Dear Jeff.....

Pippin came to stay at our house last night.  Jeff, his 'dad', hasn't seen him since Tuesday morning, so he's really wanting to know how Pippin is doing.

Jeff, Pippin is doing just fine!!  There, you really don't need to read any further:)

Okay, if you really want to know, here you go. 

After the girls left here last night, Pippin seemed kind of lost.  He whined, and he barked, and he stood at the door and said please let me out, I'm sure I can find my way home.

He wandered around and checked things out, and a couple of times he even went downstairs and laid in his crate all on his own.  He seemed kind of sad.  Well sad until I tried shutting the door, and then it was bark, bark, bark.

We had brought his red blanket upstairs for him to lay on.  To distract him, Meredith, who Pippin knows the best, started to play with his blanket with him.  Next thing you know, there is one big game of tug going on, and Meredith is frantically trying to rescue the blanket, and... well... you can see for yourself.

Jeff, you can blame the vampire eyed Meredith!

So we found something more appropriate to play tug with

And then Pippin got some lovin'

It was all going well, until Meredith was heading to bed.  Pippin was laid in his crate.  Meredith was sure she had shut her bedroom door.  She was in the bathroom long enough to wash her face and brush her teeth, and when she got back to her room.... there was Pippin just finishing off a Terry's Chocolate Orange.  She couldn't believe it!  It was like he had already checked out her room and was waiting for his chance to sneak in there.  She was shocked he even found the chocolate.  Anyway, we googled and found this chart, so we put in Pippin's weight, which we didn't know, but he is kind of portly, so we guessed at 60 lbs.  He is the same height as Luna, but a lot rounder, and she is around 40 lbs, so I thought 60 lbs was a fair estimate.  Thankfully the chart showed that taking into account his weight and the weight of the milk (thank goodness it wasn't dark) chocolate he had eaten, he was still below the level of 'vomitting and diarrhea'.  We figured we would just keep an eye on him, knowing that he has probably eaten worse things in his lifetime.  Did I mention that Pippin is obsessed with food, and not much stops him from finding and getting anything edible?  

Pippin didn't have a very relaxing night, (not because of the chocolate) and neither did Meredith and I until I went back downstairs and changed his sleeping arrangments, and then it was much better.  And Larry of course slept through it all.

So far today Pippin hasn't eaten anything inappropriate, well that we know of anyway.  He didn't even seem to show any interest in the horse manure this morning.   He did get a smaller breakfast, considering all those calories he had downed the evening before, and wasn't impressed with the raw carrot I added to his dish to make it seem like there was more, but did like the turkey juice that I poured over it.  I even added a couple of bits of raw turkey from what I was feeding our dogs, and he picked them up and dropped them a few times before he ate them.   And for a dog that always seems to be on the hunt for food, he is a suprisingly delicate eater, taking his time.  Not like our three.  I wonder if that comes from being an only dog?

This afternoon we took a walk down on the dyke between rainstorms

I made sure Pippin knew I had good treats in my pocket.

Did I hear you say treats?  I'll be right there....

And here's Luna and Pippin having a good rip snorting run around.

They were having a great time!

The Most Wonderful Time....

Monday night was our dog club Christmas Party, well the one the dogs were invited to:)  A week and a half ago we had our Christmas dinner, where we all get dressed up and get to see each other in something other than 'dog' clothes, and go to a restaurant to eat.

We took Calli with us on Monday, and she had the most wonderful time!  Old friends to greet, a few tummy rubs and lots of treats to collect, and the opportunity to scrounge around on the floor for dropped treats.  All the humans took food to share and it was a good time:)

Let the party begin!

 Larry and Dee contemplate what to sample next!

We played some games with the dogs, like Musical Mats

We had a small agility run out, and we ran some relays on a course that was jumps and a tunnel, so the flyball dogs could do it as well.  We timed our dogs whether they were flyball dogs or not, doing runbacks over the flyball jumps.  We had a tooney toss to raise money for the SPCA, so between a bottle of vodka and one of Baileys, $102 was raised.  We had also been collecting blankets and towels and other doggy stuff for the SPCA, so there was quite a pile of stuff to be dropped off there.

