HoundBlog

I’m seeing more and more deer as the year winds down. Some look pretty skinny despite there being plenty of stuff to forage on. I wonder what the problem is.

Caught some cute pictures of a fawn in the yard this morning. Also some of young bucks with antlers covered in velvet. There’s a 4 pointer that’s been quite bold — he comes almost all the way to the front porch to browse on the canna lilies and my last remaining rose bush.

Hummingbird activity is peaking as they get ready to head to Mexico for the winter. It’s hard to believe that fall is only 40 days away. After so many days of 100° heat, it’s difficult to think of colder temperatures. They would sure be welcome about now, though — and let’s not forget rain!

I finally got the pathology back on Camilla’s toe. There was no cancer, just arthritis and something associated iwth trauma (I forget the exact word she used). She’s feeling so much better since the toe was removed, though. She’s back to my happy, cuddly girl again.

Ken’s working a short day today — he said he would be home about 3:30. He also said he would be working every Saturday through Labor Day weekend which is a bummer. He keeps teasing me with this talk of “no more Saturdays”, but it never seems to happen or not for long.

He brought home some candly last night that has me laughing. It’s just gummy bear-type candy, but they are in the shape of naked men.  They are quite anatomically correct, too. Don’t look if you’re easily offended. They are pretty tasty.

Well, I have to get started on this house. Laundry, et al won’t get done with me sitting in front of this computer.

Love to all,

Margaret

HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT

Too darned HOT.

We got the roof fixed, and it’s a good thing since they are calling for thunderstorms this afternoon. There’s little hope that those will cool it off any though. My light bill is going to be humongous this month – that makes me very sad 😥

Ken keeps saying our heat pump just isn’t big enough to do the job, but I think it’s just as much because this house is not energy efficient at all. It was built in 1982, so what’s to wonder about. Two more years is becoming a mantra. Two years before we can afford to replace the house with a newer, more efficient one.

Meanwhile, we’re breeding dust bunnies. Despite my sweeping and vacuuming nearly every day, the dust bunnies are going to take over the world. I think it’s due in some part because of the 3 dogs that are shedding enough hair to make a whole other 3 dogs every day. I truly do not know where all the hair is coming from, but I surely do know where it’s going to….

Nothing on tap for me this weekend. I will have to try to get the dust bunnies under control, that’s for sure, but other than that, I have no real plans. I’m so glad EJ got Mom sorted out yesterday. I owe him big time.

Ya’ll stay cool!

Love to all,

Margaret

It’s been pretty much the same-ol same-ol around here. A bit of rain one day, then hot as blue blazes the next. We are definitely in the dog days of summer, that’s for sure.

Did nothing special at the dog show last weekend, so now it’s just a wait until September which is the next one we’ve scheduled to go to. I won’t take Butterfly there — it’s too big of a show, but will enter Payne and Ken wants to show Tigger. It will probably be October before I show Butterfly again.

I’m going to see Ma tomorrow. I’ve gone too long without her jokes and feel like she’s missing out on too much not having interenet and email.

Ken’s working part of the day tomorrow and the roofers are supposed to come finally to fix the roof. I don’t have to be here and Ken should get home before they finish, so that will be all taken care of.

That’s all I have to say.

Love to all,

Margaret

Good morning to all! I hope that if you’ve needed rain, you got some. We’ve had several storms over the past few days that have helped our situation greatly and we are so thankful for that and for the temperatures to stay in a reasonable range.

Ken’s birthday was quiet, but he seemed to enjoy it very much. I made him some of his favorite dishes for dinner with banana pudding for dessert. They gave him cake at work and someone gave him this huge beer stein with a quart can of German beer in it.

The July dog show was last weekend. We didn’t have much entered and the best any of them did was Reserve, so it was a ho-hum weekend, too. At least Ken got the grass mowed and rested some.

Came into work today because there is a blood drive today and I didn’t want to miss out on it. I’ll work from home another day this week.

That’s about all there is to say for now.

