HoundBlog

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

We got back home last night around 9:00 PM, so not too late. Ken got into bed about 30 minutes later. I hope he’s not too tired today as he never would let me drive any yesterday despite the plans to turn the driving over to me around Asheville so he could catch some sleep. He did get a good nap in yesterday morning, so that may be why he chose to drive the entire trip. He can be so stubborn!

No points yesterday at all — what a bummer! Oh well, that’s dog shows for you. The next show will be Greenville and we’re only planning on showing Saturday and Sunday as we neither one want to use up a vacation day for Friday. The judging panel just isn’t that great.

Aurora went home Saturday, Dante goes home today and Scarlett I guess will also go home today — Charlotte called me yesterday to ask how she was doing (fine) and to tell me something about running up to Charlotte to get a bitch bred. When I tried to call her back last night to see if she had gotten Scarlett, I never got an answer, but Scarlett was still there, so guess she spent the night up there.

The house WOULD seem empty except that we brought back two Toy Fox Terrier puppies to raise and show. They are a week shy of 3 months old and are little balls of perpetual motion. I’m half afraid that I’m crazy to take on another breed, but the breeder knows I do NOT intend to breed these dogs and that she is free to (once they’ve finished) use them in her breeding program if she wants to.  This is not one of them, but it gives you an idea of what they look like. I need to give these two a bath before I take a photo of them. They should stay little — just a bit taller than a Chihuahua, but no heavier. These two are not afraid of anything — they engage the Whippets in play although Taco Belle has told them in no uncertain terms to leave her the he!! alone (which they totally respect without being scared of her).

Well, that’s all that’s new with us. Hope everyone had a great 4th!

Love to all,

Margaret

Our drive up to West Virginia was a beautiful one. I wouldn’t mind coming to this show more often as the ride through the Smokies is definitely worth it. We ended up going through 6 states to get here — SC, NC, TN, KY, VA and WV. While it was a long ride, it wasn’t a hard one even with the rain.

I talked Ken into coming with me at literally the last minute. He was moping around so much regretting that he hadn’t entered Tigger and wasn’t coming. I kept telling him it wasn’t too late to call Judy (our pet sitter) to take care of the animals and he could come on. His follow-up excuse was that he wouldn’t have anything to show, so it woudn’t be any fun. Of course I told him he could show some of the dogs I was taking! I wasn’t stupid — it’s always good to have a chauffer and muscle 😛

He showed Butterfly today and managed to snag the point, so now she only needs one to finish! Keep your fingers crossed for tomorrow.

He’s off to find some gambling fun. We’ll go out to dinner when  he gets back — I think I’ll take a nap.

Love to all,

Margaret

Ken and Chrystalyn spent the day yesterday doing honey-dos around the house. Don’t know why they chose to do that, but they did and I’m grateful to have those things taken care of.

I did manage to get this not-very-good shot of Chrystalyn as she watched t.v. and read a book (she’s taking after Ma in that respect) last night. I don’t know why it (and all the others I took) came out with that odd blur — guess I should have used the tripod or the image stabilization got taken off by accident.

They are going to Carowinds today and I KNOW they’ll have a great time! I have to go to work, unfortunately.

The books I ordered for Chrystalyn came yesterday. I was told she needed two in a series to complete her collection, so ordered them from the author who graciously autographed them. He has another series out that she’s interested in, so I think Paw Paw is going to order those for her today and have them shipped to Eddie’s house.

Well, it’s time for me to pack my lunch and head out the door.

Love to all,

Margaret