Dog stuff

Song of the day: “International Love” by Chris Brown and Pitbull. I know, how superficial is that, but let’s face it, it has a nice tune despite the fact that the lyrics are incredibly racy. Hah.

First off, writing. Didn’t go bad the last couple of days. Made good progress and added a solid amount of pages to the story. The scene I was writing worked out well. Got it set in 1918, in Romania, so the research the other day paid off at least. The nice old lady in the story, turned out to be not all that nice, hah, and the hero, well, he’s the tortured type faced with a massive dilemma and all that. That’s the best part after all. Hah. But anyway, it is going well, and so far I’m happy with the progress. Let’s see where tomorrow gets me.

Okay, we had a busy day both yesterday and today. Yesterday it was vaccination day, of course, and it started early with the arrival of the vet at around ten thirty in the morning. We had everything ready, so it wasn’t bad at all. I helped filling the syringes, and we went through the dogs in record time. They had their physical, the injection, the pills and then on to the next one. The vet is always wonderfully surprised at our well behaved dogs, and the speed with which things get done on this particular day of the year.

The all behaved well, too. Knight II didn’t even try to bit the vet when he got both his shots. Dax tried to get away, but then froze in my arms while he got examined and then injected. Sitabah was a little trickier, she tried to go every which way, so in the end I had to put her in a headlock and keep her in place until she was done. The only other one that showed any trouble in the end, was young Bakti, who’s just so scared that he gets blinded for anything except fleeing.

A couple of dogs are going to need to go to the hospital one of the these days. Their teeth are in a bad way, and the vet really thinks it would be best to clean them properly. Also an ear infection, and keeping a close eye on Jelly, who should not be developing a fever now that he’s had his rabies shot. The booklets went along with the vet, and we’ll get them back sometime next week when they should all be filled in and brought up to date.

That done, big brother and I fed the dogs, and headed down to the basin terrace for the days writing and breakfast. Tenant joined us too, and spent a large amount of the day cutting zucchini while cousin Ed cleaned out pots for canning. We did plan to do the actual canning too, but never did get around to it, since we had to go into the yard and then out for another donation thingy. Gawd, we’re out a lot these days, really rather frustrating. In particular since the Opel appears to have a short circuit somewhere and won’t start at all. We had planned to look at it, but never got around to it. Instead we got home late, where I only managed to add two more pages to the book. Hah.

I was terribly late getting to bed, and that made me totally blurry and out of it when the alarm went off this morning. Like yesterday I rushed through the morning chores, laundry and such, and then fed the dogs before big brother went up to fetch the big bathtub. Dog dipping day! The ticks were starting to drive us to distraction (seriously they were everywhere) so we decided to get the chemical stuff again and one by one dipped the dogs in the liquid.

Knight II went through the ordeal without a hitch. He just stood there and let me douse him over and over until his whole fur was wet. Chaos just looked at me balefully, wondering what all the fuss was about when I dunked him. It was as if he was saying, “Really, boss, if you wanted me to roll in it, you could have asked.”
Dax almost went apoplectic. Sitabah somehow managed to hook every single paw on the edge of the bath before I grabbed two paws per hand and just dunker her completely. She hasn’t looked at me since. Hah. Gada didn’t care either way, and Labhana, well, she was wondering why I bothered.

As for the rest of the dogs. There were the spasmodic ones in the end. The ones that knew something was off the moment we started dunking the first dog and disappeared without a trace. Sneaky bastards, really, two of them managed to dislodge the baths plug while we were trying to treat them, for crying out loud. In the end, big brother and I were treated as thoroughly as the dogs and headed down to the terrace to start on the writing once more.

There was the canning, of course. Boiling two big pans of zucchini, transferring them to the pots and then boiling the pots until they were properly sealed. Added to that was the cooking…missed a couple of meals this week, and I didn’t want a repeat of that. Leftovers are sooooo easy. Hah.

There were the chores in the yard, today and yesterday, naturally. Got all the herbs sorted and put a new batch in the drying cupboard.
A quick trip to the village, and then it was using wedging up the Opel so we could get underneath. Did find a loose wire, which I fixed, at which point big brother got the Land Rover so we could jump start the car. It started fine, and we left it running for a bit before I drove it to the village to pick up Sally from work.

By the time I finally got home it was almost dark, and I was starving, so I decided to binge on cornflakes and get it over with.

And that’s it, I think. I’m sure I’m skipping stuff again, but let’s face it, it matters none. This is all the time I’ve got left today. I’m so tired right now, I’m cross-eyed, so I better close this off and start getting ready for bed. *sigh*