T22:14:00.010-03:00

When we lived in Victoria we had the cutest little dining room table - a funky round two-seater that fit nicely into our little basement apartment. When the two of us ate at it our knees almost touched. I liked it very much.

Of course when we moved and gave everything away, we had to say goodbye to our cute little round table. We're here now, and we sit at a larger table that was donated to our household by my parents, who didn't have room for it any more when they moved. Our new table is still round, but now we can seat four people instead of two.

I thought that would suit us fine. Our little two-seater in Victoria served us well and I never felt we needed anything bigger. The four-seater we have now is nice, but surprisingly, I feel the need for a bigger table. It's not that we're more social (well, okay, maybe we are a bit but that's not the point). It's that, in Victoria, we usually went out with friends. We went merrily to brewpubs, bistros, cafés, diners, and restaurants. Here, everyone goes to everyone elses' houses. People host each other. We can host two comfortably for a meal, and that's not enough. Going out is a feeble option. We can go to the pub and be gawked at by the locals who will all gossip about us the next day, or we can go to the restaurant at the local hotel, but for lunch only and not supper, and not on Saturdays. And that's only if we have cash, because no credit/debit cards are taken there.

Our dining room is roomy, but the table, shockingly, is not. That, on top of my lack of talent in the kitchen, is putting us at a distinct disadvantage - I mean, how often can I eat at other people's houses before they start thinking to themselves: "Gee, Mark and Julie never invite me over. They must

- be snobs
- not like me
- be weirdos."

I'll have you know that only the last option is true.

So, that having been said, we went to Chani's house for supper on Friday. She was out in her vegetable garden when we arrived, so we meandered into the back yard to see her, but got side-tracked saying hello to Emmylou Hairless instead.

Chani's husband, the intrepid Captain D., got home soon after and we got down to business.

On the menu that night was polenta and sun-dried tomato cutlets. I can never guess what Chani will whip up next in the kitchen, but it's always good. This was no exception!

We were happy to see Nay arrive exactly when dinner was ready. She filled her plate, sat down, and promptly got a call from a client wanting to pick up their dog from the kennel, so had to go back home within five minutes of entering Chani's house. We all groaned - Nay had had a very long and frustrating day already, and it looked like it wasn't going to end any time soon. She reappeared twenty minutes later, frowning. She couldn't find the keys to the dog kennel and had had to send the client away empty-handed!

She searched Chani's house and driveway briefly and left again with a plan to call her husband to come home from work and help her get into the kennel. The last I heard, they had to break in. We all felt really bad - it was a crappy end to what had been a long, disheartening day for her.

The evening was very pleasant aside from Nay's misadventures. The food was great and the weather was mild. We wandered around outside looking at trees, flowers, and the river, and Captain D. decided to climb up onto his roof.

Mark went up there too. Whatever, boys.

Update: Our Week

2009-05-28T11:41:00.007-03:00

We've been so busy - it's nice to have a little time to breathe today.

On the weekend, CAPS held its annual dinner and auction. We helped with food preparation late last week, and helped to set up on the weekend, and also brought Neville the cat to the dinner to display him for potential adopters.

Oh, and also? My parents and Mark's mom came to town for the dinner. And they all stayed at our house. And they brought their dogs.

It was a bit of a wild weekend. We had five adults, five dogs, and five cats squashed into our house for the weekend. The dinner went great and we all won various things in the silent auction. Neville the cat did not get adopted, but a few days later Cooper the Foxhound did! He went to his new home on Tuesday, and we foolishly believed we might be able to rest easy with only our own two dogs for at least 24 hours.

That didn't happen, of course. We don't have a new foster dog, but we do have Mark's mother's dog Robbie for a week. Robbie is a reasonably easy dog but is keenly aware of what rules will be enforced if he pushes limits, and which ones he can get away with ignoring.

