creative fail

We are having a devil of a time trying to keep the lawn mowed in the yard. If it isn't raining, we have no gas or oil for the mower engine, or the wind is blowing at ridiculous speeds, or...., or.....
What I am basically saying is that we haven't mowed the lawn in FOR EV ER and so it is ridiculously long. I thought I would be creative and lay in the long grass and take photos of the boys and puppy playing from a different angle.

My plan didn't quite work out as I had intended because as soon as I lay down everyone came to see what I was doing. I took some photos, but they were not the artsy, imaginative shots I had hoped for. This is what I got instead.

need a place to sit?

Good thing we got new furniture.

one day at a time ... or should I say, one pile of poop at a time

I don't know how we are making it through the days with Shel being injured. It is all a blur to me at this point. A haze, A fugue state, A fog.... I think you get it now.

The days are blending into one another. On the one hand it seems like it only happened yesterday, but on the other hand the days drag endlessly.

I am getting up, getting dressed, getting the boys up and dressed. Trying to get everyone something to eat and get Shel everything she needs close at hand for the day. Our neighbour has been AWESOME and watches the boys while I work (when she can). I get the boys to her place and get to work. Then I pick the boys up and we go home. I try to get supper, baths, bottles and bed all done and get stuff for Shel that she needs.

On Tuesday the boys were in bed by 7:53 and I was in bed by 7:54. Our neighbour returned my call after 8 and got no answer. Even the phone ringing did not rouse me.

Somehow in the daytime the piles of laundry and the toys and the dishes all replicate in science fiction proportions and I am not doing well at keeping up. Every time I think I have a handle on it I leave the room for one minute and come back to a disaster area.

It doesn't help that the boys have two favorite places to play - the little wading pool and the sand pile. They go from the water to the sand and not the other way around which means they get dripping wet and then roll in the sand pile and the piles of laundry just get bigger, and bigger, and bigger..... and then I discovered after coming home one afternoon that the two dogs in the house do as much damage as two boys.

Yesterday we needed to be away from the house for a few hours to go over some forms in preparation for court. We thought we would be gone for about three hours and it turned into closer to nine hours by the time we got home. I went to the meeting straight from work and Shel came from home. Because she is having difficulty maneuvering on crutches she did not put the puppy in his crate but left him "loose" in the house when she came into town. Since he has already chewed both couches to smithereens she figured there was little remaining in the house for him to destroy and that we would be safe with him out of his crate for a few hours.

When we arrived at home and I opened the back door I knew immediately we had a problem. The puppy had diarrhea while we were gone. I could tell he had tried to get out of both the front door and the back door. There was drips of poop from one end of the house to the other.

This is NOT what I wanted to encounter to end my day. I was so tired (mentally and physically) that the last thing in the world I wanted to do was start cleaning up dog poo. Unfortunately in this situation I had no choice. For over an hour I went from room to room, splash to splash, cleaning up Great Dane sized amounts of poo (and by "great dane" I mean "small horse"). NOT FUN.

I think of how many loads of laundry I could have done in that time, or how many dishes, but ACTUALLY if I had not been cleaning poo I would have simply fallen into bed and fallen further behind in the housework. Did you know there was something worse than cleaning wet dog poo? It is cleaning dry dog poo. Extra muscle is required - which I had little of at the end of the day yesterday and so it made the job that much more difficult.

Our poor puppy was so distressed that as soon as he came inside after I was done with the floors he went right upstairs and went into his crate and went to sleep. I will add - to his credit - that he did not step in ONE drip of poo. Which makes me wonder how he managed to avoid it when he seems incapable of walking past me without stepping on one of my feet?