Musical Mats

Monica shows off the bottle that she got with her winning toss.

And Josee sneaks off with her bottle of Baileys.  The one who said 'I can't do this' and then proceeded to leave the tooney leaning up against the bottle. (For you non-Canadians, a tooney is a $2 coin.  The $1 coin has a loon on it, so is called a looney, so when the $2 coin came out, it seemed logical to call it a tooney)

And to go with the not very good pictures, here's a short, not very good video.

Fresh Eggs Delivered Right to the Door

Remember that hen that had the two chicks in the summer?  Now that her kids are all grown up, she is laying eggs again.  After laying them in various places, except the chicken coop, she is now laying them right next to the door we go in and out of most of the time.  This is the door from the garage, and we go through that to head outside after getting our boots and coats on in the utility room.  This is under the back deck, just back of the retaining wall, about waist height.  That is the foundation wall behind her.  What would possess her to lay in that gravel spot....well who knows what goes on in the mind of a hen.  So each morning after the coop door is opened, she heads over to the house

And leaves us this

So yesterday morning I wanted to get a Christmas picture to send to our egg customers.  This hen is fairly tame, and you can usually get hold of her and pick her up.

As she was leaving the nest I put one of the dog's Christmas collars over her head.  Those are handy things.  I also used them on Saturday on my arms, to make fancy Christmas cuffs to go with the red sweater I was wearing at my last farmers market of the year.

The hen didn't seem to mind. 

 We did get a sprinkle of snow the evening before.

Then I got Luna in on the act.  She was more than willing to oblige, and seemed to find the hen extra fascinating because she was dressed up.

I've got that retching feeling.....

..sung to the tune of  You've Lost that Loving Feeling by the Righteous Brothers.  That tune is stuck in my head, in the process of coming up with a title for this post.


This started the other day when I commented on another blog that I read regularly.  You can read that here, when I talked about racing to the door when a dog starts that retching sound in in the middle of the night. Multiple dog owners can relate.  You are desperately trying to get the retching dog outside before the vomit hits the floor.  So as you are racing to the door, encouraging the retching dog to get there as fast as possible, the other dog(s) think something wildly exciting is happening, so are barking and racing around and generally getting in the way.  Quite often the result of this is that you get to the door, but before you can get the door open and the dogs through it, which usually involves having the dogs back up a bit so you actually have room to open it, the retching dog lets everything fly right onto the door mat.

 Notice how I had said it rarely happens, but I think I jinxed myself.  So that same afternoon, just before dark, we are walking around the block and Luna goes into the ditch, and proceeds to upchuck her cookies.  It was not just once, but four times.  I'm thinking, well at least she's done it now, and not in the middle of the night.  I wondered what caused it, but then she and Jake had spent a long time in the hayfield that morning, seeming to be hunting, so thought maybe it was something to do with that.  Other than that minute or two spent in the ditch, she seemed totally normal.   She ate her usual supper, was her usual crazy self.  Well I'm sure you can see where this is going.  So at some ungodly hour I wake up to that retching sound.  By the time I 'leap' out of bed she has deposited a pool on the floor at the end of the bed, and then she seemed to be over it.  I put her outside for a bit, turn on the hallway light and clean it up, leave the bedroom door open and go back to sleep.  About 6 in the morning I am woken again by that horrible sound coming from the other end of the house, and of course by the time I get there, it is too late.  There is a trail all the way down the stairs to the door.  I let Luna out, clean up the mess, and let her back in. Before going back to bed I quickly flip the bedroom light on to check that I hadn't missed any puddles on the floor by the end of the bed from the first episode.  When it was light and I was getting up for the last time, as I swung my legs over the side of the bed, I just about put them in this huge brown pool that was almost under the bed.  Gross!  I think that was from her first episode and I was so thankful that I had managed to miss stepping in it, both getting in and out of bed.  It didn't even stink.
 
Anyway, poor Luna got a very small breakfast of plain chicken, and seemed to keep everything down after that. Larry had slept through it all, even me turning on the bedroom light, and the first he knew of it was when I told him all the details.  Men!

And I have to wonder, do I have nothing better to blog about than this?

