Montreal to Tofino

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.