My Boring Life
http://www.tibetanmastiffinfo.com/2013/index.html
His pictures are halfway down the first page. No log in or registration required. Yes there are two “yes” votes for each picture, either works, but this way you don’t have to vote “no” for any of them. Feel free to vote for any other picture that catches your eye!
Bluesun, over at Dead Man Dance, saw something driving down the road….and I’ve decided that before Apollo starts shedding next spring I need something similer of my own. Apollo will love it, and I won’t have to do nearly as much brushing!! Just don’t pull in behind me, you might be blinded by the free flying fur!
When I got home from work today the heat powered fans had been knocked off the top of the woodburning stove. Didn’t think much of it, picked them up, made a mental note to figure out which animal was responsible and finished putting away the groceries.
A while later I hear what sounded like a bird flapping its wings against the window. Except there was no bird.
A while later I noticed that Trouble seemed awefully facinated with the top of the stove. I figured I’d found the culprit, chased her off, and went on with my evening.
A while later I heard that sound again.
Except this time it sounded like it was coming from the stove.
A moment of brilliance, I opened the stove door to see wtf?
A moment of flight as the House Sparrow shot for the door.
A moment of ‘holy crap’ as Trouble made a flying leap and caught it on her first jump.
A moment of ‘uhoh’ as Apollo convinced Trouble to give him the bird, and let it go.
Another moment of ‘holy crap’ as Apollo duplicated Trouble’s jump.
Apollo was a good boy and took it to his crate to eat, as I racked my brain trying to remember if sparrows carried anything that might be dangerous to him. Except he was baffled by the feathers, so I was able to convince him to trade for a treat.
Sigh.
Not bad really, just odd…
Monday husband and I agreed to spend way to much money on a home improvement project. Its not NEEDED, and as such I’m cringing a bit at what its doing to our savings and our budget, but it was one of those opportunities that doesn’t come along very often….more details when things are a bit further along and I’m less likely to jinx it….
Tuesday, Husband called me after he got to work to warn me that his car had been acting weird as he pulled into the lot, and so be prepared for bad things…..sure enough the car only kinda started and barely ran when he got out of work. Since he works 2nd shift it was 1am before the AAA driver showed up. Good thing I didn’t have to work Wednesday.
Wednesday was 4th of July, it went well, and both dogs enjoyed getting to meet new people at my inlaws for fireworks.
Thursday we got the quote on Husband’s car, $700+, new alternator, new battery, and a couple odds and ends associated with them. Sigh. Of course they couldn’t get it fixed in time for him to drive it to work that day….
On the other hand I got to watch Apollo scare some poor random guy that afternoon….he was working through the neighborhood looking for anyone who wanted their driveway sealed. He pulled up, opened the door and started to swing out of the truck…..and Apollo hit the front door on his hind legs, in full voice. I was very amused to see him stop, swing his feet back into the truck, shut the door, and roll the window down about halfway waiting for me to step out onto the porch to talk to him instead of coming to the door. Donno if he really was looking for work, or if he was scouting, but I don’t think it matters in this case.
Friday and Saturday were quiet. We got the left over firewood restacked so its ready come fall to use first and yet not in the way of the delivery of new wood.
The regular blueberry bushes are producing berries, not tons, and something’s eating most of them before I can pick them, but they’re producing. Next year I’ll invest in some bird netting. Nothing else is producing berries yet, but everything looks healthy and growing, so I’ll take it. I didn’t expect a big berry crop this year anyway. Jalapenos are growing peppers, several of them of nice size already. The sweet pepper plants are FINALLY thriving, though I don’t know how many peppers I’m going to get off them now, it’ll depend on the fall weather I guess. The herbs are all flourishing well. The honeydew is taking off and getting ready to send its vines over the edge of the container, and the pumpkin is right behind. Both are showing buds, so hopefully our weird weather hasn’t screwed them up too badly. I did finally give up on the broccoli, when I checked them yesterday I discovered that something had eaten the tops off the heads. Sigh.
We can see the fireworks from the NY State Fairgrounds from my in-laws front yard, so last night we took both dogs over about 8:30pm along with a couple folding chairs and everyone had fun catching up with family while we waited for the fireworks to start. They were late as usual.
Everyone was surprised when we showed up with the dogs. They were skeptical when we insisted they both were fine with fireworks.
An aunt who’d never met Apollo before last night sucked in a deep breath of horror when our niece lit off a sparkler, and my husband lit off a smoke bomb, about 10 ft behind Apollo.
He turned around, looked the whole thing over, and went back to trying to convince an uncle’s Pomeranian to play with him (little puff ball barreled out of the house barking and growling and having the biggest snit at Apollo, who said COOL, PLAY!!!).
Arty didn’t blink either, he’s already figured out that if Apollo isn’t worked up over it then its probly not worth getting worked up over.
Fun was had by all, both watching fireworks and catching up with family. Hope you all did the same.
(I thought about doing a patriotic post for the day, but everyone else says it better than me, so go read them if thats what you want.)