Christmas Tree Night

Earlier in the week we decided that Thursday night was going to be Christmas tree decorating night.

Gone are the days that we headed off to the Christmas 

tree farm, and either cut down a tree, or some years dug one up.  We have a few trees around planted around here that arrived as Christmas trees.  Some of them didn't survive.  One year we broke a shovel digging a tree up.  

Somewhere along the way we got older and lazier, and after Christmas one year bought a fake tree, already decorated in lights, for 75% off (about the same price as a cut tree) and that's what we've used ever since.  This tree is a bit blinding, so we try to drown a out a few lights by putting lots of decorations on.

We got out the eggnog, and I diluted mine with some milk, otherwise I find it way too sweet, and then added some Bailey's.  Not bad!

 The angel went on first, but someone said it should go on last, so there was a bit of an argument over that.

Finally it was done.

We forced some Christmas spirit onto Jake and Luna

Luna wasn't too impressed, and tried to push her nose between Larry's knees to rub the antlers off.

We have a few special ornaments.  In 2002 I started getting Meredith and David one each year. The soccer bear and the girl in pink were the first ones.  They were made out of Fimo clay, and they are only about an inch and a half tall, but the detail is amazing.

There was no theme, just what ever I could come up with each year.  If I could find an ornament that was related to something that happened that year, so much the better.

   I think the car was the year David got his driver's licence.  He did go on to own quite a variety of 

Volkswagens

Last year I got a bit more creative. These are just dollar store ornaments that I painted on the back of.

This was Meredith's.  She took a ten day trip and drove herself down the Oregon Coast to San Fransisco.

David took a long trip to New Zealand

One year the elementary school had a Christmas craft night.  These were made from the tops of those cans of orange juice concentrate.  You took a hammer and pounded a nail through to make the designs.  We made some more at home, and glued the lace on.

I must have been feeling romantic when I made this one

There are a bunch of felt figures that used to be on a mobile I had made for over the crib.

We used to have a bunch of tacky garlands that the kids made at school.  Things like strings of wine corks alternating with wood beads and pieces of drinking straws.  Or how about the string made of those foam packing peanuts with tissue paper wrapped around them?  Or the alternating green and red strips of construction paper glued to make a loop, and then the next strip put through that loop and glued to make another loop.

A few years ago every one agreed that it was time for them to go.

We were going to put up some decorations around the house, but most of the family got distracted by the humour of a Top Gear video.  Couldn't they have at least picked a Christmas one?

SNAP!

 ...went the trap, two nights in a row.  Figured there would be at least two rats, and we got two.

It was rather a rocky start to the war, with me dumping chicken feed all over that grid outside the door, which took the rats two nights to clean up.  In the meantime they ignored the trap under the plant pot.  Then the next night I went and left a ice cream pail of feed open in the greenhouse, which is where the young rooster gets fed.  I remembered that at 1:30 in the morning, and I sure wasn't about to get up and stagger out there to put the lid on.  I would be imagining rats running over my feet out there in the dark, yuk:(

So the next day I came up with a rather brilliant idea.  This is the first hole the rats chewed, and the rock that Larry had plugged it with, until they made the hole bigger.  This hole happens to lead right into one of the nest boxes.  

So I got a shelf from an old fridge.  Yep, we keep all sorts of junk, you just never know when it might come in handy on a farm.  Well actually it's me that thinks we might some day have a use for things like that, other family members would have got rid of them long ago.  I tried a few other things that we had hanging around, but this worked the best.  It fit pretty well over the front of the nest box, and the slots were small enough to stop a big rat from getting through.  They were also small enough that a hen couldn't stick it's head through, to try and eat the bait, which was peanut butter with chicken feed stuck on top of it.  It was open enough that a rat would think, when coming through the hole, that it could get over to where the feeder was, which was actually not there, but in the white barrel outside.  The rock was there to partially block the hole so no little birds would go in.  Yes, birds go in the chicken coop to eat the feed.  Just don't tell the CFIA, it's that whole Avian Flu fiasco.... I digress.

So I set the trap, banged in some wire staples and we were in business.

And next morning we had our first victim.  Just be thankful I spared you that photo.  And that became Larry's job to dispose of.  