Some of you may know that I'm not very much of a pushover. I don't fight many battles, but I always plan on winning the ones I choose to engage in. In the words of the immortal Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, "I am hard but I am fair". Robbie can sleep on my couch, or my bed. He can rip his toys apart and spread the bits from one end of the house to another. He does not have to heel on walks, but pulling is not acceptable. Robbie likes to bark a lot and loudly when he's excited, jump up on people, and go on like a baby when left home alone. The barking and jumping up has greatly diminished in the two days since he landed here, and he is dealing with the separation anxiety he seems to have. I definitely wouldn't call it extreme, but it won't disappear in the week that he's here, and he'll fall back into familiar habits a bit when he returns to his own home and interacts with his owner's energy levels. For now though, we leave him home alone whenever we have somewhere to be, and it's as simple as that, and the world will not end. Because I believe this, Robbie will be much more likely to believe this.

Ah, but wait, I've left out some of the most important details: Robbie is here because Mark's mother needs to deal with her mother. Her mother (Mark's Gran) is in the hospital. She had a heart attack over the weekend, and a number of Angina attacks which have ranged from mild to severe. Being 88, there's not a lot they can do for her other than changing her medication. She's been in the hospital for a number of days but we expect her to be released tomorrow. It's not great news. It kind of seems to me that this Angina thing is not going to go away.

I think Gran is ready for whatever may happen. I don't think anyone else is, though.

Nighttime Noises

2009-05-21T09:53:00.004-03:00

My eyes snapped open at about 11:30 last night when someone started up what sounded like a lawn mower quite close to our house. I thought to myself how odd it was that someone was testing out a lawn mower so late at night. I assumed it was only a test - how could anyone possibly mow the lawn in the dark?

But the sound of the motor did not go away. I could even hear the difference in pitch from the machine being moved and turned repeatedly. It just kept going and going. Was someone really mowing the lawn at 11:30 at night?

I couldn't stand it - I had to go check. I got up and peeked out our bedroom window and saw a man in a safety vest holding a little flag. He was standing in the middle of the road in front of my house, staring at the crosswalk, which was in the process of being painted by another guy in a safety vest. The painting machine was my mystery lawn mower.

Weird.

Last week I had been awakened at 5am by what sounded like a long convoy of trucks driving past my house. It was not a great night - the power had gone out around 4am, which was a bad thing for two reasons.

Reason 1: The next day was my very first day of work, and my alarm clock needed to wake me up on time, which it could not do if the power was out.

Reason 2: Mark's work computer has an Uninterruptable Power Supply, which is a fancy name for a backup battery that keeps running for maybe 10 minutes in the event of a power outage. It allows you to save your work and safely turn off your computer. It also emits a loud beep every five seconds when the power goes out.

So there I was at about 4am last Monday morning, staring at my blank alarm clock and listening to the loud beeps from Mark's office. He was out of town, so I had to drag myself out of bed and go turn his computer off.

Maybe a half an hour later, the power came back on. I reset my alarm and went back to sleep. Another half hour after that, and it suddenly sounded like a convoy of trucks was driving past my house. Our street is very quiet normally, and doesn't really lead to anywhere that a convoy of trucks would need to go. After a while my curiosity won and I got out of bed to look out the window.

It was not, in fact, a convoy of trucks. It was a street sweeper. He was sweeping the street. Over. And over. And over again.

I guess he wanted it to be really clean.

Sick but Busy

2009-05-17T13:08:00.007-03:00

I'm sick.

I spent most of yesterday sleeping, which is a shame because we had planned on going up to the farm (CAPS headquarters) and volunteering to sort a shipment of cat and dog food.

I had to stay home and sleep, so Mark went by himself. It turns out that a bunch of our friends were all there, and the shipment didn't arrive, so Mark sat around socializing and eating cheesecake. Even if I had known that that was the plan, I still think I would have stayed home - I was totally zonked. I'm feeling a bit better today though.

