The aftermath

Song of the day: “Bruises” by Train and Ashley Monroe. Cute little song, but I’ve been listening to it a bit too much because I even woke up with it this morning.

So what’s been going on? Not a whole bloody lot, really. Most of all, yesterday was rather tedious for everyone involved. Part of it was because I wasn’t worth a damn after that thirteen hour workday. I was tired, sore and out of sorts, in particular since, in order to sleep I had to take a painkiller because my every muscle was screaming, and refused to relax. Very annoying. But anyway, I did in the end fall asleep, which was what I really needed. Wasn’t at my best after waking up, but did slowly go through the morning rituals such as laundry and feeding the dogs, and getting into the day.

There was the car to unload (had an appointment later on to pick up a donation), which was a friggin’ mess after three days of hard labor. There were tools to gather from the mess, metal debris, paper cement bags, and all those little things that filled up the whole of the back. While I did the remainder of the Land Rover, big brother took care of the trailer so little brother could come up and reload for their market on Sunday, and protect everything against the predicted rain.

My doggies were very “sticky”, which is something that often happens when I need to be out a lot. They’ll follow me around everywhere, sticking their heads under my hands, and basically trying to trip me so I’ll be on the ground where they can hold me down. *snort*

Okay, my memory is failing me, so I’m just going to mention whatever pops up in my mind, and you’ll just have to figure it all out yourself. Hah. Right…okay, yesterday we did some wood chopping and bringing it up. Regretfully I only managed one three foot trunk, seriously, my feet refused to climb the mountain all the way, and I had to drop the darn thing at the top of the garden steps.
Luckily today went a lot better. Managed to chop about half a load of the pieces of trunks that big brother sawed off. Was a nice exercise, oiled the muscles, allowed me to get rid of the lingering stiffness, which was good, because stiff I was.

What else? Well, there was the donation thing. Got about a thousand pounds of canned beets. Big cans, mind you, that were about a year overdue, which isn’t a big problem considering they were on a sour base. It took some time to load them, especially considering we were both sore as heck. Hah.

Put the last touches (blue slats) on Sally’s roof. We’d been postponing it and since the weather is rapidly turning bad again. There is a prediction of rain for the weekend thank you very much, meaning that it is unlikely that we’re going to be heading for the Sunday market. Not that I mind all that much. A quiet weekend, which we can use to prepare for Tuesday with the balcony, at home.

Knight II’s foot is looking good. Regretfully he still has a small wound on the top of his heel that needs to heal before his sock can come off. The bastard has been making a nuisance of himself, if you must know. He’s gone through four socks already, chewing through the fabric, darn it.

Gada…well, she’s not doing well. I took her to the vet the other day to discuss her options, and promptly ended up crying. So stupid. Must have been the tiredness, because I know better than most that sometimes the end is just there. Still, it startled the vet, I think, who immediately said that there were other options to try. One of them being a change in her pain medication to see how she would respond to that. She asked if I thought Gada was unhappy, or in a lot of pain, and I answered yes to the latter, while to the first I had to be honest and say that I had no idea. She’s a Labrador, after all, and to a lab life is grand as long as the boss is there to play with. Regretfully Gada is the type of dog who would gladly walk on a broken leg if that meant that she could do her cheery job as a Labrador. Poor darling. I have noticed she’s in pain, though. More often than not she’s sagging through her hind legs, and at night I will sometimes find her awake, breathing heavy despite the fact that the nights are cool. Ah well, right now I’m in the possession of new pain medication that will last her for about ten days. We’ll see how it goes, but so far I’m not particularly pleased with her progress.
Now let’s hope that the next time I need to take her to the vet I can keep from blubbering all over the place. Because that won’t help anyone, and even worry Gada, which is not something she deserves.
I should look at it the way the vet does. Sometimes the body is just at its end, and Gada’s hips are there.

There was more unloading of the car, of course. All those cans that had to be stored
Supper had to be cooked. Thought big brother took care of one of those by making spinach which potatoes, I made a veggie mix on spaghetti which went down well…or would have, if I had been remotely hungry.

Some concerns are going on at the moment what with the strikes in the big cities. Though the small villages aren’t really bothered, the unrest is affecting everyone, scaring folks quite a bit. Me too, admittedly. I mean, seriously, what use do the strikes have when there IS NO MONEY? I mean, you can stamp your foot all you like, but that won’t make the wallet full (and no, getting that money from the rich won’t help at all. Either everyone gets a buck this month, or one more pay, and then what? Idiots!). Heck, even the Twinkie company went down because of silliness like this. What do folks think: someone waves a magic wand? Mommy and daddy will take care of it? What? Scary how so many folks can be so shortsighted. I do hope that stuff won’t get as bad as a few years ago where we were without dog food due to such strikes. I mean, seriously, I can do without a meal or two, but the doggies can’t.

Did some more leather branding this morning. Not much, just trying out some shapes, seeing what works.
Dog food had to be done, of course. Which meant cutting the lot while big brother took care of our supper tonight. Yay.
Decided to take this writing session of the blog as an excuse to re-watch Resident Evil (the first one) which is still a splendid movie. *sigh*

Well, that’s about it for me. Did manage to sweep the floor in my cabin this morning, but the place is still a mess, darn it. I really have to eke out some time for that. Same goes for the writing. Though I have added some pages, it is going extremely slow at the moment, darn it.

Looooooong day

Song of the day: “Tease me” by…I’m not entirely sure. It’s been too long since I last actually heard or saw this song.