Hercules

A few months ago a student brought a frog to the office and said he "found" it in his unit. I was suspect (it's my nature) that it just "appeared" out of nowhere. We have a no pet policy and we often "find" things that don't belong.
Not wanting to flush the little guy I decided to take him home. I went and bought an aquarium and some things to go in it and named the little dude "Hercules". I conducted what I considered to be a fairly extensive search in pet stores, books, on the internet and consulting colleagues in the animal health department to determine what kind of a frog he was. At the time I was unable to determine what species of frog he was - partly because he was albino and so it made it difficult to identify any markings on him.
He was a great froggy pet. He lived in our kitchen and one he came out of semi hibernation he was very interested in everything happening in his froggy world and would greet me every morning in his water dish. I liked him.
This week he went to the great lily pad in the sky. He was fine one afternoon when I filled his water dish ( I was filling it often because it was quite warm in our house). I commented to my spousal unit to check out his pose because he was laying with his legs out in the dish with his head and one hand on the side and I thought it was cute. The very next day he was gone. I am sad he has left us. As I was looking for a photo (I never took one of him) I found this picture in the very first google search I did. He was a Northern Leopard Frog [Rana pipiens]. I think its weird that I looked and looked to see what kind of frog he was when I took him home and was unsuccessful and then today I found him right away.
RIP little Hercules.

Home: Tora (Thursday Thirteen)

Today I am going to give a shout out to our dog Tora.

A few years ago I left our home in Utah and returned to Canada. It was a traumatic time for us as a family caused by the lack of tolerance in the USA for gay couples. I had gone to school int he USA, met my partner and we had begun building a life together. Unfortunately we could not marry, nor could my spouse sponsor me to immigrate to the US and our lives were thrust into chaos when I was not permitted to extend my work permit.

I left the country in haste, experienced countless problems trying to enter Canada (even though I am a Canadian citizen) and my spouse, I am assuming in her grief, adopted a puppy.

1. 2. We lived in an urban area and there were many people around who bred dogs for fighting. We are fairly sure that Tora (her name means "adopted) was a puppy who was bred for this purpose and discarded when she was too timid.

3. She does not have the disposition to be a fighter and was abandoned as a stry to roam the streets with a pack of dogs. She was VERY social with the other dogs in the neighborhood and when Shel first took her in she would "escape" under the fence in our yard to tour with her friends.

4. At one time she was picked up by the dog catcher and taken to the pound and Shel got a call to go and get her. When Shel went to get her, she was so HAPPY to go home but I don't think that it stopped her roaming ways.

5. She contracted Parvo - maybe from being in the pound - and very nearly died. Shel nursed her back to health and held her for days on end. She made it, but she still thinks she is a lap dog, even though she is now over 90 pounds.

6. She has always had a nervous disposition. When I finally found a job and a place for us to live, I returned to Utah to pick up my family and we travelled to Canada in a U-haul with my spousal unit, Mukiwa and Tora in the cab. We had to go to the vets before leaving and get puppy valium so that Tora could travel with us. Muki LOVED travelling so it wasn't an issue with her, but Tora was a nervous wreck. This nervous disposition still affects her and she does NOT like loud voices. I happen to be "loud" (I think it's genetic) and I have really had to work on moderating my tone because she will hide in a corner quivering if she thinks someone is yelling - even if it is not directed at her.

7. She is generally terrified of adults - especially of males. When my parents came to stay with us, my dad tried to befriend her. My parents love animals and my dad is a very gentle soul. Tora would have nothing to do with him. He tried to coax her with treats and pigs ears. She would literally climb over the couch to get away from him. My brother, on the other hand, gets along with her famously.

8. Tora has never seen me as "leader of the pack". She will listen to my spousal unit but will not do anything at all that I ask her. I like to think I am the leader of my pack, but Tora reminds me constantly that I am not.

9. She is the most gentle, amazing dog with kids. We are foster parents and we have had numerous children in our home. Kids find in her the most comforting companion and they lay on her, ride on her back, pull her tail, and explore her nose and mouth with their fingers. Our son now uses her as a step stool to get up onto things he cannot reach on his own. She has never growled, snapped or flinched and just lets the kids snuggle into her. I have never known a more gentle dog.

