Dogs and Doors

Harvey can’t believe Brody would attack my foot. Rose watches Harvey.

The garage provides enough space to stain all the doors and let them dry.
The stain on the doors matches the bookcases and trim in Suna’s office. It contrasts well with the green walls.

It’s a tug of war.

We expected more.

But with one thing and another,

We were trying to outdo each other.

—Paul McCartney

Rose and Brody have accepted Harvey. Rose is so easy going, she was never at question. I was more concerned with how the two mail adolescents would get along.

Brody, who has been with me since he was six weeks old, is comfortable enough with me to use me as chew toys—especially my socks...especially when they’re still on my feet. Harvey looks on in disbelief every time. Sometimes he looks at me as if to say, “I would never treat you like that, New Daddy.”

Doors

The painter lined up the new doors in the garage to stain. They looked almost like they were floating if you ignored the bits of wood at the top and bottom that held them together.

The garage made the perfect place to stain the doors. It had plenty of room to work, and it didn’t matter if the overspray hit the floor or the walls, not that there seemed to be that much overspray. Finally, leaving the doors open a bit provided plenty of airflow to encourage drying.

Once the stain dried, it is a perfect match for the bookcases and trim installed throughout the house. It stands out nicely against the green Suna chose for her office. It’s darker than the caucasian color of the downstairs, but it may be a bit too close of a match for the bamboo we installed upstairs. It does stand out somewhat against the chocolate color of the master bedroom and the orange of the master bath.

 

Progress on a Number of Fronts

Rose is almost playing with Brody. Persistence pays off, just like in business.

The TV is up in our living room. Never mind that we’re still using lawn furniture.

We’re making progress on our marketing. Russell set up a website at hermithaus.com. We’re figuring out how to set up our credibility pack—the publication that tells all about Hermit Haus Redevelopment and why you should want to do business with us—in different pages. It will also have a new blog so we can talk about ourselves as nauseum there.

Doggy Progress

“Look, Daddy! I’m hiding. You can’t see me.” [Okay, so not all the cabinet doors are on yet.]

Rose wants “that puppy” to leave her alone, but he’s persistent.

Rose is getting more accepting of Brody. When he first arrived, she acted as if she were terrified of him. This is strange because she adopted Stella as one of her own puppies and loved her accordingly. Suna thinks the trauma of being involved in Stella’s tragedy affected Rose deeply.

Backstory

Stella and Rose were playing. Stella’s collar got caught on Rose’s jaw. Stella panicked and flipped in an effort to get away, turning the collar into a tourniquet around her neck. She suffocated before Suna could get her free.

We have since learned that this type of death is not uncommon in the blue heeler community. Hence I will not let a dog wear a collar again. Halters are much safer.

Progress of a Kind

But while she still won’t play with Brody, Rose at least acknowledges him now. That’s progress of a kind.

 

Happy Fourth of July!

Rose came to visit. What a face!

It’s a cheery entry, isn’t it? The local crop duster is fun to watch, but consequences…

Happy Fourth of July!

Crop dusting is a fact of life in rural areas. Somehow, it’s cheaper to dump chemicals out of an airplane that to spray them directly on crops from a tractor or something. I sure enjoy watching the arial acrobatics as that noisy yellow airplane does its thing.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen him overspray our place. I’ve seen him spray on days that were too windy to do so legally. The last time he was in the air, he did a pretty good job of doing what he was supposed to, but it rained. The runoff killed all the crawfish in our front pond—and maybe everything else except for some smelly algae that is clogging the over-fertilized pond.

A New Hope?

The woman from the blue healer group sent pictures of the puppies. She promised the female to a friend of her husband’s, but that leaves the male. She sent pictures. How could you not want to bring home a face like that?

 

Seeking Shelter From the Storm

The new pond crested the dam that doubles as the entrance to the property. Where the water spills into the arroyo, it is at least eight feet deep.

That X sticking up above the water is the top of the fence. The creek bed is a quarter-mile away.

  Try imagining a place where it’s always safe and warm

  Come in, she said

  I’ll give ya shelter from the storm

—Bob Dylan

We found out why we have a storm room this afternoon—the one I have always joked is our “zombie apocalypse room.”

A severe storm blew up—heavy rains, gusting winds, tornados. It dumped almost three inches of rain in less than an hour. Given that the ground was already saturated and the ponds were already full to capacity, there wasn’t much hope to avoid a serious flood.