So Fezzik got adopted! Well, almost. Our rescue group sends dogs out on a one-week trial run as a rule, which in my experience is unusual, but that's how it works around here. So Fezzik's new owner signed all the paperwork and paid her fee, but was told that everything can be reversed for up to one week if things aren't working out.

I'd be surprised if we saw him again - she's experienced with Pit Bulls and Fezzik is a pretty good dog. So since he's gone, they sent Mark home from the farm with another foster dog named Cooper. He's a Foxhound and has never been in a house before. He has NO IDEA what to do, and doesn't even have an inkling that there might be things to learn from us. He reminds me of a Greyhound fresh off the track in his total cluelessness about being a pet.

Lots of dogs lately, huh? It's a needed thing. Fezzik might be dead now if we hadn't agreed to quarantine him here. Instead, he has a new home and a bright future.

Our house has been measured and we ordered our new siding. I'm guessing it'll be about a month before it arrives. We're going to measure the yard for the fence sometime soon, but we'll still be holding off putting it up until ~~Santa Claus~~ our neighbour arrives home for the summer.

Now, the goal this week is to not still be sick by the time I have to go to work on Tuesday.

New Job, New Cats

2009-05-15T10:58:00.007-03:00

I worked three days this week and my new job and it went great. I'm not going to go into lots of details and specifics - I need to respect my boss' privacy, and that of her clients too. The Kennel is not in the same town that I live in... or is it? I've also modified Nay's name (it's not really "Nay".)

I will tell you vague things though - how could I disappoint my audience?

It was really different from working at the SPCA. Working at a shelter is emotionally draining in a lot of different ways. The animals aren't in the best situation, the people we see are often neglectful idiots, and dealing with disease prevention among stressed out animals while a million crazy (and sometimes heartbreaking) things are going on each days is just... well, it is what it is. I loved working at the shelter. I would have stayed there forever if we hadn't moved away from Victoria.

As it is, we are getting deeply involved with the animal rescue group here, and Nay is very involved as well. So I still get to work with animals in need, and she does too, so we understand each other in that respect.

The Kennel is a nice place to work at. There are dogs that go there for the day, and some that stay for a week or so, and often at least one CAPS dog who stays there until he is adopted.

I'm not focused on that aspect of the job as much as I thought I would be - Nay mainly needs help with the dogs and cats who come in for grooming. I've been brushing/bathing/cleaning dogs and that is basically the majority of the job. It's pretty cool. She might start teaching me to groom dogs after I get the hang of everything else. I was tired at the end of my first week, but I love working with the animals and it's very nice to have a somewhat physical job.

I feel like a bumbling fool at times though. Now that I am working for a friend, I feel like I've contracted Asperger's Syndrome, and I'm not sure if anything that comes out of my mouth is appropriate any more. There are parts of the job that I know I'll need to practice at, and things that I did that I wish I had done better. Hopefully I will feel less stupid soon, and hopefully she's happy with my progress so far.

Alright, so I also wanted to give you an update on the new cats in our house - the ones we inherited when Mark's Gran went to live at an assisted living place early this week.

They were previously named Toby and Puff. I have issues with both of those names. We will call them Stogie and Snuff instead. (NOTE: We will not be telling Gran we changed the cats' names. There are people who read this who also speak to Gran - please don't tell her. I think it will make her sad.)

Here's Mr. Stogie, a quiet and stoic sort of guy:

And Snuff, who is normally a friendly and affectionate girl, but is still a bit out of sorts from the move:

They are slowly settling into life here in Bridgetown. It takes cats a really long time to adapt to change, and these two are no exception. We've done this a few times before though, and they're actually adapting at a pretty normal pace. It's going well - they've met the other cats and I don't think there are going to be any problems. They've met our dogs before, so I already know they are capable of dealing with those two brats.

Man, it's been an eventful week! Hopefully there will be one more happy event - Fezzik the foster dog is likely getting adopted today - EEEEK! Wish him luck.