10. She is a "mother" to the other pets. Our little man Helios looks for her to snuggle into at every opportunity. When we rescued Helios and Nyx they both nuzzled into her and tried to nurse on her. She does huff at them and gets up to move away but they just follow along to her next resting spot and lay with her again.

11. She LOVES to run. For a dog of her size and musculature one wouldn't think she would be a runner, but she loves to run more than any of our other dogs (except probably Muki).

12. Tora is the best mouser in the house. I think Shilo would have given her a run for the money, but she currently retains the record for mousing. If she and Helios teamed up our acreage would be mouse free but mostly they just fight over who gets to eat their catch.

13. I was not a huge fan of Tora when we first met. I thought she was dumb and she has such a strong bond to my SU and so little to me it was an issue. I still don't think she's the sharpest tool in the shed, but she is sweet, kind, mellow and a great all round pet --- also, she doesn't wander.

Zuva

Since we have moved out of town, Zuva has moved out of doors. She is exactly the same as Mukiwa, loving to be outside all the time rain, snow or shine.

When my spousal unit was going to bed last night after Zuva came inside, she noticed her licking her side and bent to get a closer look. At the sound of the gasp I got up to see what had happened. A large round gouge was missing from her side and at first glance it appeared that she had been shot. This immediately made us both very nervous because we know that farmers in the area will shoot at dogs if the dogs are hassling the livestock. I can't imagine that Zuva would have done anything like that, she really stays in the yard and chases mice and other small creatures and I know for sure last night she was in the yard because I was watching her for a while laying in the driveway in the drizzling rain, unwilling to come indoors. I checked out the wound and cut away some of the hair around it so she wouldn't be licking hair into it. It didn't appear to have anything in it so we waited until this morning to go to the vet.

The vet's first reaction was that it looked like a bullet wound but there was no bruising and no other damage. The area around our acreage is littered with old pieces of metal and engines, vehicles and other junk that she could have snagged herself on. So the vet gave her some local anesthetic, cut away pieces of damaged skin, and sewed her up. She has to be on antibiotics now for ten days and wear a halo. She is very depressed about the whole thing.

While we were in the vet office I sat on the chair next the table she was on and held her while the vet cleaned, cut and stitched her up. This is not a good experience for me. She took it like a champ, but I got cold sweats, clammy hands, dizzy and nauseous and when I thought I was going to pass out I excused myself to the restroom (barely made it there) and rested my head on the cool of the sink as I dry heaved a few times. After managing to compose myself - translate: no longer seeing double - I went back into the room where the vet, thoughtfully, had waited for my return to complete the procedure. Thanks vet.

Nap time

On Sunday afternoons one of my all time favorite activities is to take a nap. In fact, ANY afternoon one of my favorite things to do is to take a nap. This past Sunday I was indulging in my favorite pastime when I was woken suddenly and violently by a cat, swatting me in the face.

I was dozy but indignant, my spouse thought it was hilarious. Apparently my cat Nyx, was laying at my face just watching me sleep for about five minutes. I happened to be snoring while she was watching me and I guess she had enough of my snoring because she just swatted me right in the face.

Sheesh. And I was sleeping so peacefully.

Partners in Crime

It may look very innocent but it is not. These two have partnered up and planned late night crib rendezvous. Helios has figured out some way to open Max's door from the outside and join him in the crib. He waits until the witching hour when all the family is dead to the world and then makes his sneak attack. He climbs into the crib with Max and wakes him up and then they start to play. Max of course gets carried away and even though I am certain Helios attempts to keep him quiet he cannot help but let a squeal of joy escape. Since he has learned the art of stealth from me - and therefore CANNOT be quiet no matter how he tries, he wakes up the whole house with his laughter.

They are punks. Both of them.

As a result of this little 3am tete a tete, everyone else in the entire house is exhausted. They think it is the "cats meow." They can't wait to do it again.

WHO ME?