Love to all,

Margaret

Monday night we had one horrendous storm at out house. The dogs were beside themselves in fear of it. I was sure there was a funnel cloud somewhere. We got pea-sized hail for nearly half an hour and the wind was so strange. The tops of the trees were whipping like mad, but at ground level, it was still as death. This caused more than one tree to be snapped in two, so the roads were littered with trees, branches and other items that had been ripped from their usual mooring – I saw pieces of a billboard alongside the highway going into work Tuesday.

We lost power for about two hours. I cooked dinner in the camper as Ken tried to get the generator filled with gas and moved in place so we could spend the night in the camper. About the time he got everything in order, the lights came back on, so we put everything away and went in the house to eat dinner. We had just enough time to eat when the lights went out again, but this time they came back on after just a few minutes. It meant I set the blasted clocks 3 times Monday night and the power must have flickered Tuesday as when I arrived home yesterday, I had to set them all again.

Another casualty of the storm is our roof.

I called a friend yesterday who does construction about fixing it. He’ll come out tomorrow to assess the damage and give us a quote on the materials and work, then do it next week. Meanwhile, the pots are ready for when it rains again as it’s supposed to do every night for the rest of this week.

I can’t complain a lot as we are in desperate need of the rain. Our yard looks awful and I’ve lost almost all my flowers. Even the cannas lilies that are planted over the septic tank look peaked this year. Usually they are unaffected by drought. I do have figs on the fig bush which suffered damage last year from the late frost we had. I need to read up on if I can cut it back this winter as it’s very leggy and, after the frost killed part of it, rather sparse as well.

Hope you haven’t had as much trouble from the storms that have traveled up and down the Smokies this week.

Love to all,

Margaret

I am SUCH a slacker! I still have not put Chrystalyn’s stuff in the mail to Eddie — geez it’s not like I was busy this weekend or anything — just normal stuff. Reminder to self — get the stuff together and MAIL IT!

I sure hope you were cooler than I was this weekend! Was it ever hot and I see on the weather report today, it’s supposed to get up to 100! That’s just too blamed hot for South Carolina!

This weekend was the weekend of cleaning projects. I made up my mind I was going to give the bird cages and kennels a thorough cleaning and they got it. Cages were pressure washed and birds got lots of out time as I locked up all the dogs while the birds had a play day. They seemed to really enjoy it, too! I also bleached and pressure washed the runs and pens. I try to do this stuff on a regular basis, but it seems to have not been done as often as it should have the last couple of months.

Of course I had the regular stuff like laundry, kitchen clean up and sweeping/mopping to do but I managed it all plus read a couple of books. I started a book review blog a couple of weeks ago where I write reviews of the books I read. So far, they have mostly been thriller-type, but if you’re interested, the url is www.myreadingnook.com.  I saw some books at Sam’s Club Friday that I want to go back and pick up that I think Chrystalyn would enjoy when I finish reading them as they are about dragons. I did pick up one book Friday that I read — it was pretty good and the review for that is on the site.

Ken had an eye doctor’s appointment Thursday, but waited for over an hour and was never called in for the exam. He asked why it was taking so long and was told they had some emergencies and couldn’t give him any idea of how long it would be before he could be seen, so he left. We both understand and appreciate that emergencies happen, but the waiting patients need to be given an opportunity to reschedule if they can’t wait an indeterminate length of time to see the doctor. After all, they have their own lives that must be attended to and many  people aren’t paid while they are away from work for a doctor’s appointment, so lose money from their check. Added to that is the driving distance and time and you just really do more than inconvenience people when you don’t take that into consideration. Poor Ken was major stressed out Thursday after all that.

Well, now you know what’s going on in our lives!

Love to all,

Margaret

Good morning everyone! Hope you’ve had a great week so far. We got a tiny bit of rain the other day, but other than that the days have been warm and sunny with pretty white fluffy clouds in the skies.

Work has been relatively quiet and life on the farm has been about the same. In other words, no high drama.

Ken goes to get his eyes checked today and we don’t expect any great revelations on that front. He needs glasses for close work and that’s the extent of it.