Missions

2009-05-11T20:49:00.004-03:00

Update: Fezzik got three staples in his leg. I'm not entirely sure if he's noticed he's injured yet, or would care even if he did notice.

We were gardening on the weekend before Fezzik's big adventure and noticed a man cutting the lawn at the house next door to ours. This is news because that house has been unoccupied, yet well kept up, since we moved here in mid-November.

We've gleaned a few little details about the house's owner from our neighbours over the months. It's an older gentleman with a white beard. It's his summer home, because he works in the winter. He's from "up north". He's apparently really nice. There's a fanciful, bright red upholstered chair in his entryway that's got to be at least ten fee tall.

I'M SURE IT'S SANTA CLAUS.

I can't wait to meet him.

So anyway, we knew he had a caretaker because that's what the neighbours said. We're planning to build a fence along the property line but we want to speak with him before we do it, so I waved down the caretaker and he came over with a smile and chatted with us for a while. I found out that ~~Santa Claus~~ our neighbour will be arriving in about one month. We mentioned the fence plans and gave him our contact info to pass along, and tried very hard to seem friendly and normal. I think the caretaker liked us, so that's good I guess.

Mark and I had very different missions today. His mission was to help his mother bung his Gran off into an assisted living facility. My mission was to go to my first day of work at the dog grooming and boarding kennel.

We both succeeded and we are both tired tonight. A side-effect of the successful bunging of Gran off into a home is that we now own her two cats.

I'd go into more detail but it's getting late; we're tired; and there are chores to do before the day is done.

Gardening Gone Awry

2009-05-09T12:53:00.003-03:00

The weather has been strange today. It was cloudy yet sunny this morning while we were walking dogs, but as I got back to the house with Fezzik the foster dog, the sun dimmed and the clouds took over. Five minutes later the skies opened up in a thunderstorm that lasted about ten minutes.

Another ten minutes after the storm stopped, the clouds were gone and the sun was back, brighter than ever. It has stayed that way all day now, and I decided to get some gardening done. I tied Fezzik out with me and he settled comfortably on the lawn to watch the world go by.

Mark came home from running errands and joined me on the front steps with an offering of Tim Hortons muffins. We weren't halfway through them when the neighbour's dog, a bouncy German Shepherd mix, suddenly came zooming into our yard and pounced playfully on Fezzik. So much for the quarantine.

I could see our neighbour and her daughter making their way over to retrieve their dog. Meanwhile, the two dogs jumped around and played and ran, and Fezzik succeeded in smashing himself into a giant oak tree and knocking down the little neighbour girl by clotheslining her with his rope as he ran past chasing her dog. The little girl and her mother finally corraled their dog and headed home. Fezzik collapsed contentedly on the lawn once more.

It was another couple of minutes before Mark suddenly said "hey, what's that on Fezzik's leg?"

We both looked. It was not good. Fezzik had somehow ripped an ugly gaping gash in his leg. As he lay peacefully on his side in the grass, we could see the meat of his leg in the open wound.

Fezzik didn't seem to mind.

Mark took him into the mudroom while I made rapid phone calls to the rescue group and then to the veterinary hospital. Then the boys bundled into the truck and were on their way to the vet, and as I type I am sitting here at home, with our own two calm dogs, thinking about poor foolish bull-in-a-china-shop Fezzik, who will probably need stitches and (ugh) a cone around his neck.

Send him good thoughts!

Fezzik

2009-05-06T11:31:00.006-03:00

It's way easier to have a Pit Bull than a Beagle hanging around the house.

Waaaay easier.

Our rescue group pulled Fezzik from the pound Monday morning and took him to the vet for shots, a bath, a behaviour assessment, and basically the whole nine yards. We picked him up on Monday evening. I was on edge all weekend - nobody knew anything about this dog. It wasn't that I was worried about him being one of those mythical "evil Pit Bulls" that I've heard about in the news and yet have never EVER seen in person - it was just so... unknown.