The house is on one of the highest points of the ranch. So I wasn’t worried about the flooding. The tornados were another matter. We all—Suna, me, Jaime’s family, Grillo, and Stella—all crowded into the storm room and locked the metal doors. Rose insisted on running upstairs to hide, but she and the house came through without a scratch.

The winds were strong enough to blow Jaime’s wet saw off the front porch. We also found a 4x8 sheet of metal siding buried six inches in the ground just on the other side of the gate. The siding was the wrong color to have come from any of our buildings or any of Ralph’s.

Ralph stood on his back porch taking pictures until he realized pieces of his hay barn were flying over the house. He was uninjured. In fact, the only injury sustained on either property was a small cut on one of the horses.

Our neighbors in Pettibone weren’t so lucky. The tornado touched down in that area several times. It destroyed a huge swath of trees and phone lines. It also took out at least two houses. And, yes, there were fatalities reported there. I don’t have the details.

As bad as the storm was, I’m glad we, our neighbors, and most of the country came out fairly well.

 

The creek hardly ever floods the bridge, but it did this time. Suna is fast enough to be on both ends of the picture.

Storms always make for the best sunsets—when they don’t occult the sunset.

No Star Wars Pun Here

Rose doesn’t travel well, but she loves being at the ranch, especially when she gets lovin’s from the crew. Stella looks over the arroyo, which is now much steeper and deeper than before the rains. She looks like she wants to jump in, but she’s too smart to do that again. Stella loves her Fribby. You can tell by all the slobbers on it.

The rug is finished except for the glass tile border. Jaime is an artist in more than one way. He painted these piggies on a scrap of plywood while camping out here at the ranch to save on fuel. Tile is going up on the fireplace.

This little piggy went to market

This little piggy stayed home

Jaime has continued making progress on all the tile work. He has basically finished the “rug” in the entry way and has started putting the tile up around the fireplace. All of the tile Suna chose has fossils embedded, so we should always be able to find new interesting things on the walls and floor.

The stone she chose for the exterior walls is also chock full of fossils. Most of them are little snail shells that look like rattlesnake rattles, so, of course, we had to have them. The quarry guys even call the layer of limestone from which the rock comes the rattlesnake layer.

I knew that you were supposed to start in the middle of the floor with tile, but I didn’t know (although I should have) you also start tile walls halfway up. Jaime put a 1x4 on the wall to have a level surface to mount the first course of the fireplace tile. With that course being level, all the rest should be level, too. And the courses of partial tiles will be at the top and bottom where they will be less apparent.

In weather news, it’s been dry enough long enough for the arroyo to drain down to a trickle. The sides have fallen in and washed away, making it a little dangerous to walk too close to the edge. It might cave and carry you with it. Stella probably isn’t heavy enough to cause a problem, but I call her away from the edge anyway.

All of the ponds are still full to capacity, so any further rain will cause more flooding. But the good news is we’re set for summer.

Another Strange Dream

Rose even smiles for the camera Photo by: Suna

I have taken to sleeping with earplugs because of the noise the dogs make at night. So last night I dreamed that one of the dogs was breathing really loud. I thought is was strange that I was hearing the breathing through the earplugs. I looked down and there was Rose smiling and wagging her tail. She is such a loveable dog that you can’t hardly get mad at her no matter what she does. So I smiled back and reached to pet her loving head. That’s when I woke up.

Grateful Monday

I atually did some work at the Hands on Housing thing.

Photo by: Jon Montgomery

Buddy is such a good boy.

I haven’t been posting much the past week or so. The job has kept the writing part of my brain exhausted. But I have been able to come home and relax a little bit tinkering around the house: building a new flower bed, cleaning, and painting.

And this weekend, I worked all day Saturday at a Hands on Housing event. I met some nice people, and we built a front porch and ramp for a family who couldn’t do the work for themselves.

Throughout all of this Buddy and Rose have been very well behaved. Gwen has been at the top of her game, hardly snapping at Buddy (only once or twice at Rose). Even Scrunchy has been the best dog he can.

So today, I am grateful for all four dogs—even if I can’t honestly say equally grateful for all four. I’m featuring Buddy’s picture here because he has been with me the longest and is one of the loyalist dogs I have ever lived with.

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Update, 29 April: Jon sent me a photo of me working, at the HoH thing. So I posted it just to show prove I actually did something. Some of you may not have believed me. <wink />

A Tale of Two Cities

Image Source: Learn Tarot

The Eagle's gift of freedom is not a bestowal, but a chance at a chance.

—Carlos Casteñeda

Today’s Card

The Hermit. My card. Hmmm. Seeking a greater understanding from within. Quieting oneself.

