Another one lost

Song of the day: “I put a spell on you” by Nina Simone. I rediscovered it on youtube last night and now it’s stuck. Hah.

It was a busy couple of days, and even though the weather is still acting out of sorts, the overall temperature is steadily increasing. Strangely enough clouds keep returning. In fact, right this instant the sun has disappeared behind a stack of them. Looks impressive, sure, but I wouldn’t mind just a bit more stable summer weather, thank you very much.

Let’s get to the bad news first, shall we, that way we’ve got it over and done with. Last night little sister phoned me out of bed because we had to rush to the vet with Bhumi, one of our twelve-year-old cocker spaniels. Apparently the poor darling was screaming with pain and her stomach was swollen, meaning that an emergency trip was inevitable. We arrived to find the vet already waiting for us (mom had phoned ahead) and after an examination that basically left the poor dog prone on the table, we decided against further examination and had her put down. It was over in less than a minute, which was a relief for both of us humans and the dog. Most likely it was a case of colic, which is terrible painful, not to mention dangerous. I should know, considering we lost a horse to that once. *sigh*
It is a relief to know that she has a led a relatively long life in extremely good health, and had fun right until the end. Still, that age can hit them like that...

Well, I prefer to look at sad events like this as cause and effect. Cause: we took in more than a hundred dogs over the past fifteen years or so. Effect: We will lose them one way or other, one at a time.
I can be depressed about it, or enjoy the remaining pack. I’ve decided to do the latter, and will jump right to a fun bit. I went for a run with Knight II. He’s a lazy SOB, and the only way to get him to exercise is to be there right along with him. It’s good for both of us, and it is fun to do since he is such a klutz that there are times he trips over his own feet. Hah.

Another good bit is that the time to get the pool ready has finally arrived. Yesterday morning grandpa, big brother and I finally got around to draining the pool (in the basin, of course, earning us another couple of of days of watering for the plants), cleaning out stuff that’s been piling in there for the past half year (it was smelly, I tell ya) with buckets and then hosing the tiles clean. It went remarkably well too, making me wonder why it was such a horrible task in the past? I mean really, it took us a couple of hours at most. Last year we took half a day, I think. Ah well, all we needed to do this morning was sweep out some dry sand and have been filling her up for the remainder of the day. Yay.

After cleaning the pool it was time to head on out into the yard where the remainder of the day was spent watering the plants...all of them. Which was interesting to say the least because even though there were clouds, it was pretty hot, and I got sunburned again. Did managed to write a solid five pages while standing there waiting for the garden gutters around the plants to fill. A very peaceful job to do, by the way.

Afterwards I was considerably overheated, though, not minding in the least to cook a nice macaroni and fresh veggie meal on the outdoor cooking plate. Was good too, revitalizing me for the rest of the evening...well, sort of anyway. I had pain in my back, and I had to lie down for just a minute...next thing I knew a horse was coming right at me, I dodged and drove the Land Rover off a cliff right before I woke up. Phew. Apparently I’d dropped off there for a minute. Hah.

Right. Anyways, the book is coming along nicely again. Finally got to that dialogue I’d wanted to write in the first instance, even if it turns out they have it later in the day. Hah. Sixteen pages in total, so Yay!
While grandpa and Big brother were working on the roof of the courtyard (there’s often leakage where we hung the new shelving, I headed into the courtyard garden to pull a big load of weeds and saw off some excess tree branches. Boy does it look pretty in there now. Even a lot of flowers survived winter.

This morning, about a month too late, but what the heck, we finally got around to shaving Njanna (Golden Retriever) the poor darling was lugging around a huge load of excess hair and clumps of dirt, and now he looks like a badly trimmed poodle, hah. Ah well, he doesn’t need to win a beauty contest; he just needs to be comfortable.

After that big brother and I were forced to head for town. My bathroom sprung a leak and we had to get some new tubing rather than risk getting an even bigger leak during the weekend. Since we were there anyway we bought some dairy products and then went back home to get at least something more done. While big brother went into the yard to check on plants and veggies, I sorted through half our storage boxes to see if we could get some room for other stuff. Managed to sort through quite a bit in the end, so that was no wasted effort at least.

Next there was cooking, fresh beets with our own potatoes, cheese, onion and lotsa green herbs from the yard. I ate way too much, and since I really need to get to writing right now if I want some time left to do a kick boxing workout session tonight, I’m going to wrap it up now.
Not much else to tell anyway, seeing as the only thing there is left to mention is another sand hauling trip (sure it takes time and effort, but it is well worth the savings in cost) that’s okay.