Was he housebroken? Would he be scared of us? Good with cats? Good with dogs? We have to keep him separate from us for ten days - would he destroy the room we put him in? Would he bark incessantly for the entire ten days? Would there be some disaster we hadn't even considered?

We showed up at the vet's office with high hopes. They brought him out to the front, and within one and a half seconds of seeing him, almost all of my trepidation melted away.

He came bouncing goofily out at a high speed, smiling and slobbering at everyone. The vet tech let his leash drop and he went flying past the office cat, acknowledging him with the merest of glances. He wanted to be petted by everyone, but could not bring himself to hold still long enough for this to happen.

The drive home was uneventful (if a bit slobbery), and he has been in quarantine in our mudroom for two days now. Eight more to go! We can walk him and spend time with him out in his room, but he's not allowed to interact with our dogs until his quarantine is up. It's haaard to keep him separated. He knows we're on the other side of the door and he's been crying quite a bit to be let in. These are the rules though, so we'll stick it out.

He's been surprisingly undestructive out there by himself. He peed a little bit once, but ever since he realized that he gets multiple walks a day, he's been fine. There's been no chewing, very little barking, and no scratching at the door. Even if he destroyed the room, though, we'd get by. He doesn't deserve to be given up on again.

Once his quarantine is done, he'll be officially up for adoption. I don't have a good sense of the timing of adoptions around here yet, but I would think he'll go pretty fast. He's young, friendly, and very handsome. Oh, also, I have to mention that he's one of the biggest Pit Bulls I've ever seen. I don't think you can tell from the pictures, but he's a wopping 77 pounds of muscle!

Our friend Nay and Jay took Oland the Beagle so that we could rescue Fezzik. They run a boarding kennel and obviously cannot quarantine dogs effectively since there are always ten or twenty dogs there, but they can take dogs like Oland that are done with quarantining. We would have stuck with the admittedly sweet-natured Oland as long as it took for him to get adopted, but I much prefer the Pit Bull.

He's so smooshy and cute.

Action Jax!

2009-05-02T23:19:00.006-03:00

Who would ever have guessed...

that there was a well-kept and highly entertaining little amusement park...

... only 20 minutes from our house?! We're not near any sort of large population base - this is quite unexpected.

Mark's cousin was in the province on family business (the second funeral of Grampa), so after that was done with we brought him up to Bridgetown for a visit. Mark's been sort of talking about going to see this little amusement park for a while now, so with Jamie visiting it was the perfect opportunity.

Some of our friends met up with us there for a while, and y'know what?

It was a lot of fun.

Two Goodbyes

2009-05-02T22:17:00.009-03:00

A few years back Mark's grandfather died of old age. He was cremated and his ashes were buried on family land in Quebec. The acreage had been given to Mark's cousin Dean by their grandmother, who wanted to see it remain in the family. She planned to be buried next to her husband when she died.

Dean, the guardian of the family property, also happens to be some sort of Mormon priest, so he officiated the ceremony. Things seemed to just fall right into place.

Last year Dean's mother happened to drive past the acreage and to her horror, discovered a 'sold' sign in the yard. Dean had sold the property he had been given without telling anyone in the family, and had left the province, the property, and his grandfather's grave behind without a backward glance.

Poor old Gran was incredibly upset. Her husband was now buried on someone else's private property, and she could not rejoin him there when her day came, or even potentially visit his grave without a stranger's permission.

And the family land does not belong to the family any more.

Even though she had given it outright, she would have paid Dean to get it back had she known what he was going to do.

Mark's grandpa's ashes were dug up and brought back to Nova Scotia, and we all attended his second funeral and burial this past weekend. It's been a long saga for Mark's Gran and her two daughters, but now it's over with.

Dean did not attend the second burial. Nobody knows where he lives now.

