Missions

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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.