Next weekend is the local dog show. We don’t have much entered and didn’t even enter all 3 days, only Saturday and Sunday. Ken and I talked about his problem with getting ears from the dogs and he’s going to try a different approach to it. He was supposed to be practicing with his dog, but I don’t think he has yet.

That’s all the news on our front.

Oh! Eddie – Chrystalyn left her bathing suit and a backpack thing. If I can get my mind to functioning properly, I’ll get those mailed to you by this weekend. I hope she’s enjoying her books.

Love to all,

Margaret

Last Thursday something terrible happened.

Oh — not to me or Ken or to anyone we know, but it was still terrible nonetheless.

A lady got the security guard to let her on the roof of the building next door under the pretext of taking photos of the city, then proceeded to throw herself off it. A 17 story fall leaves a body in a big mess. My office window faces that building.

Thankfully, I wasn’t here that day, but the “evidence” of her demise is not completely eradicated and serves as a graphic reminder of what happened.

I can’t help but wonder what was so terrible that she felt compelled to end her life in this manner. I’ve read about people committing suicide by throwing themselves off bridges and out of windows, but it’s always been not real – just something you read in the newspaper or in a book. This was all too real.

I also feel for the security guard who let her on the roof. I would not want to be in his shoes.

It’s a lot to think about and take in. Almost too much…..

Love to all,

Margaret

Camilla got her stitches out today and got to go back into her big cage. She is one happy bird! Her foot is still a bit sore, but the sore place is on the side, so she can pretty much stand comfortably. They were well pleased with her recovery.

All my boarders have gone home and now we’re back to normal. I’ll miss them until the next time they visit us.

I got a couple of photos of Max and Minnie. Hope you think they’re as cute as we do.

Love to all,

Margaret

I swear! Sometimes I think these dratted dogs are at least half human and trying to take over the world!

Of course, the world might be a better place if dogs WERE running it! We humans sure seem to have screwed it up royally.

Anyway, back to my story….

You may (or may not) know we have Chris’ Golden Retriever, Nala and her half-Labrador son, Jewels (NO! I did NOT name this dog!). Well, they are getting up in years – I figure Nala is 12 or so and Jewels is 10. At any rate, they’ve been outside dogs since they came to live here (temporarily he swore) 9 years ago. They were confined to a 10’x20′ chain link pen that housed them quite comfortably until a few months ago. They have developed a deep seated fear of thunderstorms which seems to be a common thing among my older dogs as they age, so when one blew up, they broke through the gate and went somewhere to hide. We then put them in a smaller pen that had rubber matting and they seemed happy with that for awhile, but we’ve had some humdinger storms lately and they eventually were driven to break out of that one as well.

Since they are both altered, we decided to just let them be yard dogs. They never go further than the creek and are totally useless as watch dogs, so didn’t think it would be a big deal. They don’t bother any of the other dogs — it’s actually rather comical to watch them when one is growling at them — he or she will hold it’s head up way high and looks away from the threatening dog as if to say “I can’t see you and if I can’t see you, we will get along just fine {whistling}” It works too as absolutely no one challenges them

On super hot days, I would let them into the then dog room to spend the day in air conditioned comfort — they are after all, over 100lbs each, and Nala has a thick coat, so I was trying to be nice to the big lumps. Ok, so now I’ve opened Pandora’s box when it comes to these two. Now they know the house is a MUCH nicer place to be in than “just” outdoors and especially way nicer than in any old pen!

We have a fairly large section fenced off the back of the house for the house dogs to use for play and potty and they have a dog door to come and go as they please. Since Nala and Jewels have learned to fear no fence (much less respect the boundaries of one), they figured out there was a place where the fence isn’t stretched super tight; a place they can ooch underneath and into the back yard. That made the dog door a breeze to conquer, so now I have two smelly behemoths coming and going at will. At least they didn’t dig a hole under the fence…

Guess it will be bath time for them tonight.

Ugh! Just thinking about manhandling one of those monsters into the bathtub makes me tired.

Love to all,

Margaret