In other news, our intrepid foster dog Oland (ROOO! BORT!) is going to a new foster home on Monday. We're switching him up for a new model!

Our rescue group takes dogs out of the local pound, and there's a dog at the pound in danger of being euthanized. The dogs are normally taken from the pound and placed in quarantine at the farm of one of the group co-ordinators. The dog in question is an 80-pound pit bull though, and the co-ordinator is a tiny little gentle-mannered retired school teacher. She does not have the strength to walk the large and strong pit bull, so cannot take him at the farm.

You all know the soft spot I have for this underdog breed. When I heard that the pound had a pit bull, I offered our house as a last resort. We are NOT set up well to quarantine a dog, and nobody knows if he's good with cats, dogs, or even people. He would die otherwise though, so we'll make it work, with the help of the other group members of course.

It should be an adventure! We'll get him on Monday if all goes well.

Buzzrite

2009-04-28T20:00:00.001-03:00

Last week a mysterious package came in the mail from Victoria, BC. We weren't expecting anything and had no idea what it could be. We got it home and opened it, and OMG...

Is that what I think it is...

... A GIANT bag

of Certified Organic...

Certified Fair Trade...

Shade Grown...

... Buzzrite Blend Coffee Beans from Creekmore's Coffee!!

Creekmore's Coffee is a gourmet west-coast coffee company, and it just so happens that we are friends with a Creekmore. Not only that; Mark did him a favour recently. I think this might be a 'thank you'.

The bag must be at least five pounds. This is an epic mail surprise.

Awesomeness.

A Good Weekend

2009-04-27T09:39:00.012-03:00

We had such a good weekend. The weather was amazing and sunny and warm, and even though we really didn't plan to do anything over the weekend, lots of fun stuff happened anyway.

The local high school was putting on a production of Alice in Wonderland on Saturday, so we decided to ask our friend Chani if she wanted to go see it with us. Her husband has been out of town for the week and I think she was feeling a bit lonely. We made plans to have her over for dinner and then go to the show.

Around mid-day on Saturday our friends Nay and Jay who run the local dog boarding/grooming facility called and asked us if we wanted to go to the beach for a walk with all the dogs. You have to go over "the mountain" to get there - the beach is gorgeous, uncrowded, and only about 20 minutes away from here. We took off with all the dogs in the truck, windows rolled down to enjoy the glorious weather. We reached the first switch-back of "the mountain" and Mark took the curve at a sort of high rate of speed in order to keep up with Jay, Nay, and Chani, who were all driving ahead of us. He slowed ever so slightly as the truck veered around the curve, and we all found ourselves leaning to the right from the centrifugal force. Mark's sunglasses suddenly skittered to the right as well, danced across the dashboard, and then they popped right out the window.

Mark stepped on the brakes for a moment, but then glanced in the rear-view mirror at the curve in the road, looked at the narrow shoulder, and thought better of stopping. He sped up again to catch up with our friends, and I felt bad. He really liked those sunglasses.

We got to the beach and had a really nice walk with everyone. The air was pleasant and warm and smelled like the ocean. The Atlantic Ocean smells different than the Pacific - isn't that weird? The dogs had fun and wore themselves out jumping on each other and smelling all the smells. It was good times.

On the way back home I convinced Mark to stop at the curve where we had lost his sunglasses. He was reluctant, thinking they would be scratched or broken even if we could find them, but stopped the truck just to make me happy. I hopped out and only had to search the side of the road for about five seconds before I spotted the sunglasses. I scooped them up and we examined the damage in the truck: they were pristine. There was not a scratch to be had. They're only cheap-ish sunglasses too, but they fit him well and are polarized, so recovering them was a major victory for the day.

We got home and had Chani over for dinner before the show. You know, it's hard to have a professional chef to dinner when you have no talent in the kitchen. She didn't complain though. The high school play was entertaining, and even the few bad actors were good for a laugh. It had been a good day.