His neuter was monday, he came home tuesday (he freaked out the vet by refusing to eat, drink, or allow himself to be restrained without sedation). Apollo was thrilled to see him.
Friday he chewed through his cone, decided rest and quiet was for the birds, and challanged Apollo to a race around the house.
Today things look pretty well healed and he’s not licking hardly at all. It might not be the two weeks the vet wanted, but I’ll take it!
This cat, in case you weren’t sure what cat I meant.
He’s great with my cats, and he’s never had an issue with any of the cats owned by various inlaws and families who’s houses he’s visited. But something about that one cat…He put serious effort into trying to drag Husband across the street last night to get at said cat. And he did it again to me this morning, Husband watched his lack of success this morning and said he might have to start using the prong collar too.
When we were first looking at houses to buy we ran across two houses directly across the street from each other listed under the same realtor. Took an evening to come out and look at them both. The one we bought had the larger acreage, if slightly older house, better cared for house/property, the pool, the attached (large) garage, the carport, the woodburning stove…the one across the street might have been newer, but it wasn’t in quite as nice a shape, didn’t have the above mentioned extras, and the current owners were smokers. We put in an offer on ours, a bit under the asking price, and got it no problem. The house across the street was listed for 10k more than we bought for.
The following spring the house across the street still hadn’t been sold, and the owner turned it over to the bank (not sure if he walked away or not, didn’t ask), who sold it that summer for significantly less than he’d been asking for it.
The folks who bought it have 4 kids, and at the time only had one dog. Seemed nice enough, rarely saw the dog except when someone was outside. They said she was 11 years old, and she didn’t like Apollo at all.
September they got a puppy. Cute little thing, looks like a smooth coated collie or similar. Terrified of Apollo from day one. Mid November we started to realize that the reason Apollo had taken a sudden dislike to the sight of both dogs was because they had taken a sudden liking to using our yard as their potty area. It explained the random piles of poo that didn’t belong to Apollo. See, apparently at their old house, the older dog had been trained to stay in their yard with no fence, or restraint. I have my doubts. At any rate they never did any training with her to teach her the NEW boundaries, so when they let the dogs out for potty and exercise they didn’t bother to restrain them, and just ASSUMED that the older dog was teaching the puppy the boundaries. They were “surprised” when I chased the dogs back across the street one evening and asked them to keep their dogs out of my yard…..
Apollo goes ballistic at the site of a dog in his yard without permission. I don’t really want to come home one day and discovered he figured out how to go through a window.
At least one of the random piles of poo I picked up contained a rather large number of worms, and worms are the LEAST worrisome thing that can be passed on by dog feces.
And neither dog is light colored, and they were coming across the street to reach my yard. The street is not lit at night, and there’s no posted speedlimit, which means its the state limit of 55mph, which means even after dark people FLY down the road. I really don’t want to have someone knocking on my door at 9:30 at night cause a dog ran out of my driveway and got hit.
I tried to be patient, and give them time to do the retraining that would be needed to make sure the dogs stayed on the property, or take the other steps required to ensure it. But nothing changed, and at the beginning of January I went back over and we had another discussion. They swore they were working on it.
End of January I called animal control for the first time. It must have made SOME impact, for the next few weeks they sent a kid out with the dogs (almost) every time they let the dogs out. Not that sending a kid out did much when the kid wasn’t paying attention. But I considered it an effort, and took it.
Till the end of February when they stopped sending the kids out with the dogs, and the dogs started coming across the street again. This time I didn’t go over to have a chat. I just called animal control again.
Just about the same time period as my 2nd call they got a 3rd dog. Young male, possibly a boxer. Donno what the ACO said to them this time, but ever since then if the dogs are outside they’re on tieouts. Its an improvement. I’m not sure how long I expect it to last, but I’ll take it. However if that boxer is ever allowed loose at a time when we’re out with Apollo its not going to be pretty. He hits the end of his cable every time he see’s Apollo.
Of course, now they got a cat.
And they allow the cat free access to roam like they did the dogs.
Today the cat wandered across the street and strolled down my driveway to plant its butt in the middle of it, watching the swallows soar overhead.
Apollo DID NOT APPROVE.
Sigh.
He’s NOT happy with the cone, and Apollo keeps trying to help him remove it…..but he was licking his stitches so no choice!
This morning I hauled Arty off to the vets to be neutered. Apollo was peeved because Arty got to go for a car ride and he didn’t. Arty was peeved because he was hungry….
The vet has called to say that Arty made it through surgery fine (it was complicated by the fact that one of his testicles hadn’t dropped, which was the reason he was being neutered in the first place), and he was awake and doing ok. I assume he was awake but drugged as I didn’t hear any shrieking in the background….they’re keeping him overnight and we’ll pick him up tomorrow.
Apollo got over his sulk at the lack of car ride, but is now VERY UPSET that Arty is missing. He keeps looking for him, and hasn’t hardly eaten a thing all day….
Course, the cats are thrilled, they know Apollo won’t chase them, but we’ve not yet convinced them that Arty won’t (probly cause he still does on occasion).