Tuesday morning, same thing.  'Oh Larry, there's another rat for you'

This morning he went down there to let the hens out and put the feeder back in.  I asked him if there was a rat, and he said 'yes, and this one's yours'  

'Really, there's another one?'

'Yep'

I was really impressed.  Three nights in a row.  I thought rats were smart, you'd think that after seeing bodies in the same spot two nights in a row, that a smart rat would avoid that spot.  So I went down there this afternoon after the hens had finished laying.  I was just going to pull the laying boxes out from the wall and go in from the back, instead of dismantling the grid.  

Before I even got started I noticed that the bar on the trap was still in place.  I thought maybe Larry had decided to be a gentleman and spare me from having to deal with the rat, so had come down and disposed of it after all, and reset the trap.

I yelled over to where he was pruning the apple tree.

Nope.

Turns out the trap hadn't been set off after all.  What he thought was a rat was the grey rock at the back.

I'm not sure whether I'm happy about that or not. I raked it all smooth in the green house where the rats had been digging holes, so will check for activity in the morning.

Maybe there will be another SNAP!

Happy Birthday Looney Tunes or Luna(tic). It all depends on the moment......



Luna is three years old today.  Here's her bio when she was first listed on the web.....

Hi! My name is Luna. I'm almost 1 year old (12/14) and a bundle of goofy teenage Border Collie. 

I didn't know much when I came to my foster home but I like these rule things. They make life so much 

easier! 

I know how to sit and lie down and I'm learning how to wait for stuff and play fetch... My Favorite is the big red "egg" ball 

that I can herd around the yard. I LOVE going for a run now that I know what I'm supposed to do while 

I'm on the leash. 

Loud noises still startle me but that's getting better now that I don't have to be in charge of the pack anymore... 

And I would love to find my own home and family for the new year! 

Luna is not yet spayed (but will be before she's adopted). 

Luna will need a Border Collie savvy home with a strong leader. She is a sweet, sweet girl who will need continued guidance and 

training to be the best she can be. (and she has the potential to be anything -- learns and retains things SUPER fast) 

Luna would do best in a home with a patient older dog (she can be a bit pushy) but she's great with kids and 

seems to do just fine with my dog savvy cat. 

She still needs more work on her leash walking skills, but no longer barks at everything and only pulls a little. 

AND she's crate trained (handy thing), is house trained and, so far only chews on her chew toys (some times her towel). 

She's learning that meeting new people is a really great thing. 

Don't miss out on this fabulous girl! 

Luna was tested on sheep on 12/13 and showed fabulous natural talent. She tried her best to do every thing that was asked of her 

and then some. email for more on her test...:) 

Luna is an SPDR affiliated girl with a $150 adoption fee. She will be spayed, microchipped, and brought up to date on vaccinations before she is placed. Please fill out an application before contacting .........

..............................................................

I always get a bit of a laugh looking back through this.  Well especially at the first line where the word 'goofy' is used. If you only knew how many times we used the word goofy or goofball when talking to or about Luna.

There's quite a bit in that description that I'd have to change now if it was describing her currently.  Do I feel that we've failed her in some respects.  Well yeah, I think so.    Good with kids, um, no.  Maybe because it was something that we didn't work on after we got her.   There seemed so many other issues to work on that we never even thought about working on kid socialization, after all she was supposed to be good with kids.  But even a month or two after we got her, she was showing fear when little kids were coming towards us, or she could hear one crying.  She came from a family with two young kids and a tiny baby.  You can read whatever you want or don't want, into that.

There are still issues, but I won't bore you with all the details.  Strange men, people leaning over and staring her in the eyes, dogs staring at her, and Smudge could add a complaint or three as well.  Do I regret these last two years with Luna, well not a chance!  It's been one heck of a journey, and it still is, but.....she is such a goofball, and makes us laugh, and is so much fun, and is sometimes so frustrating......, I just couldn't imagine life without her.

So two years ago we made a scary, snowy, three hour trip down to Seattle with Jake, and two weeks after she was posted and four days before Christmas, we brought her home.

Here's some pictures of the big eared, big white nosed and footed, teenage Luna in the first week at our place.

Happy Birthday Looney Tunes!