Supplemental Card

Two of Pentacles. Balancing demands. Moving forward gracefully.

Today’s Hexagram

Lu (treading carefully). To step on the tiger’s tail without getting bitten. There will be progress and success.

Since my card was the card for today, I decided to draw a supplemental. The two of pentacles is a good card. It goes well with Lu.

Rose has driven Buddy completely out of the house. He is having trouble coping with this frisky intruder, but he treats her kindly. He even almost played with her when he thought I wasn’t looking.

In My Hometown

My hometown was defined by chemical factories. I couldn’t wait to leave there

This is where I grew up. It may explain a bit about me. All the smart kids in my class could identify dozens of chemicals by smell. We knew that if you actually heard the explosion, you were OK. I once slept through a plant explosion that blew open the front door of my house.

It’s a strange place really. You can drive for hours and the scenery doesn’t change much from what is pictured. Just coastal flatlands interrupting pestilent pustules spewing steam and god-only-knows-what into the air. I remember reading by the light of the burn-off flares. I remember one time when I was in my late teens, I had a “sunburn” on the left side of my face from driving by a flare that lit up the night sky for miles. I had the windows in the car all rolled up because it was freezing, but I had to turn off the heater for awhile.

Great Expectations

Image source: Learn Tarot

Helplessly hoping

Her harlequin hovers nearby

Awaiting a word

—Stephen Stills

Today’s Card

The Queen of Pentacles. Nurturing and protective, she uses her power to help those less fortunate. A charitable advocate, she rules home and office.

Today’s Hexagram

Sheng (Pushing Upward). Advance to the south will be fortunate. Advantage will be found in a ceaseless maintenance of firm correctness. The situation is shifting, and Yang is becoming much more powerful.

Lots of tension today on the work front. I’m not there, but I can feel it from 30 miles away. The decision will be made about who gets the job that has opened up. CFE is up for it and is a little upset with me for recusing myself from the selection process. But that was the right thing to do—from the work perspective anyway.

Rose is adjusting to her new humans. She will plop down and roll over on her back to chew on me. This morning she had her first encounter with DogsNextDoor. They started barking at her, even though fully grown, they are no bigger than she is now. She took the back steps and the pet door at full speed, even as I opened the back door to see what was going on. She didn’t slow down until she was in the bedroom. She hid for all of a minute and then came out to fuss at me.

Later

Well, the offer at work was made. CFE did not get it, nor did MEd. Yang won out. I am saddened, but the choice was between winners. So there can be no losers in this, even though it may feel that way now to those who didn’t succeed. Still it feels like this morning’s queen was misleading. Perhaps I’m just looking at it wrong.

Tried out with a new (for me) singing group. I had forgotten how good it feels to breathe and harmonize. I think I’ll fit in. Beer good.

 

Foucault’s Pendulum

Up on your wall hangs your degree

Your parents craved so much for you

And though you’re trained to make your mark

You still don’t quite know what to do

—John Kay and Nick St. Nicholas

Today’s Card

The Hierophant. Security at the expense of freedom. Sometimes it means an ability to subvert and escape that authority.

Today’s Hexagram

Hsu (Waiting).No changing lines. Status quo for the immediate future. Water (danger and mystery) in the forefront with Heaven in the background.

Rose continues to make progress with Buddy. No longer afraid of being eaten herself, she turned his aloofness to her advantage. Since he doesn’t want to be where she is, she now bullies him away from his food dish after she eats her own. She is trying to become the chow hound. But he reluctantly let her sleep with him at least part of the night, and they spent some time together ignoring each other in the back yard. Siblings!

The Name of the Rose

It’s too much expect, but it’s not too much to ask

—Mary Chapin Carpenter

Card for the Day

None. I seem to have misplaced my deck. Well, that’s something for tomorrow.

This is for yesterday. I have never blogged before, so this is kind of a test case. I want to see how much I can influence what is displayed.

I drove out to pick up a new puppy with CFE and had a long, rambling talk on the way. Coworker, who fosters pups for the ASPCA chapter in his community, had a new litter of pups up for adoption. (I couldn’t do that. I would have to keep them all, and where would I put them?)

Of course, Rose—Coworker named the litter after the characters of Lost—was the cutest, most special pup of the litter. Coworker might not agree since he kept a different one, but that’s his problem. Rose is acclimating well with Buddy, who is doing his best to ignore her. She has moved from the “Please don’t eat me” stage to the “I’ll cry if you don’t play” stage in only a few hours.