We had beautiful weather again on Sunday, and took the dogs for a long lazy walk around town, then went home to do a little bit of nothing. I was just finishing my morning cup of coffee when there was a knock at the door - it was our friends Nay and Jay again! They had stopped by unannounced, and I was flattered that they were comfortable enough to do so.

They came in, sat down, and fought over who got to hold Oliver. We talked a bit about our foster dog Oland. Nay and Jay are in our animal rescue group and often take foster dogs at their boarding kennel, so we're kind of kindred spirits.

After about ten minutes of small talk, Nay's expression became serious and she announced that they had stopped by for a specific reason. Jay, who is a massage therapist in addition to working at their pet care facility, was planning on returning to his lucrative seasonal job soon. Nay would be left to run the booming family business alone. Would I be interested in coming to work for them at the boarding kennel?

SCORE!

I am so happy! Who would have thought that I would get the opportunity to get paid to work with dogs again, after moving to this tiny little rural community? Of course I said yes, and I think we'll work out the details sometime this week.

Mark has been the sole breadwinner ever since we left British Columbia, and even though I'm writing a book there are no guarantees that it will actually get published and make us any money. Now I feel like I'm going to be contributing something concrete, and since it's just a seasonal job, the book will not fall to the wayside.

The job offer kept a smile on my face all day.

We went out after Nay and Jay left and tried our lawn mower that we'd bought at an auction a couple of months ago, and IT WORKED. That was an event, because there was not any sort of guarantee for it. Mark mowed the lawn and seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself. I picked up the remainder of the garbage hidden in our woods, and I didn't even catch swine flu from all the rotten litter and dirt.

What a great weekend!

Legend of the Beagle

2009-04-22T11:50:00.008-03:00

Mark and I are having a debate about Oland, our new foster dog. Mark thinks his bark sounds like "BORT", and I think it sounds like "ROOOO". Either way it's a classic Beagle bay - you know what I mean if you've ever heard one in action.

It's only been three days and Oland definitely does not know the rules yet, nor should he be expected to after such a short period of time. I sure wish he did, though.

I was reorganizing the cleaning supplies/animal supplies closet today to put a box of Oland's donated dented canned dog food away. I kept a few out for immediate use and emptied half the closet out in order to make room for the box in the back and at the bottom. Oland kept coming around and getting into everything I had pulled out, and then got hyper and thought it was a game whenever I sent him away. Suddenly, in a big crunchy wave, he sent his entire 35 pound bag of dry dog food spilling across the hallway floor.

Ugh.

I got it cleaned up, put the box of canned food in the back of the closet, put a bunch of boxes neatly on top of it, put the remainder of stuff back in front of the pile of boxes, and went to the kitchen to put away the few cans I had kept out.

On top of one of the cans was a fresh drip of wet dog food. I had none opened at the moment.

Crap.

I went back to the closet, hauled out the stuff at the front, lifted all the boxes off of the canned dog food box, and pulled off the lid. I inspected every dented can and finally found the leaking one. It smelled bad. I then put the lid back on the box, piled a bunch of the other boxes on top of it AGAIN, put the rest of the stuff back in front of the boxes AGAIN, and walked away from the hall closet with my blood pressure rising.

I left the dogs in the living room and went to our mudroom to do some re-arranging and spring cleaning. I was putting away our scarves and mittens to make room for spring things and could hear Oland snuffling around the closed mudroom door. After a minute he stopped snuffling, and I started hauling out gardening gear.

Then I heard dishes rattling on the kitchen counter. I walked swiftly but quietly to the kitchen and caught the foolish Beagle red-handed with his front paws up on the counter inspecting our dishes with his nose.

I immediately beat him to within an inch of his life, hog-tied him, and stuck him in a sack in the corner.

JUST KIDDING.

I took him down to the river and threw him in.

I'M STILL KIDDING.

It sure will be nice when he learns some rules.