Well, considering I’m pretty much running on fumes, and can’t wait to hit the sack. It’s been a heavy couple of days. Yesterday was spent mostly loading gravel and sand, and hauling it over to Liane’s. Since we were there anyway, we spent some time adjusting the poles of the fence. The corner holders were, apparently the wrong ones, because they didn’t hold properly. Had to use the car to straighten the mess back up. By the time we got home I just barely managed to cook supper, and then head out again to pick up a load of gravel for today, which took some time to load since the stupid stuff refuses to go on the shovel most of the time.

Then, of course, there was this morning where we had to get up early to load everything up on the car, fill the big trailer with sand (Cousin Ed did the honors on that one) cut the metal works for inside the concrete (this Grandpa did) feed the dogs, do laundry, and all that jazz. Didn’t arrive at the job until eleven in the morning because we were heavily loaded and almost didn’t make it up the mountain.

Got started immediately, seeing as we were going to need every hour we could squeeze into the day to pour concrete on the 165 square feet terrace balcony. Almost didn’t make it either, seeing as the measuring, preparing, and placing the ceramic plating took longer than anticipated. In the end the actual pouring took 7 and a half hours. Of me mixing cement, hauling sand, filling buckets and handing it up to big brother who was on the ladder spreading the stuff, and coming down to take over some of the hauling by the time my body started to protest a little.

Took a fifteen minute break around two in the afternoon, but quickly continued on because were short on time. Didn’t finish, also with cleaning up afterward, until nine in the evening, some odd two hours after sunset. Hauled two tons, thank you very much. Gawd, I need sleep…which I’m going to do fast. I took pictures, and as soon as we’re done I’m going to show you the progress. It is looking rather splendid, if I do say so myself.

Knight II behaved splendidly, except for the fact that he wrecked his sock, and some of his bandage, the idiot.
Bad news is that little brother had to have one of his dogs put down. Old Barahm has been part of the pack for some odd eleven years, so he’ll be missed. He’s been in a bad state for a while now.

Angie, middle sister’s Basset is improving a little at least. She made it through surgery, drank some and is holding it down, so keeping our fingers crossed on that one. Little sister’s Panni is still suffering from a fever, poor darling. Apparently he’s suffering from a bacteria that’s basically resistant against all antibiotics. And to add to our dog troubles, I’m coming very close to making the horrid decision again. This time with Gadah, who is clearly starting to be bothered more and more by her hips. The pain killers are no longer helping, and to let her continue while it’s gotta hurt like hell, would just be mean. I mean, I could let her suffer through it for my own sake, she’s a lab, she’d bravely shoulder on, but I don’t think I can. It’s going to be soon.

Did write some yesterday, added two or three pages at least.

Okay, that’s it. I’m off to bed.

An emergency.

Song of the day: “Painters” by Jewel. Don’t think I’ve ever had this for a song of the day.

So yeah, I’m bushed again. It’s been a long day that started at seven thirty so we could load up the Land Rover for the balcony job. It took us some odd three hours to get everything in and tied up, which, along with the fact that we had to stop at the gas station to inflate our tires, made us more than half an hour late.

Had a big load, meaning we had to drive extremely slow all the way because the trailer was so heavy. Was a bit iffy going up the narrow mountain road, which was muddy and covered with rocks in various spots. The good news is we managed to reach the goal of the day, so it was a good one, despite the fact that while were loading up in the morning and after three in the afternoon the temps were abysmal, mostly due to the icy wind from the north. Seriously, I had my turtleneck up to my ears in an attempt keep warm.

But anyway, I hauled bricks today, lots of them, (while big brother did the measuring and such) hauled and shoveled sand, hauled cement, and hauled wooden beams, did masonry and did carpentry. But all in all, my day was mostly about hauling. Hah. Good exercise. It’s looking good, though. The wooden beams are in place, the holes that big brother cut are closed around the wood, and we cleaned up the mess we created. The evening was ended with unloading the trailer of sand and the last bit of bricks.

We didn’t finish until after nightfall, and then we had to hurry to make it to the village in time to get to the vet before closing time. Managed just barely. She’d already closed up, but when I knocked she opened up and said it was fine to get Knight inside so she could change his bandage. The stitches are out and we won’t have to go back until Thursday.

As for yesterday…well, that was market day, right? Not a lot of sales, but still an interesting day. Knight II was still a hit, drawing loads of attention to himself by sitting in a chair fully enjoying the sunshine we were treated to late in the morning and early afternoon. He behaved like a gentleman once more, and endured with little complaint.

Funniest part of the day were definitely these two kids of about ten years old who considered themselves to be professional dog walkers and dedicated dog lovers. They were fascinated by Knight and spent more than half an hour cooing over him, while peppering me with questions about our pack. Boy was determined that, when he grew up he was going to have three types of dogs. German Shephard, Pitbull, and Rotweiler. They were his favorites. I’m sure, because he told me no less than five times. Cute kid. Girl loved any kind, and whichever dog I mentioned from our pack, she gasped and looked blissful about. First off they offered to take Knight for a walk for me, and when I explained that he wasn’t likely to enjoy that due to his many fears, they were more than happy to accept a walk with me. Since Knight needed some exercise anyway, I figured it wouldn’t do any harm.
We walked on the beach a bit, the boy talking a mile a minute while continuing to pepper me with questions and translating for his friend, tried to jog a little so they could see Knight run (there was much disappointment when they discovered Knight doesn’t do balls, sticks, or any throwing objects for that matter) and then let them have Knight on the leash for a bit. At some point the girl decided that it was a good idea to start running with him, which almost caused Knight to have heart palpitations when he realized that I wasn’t right behind him. When I did catch up, the first thing he did was press his head into my side and shiver.
There were pictures taken, chats exchanged with the girl’s mother and grandpa, and then it was back to “the grind”…

Well, a short interruption here. Got a call from mom at the house if I could take middle sister and her Basset Hound Angie to the vet, because Angie was really sick and had a distended stomach. So we rushed to the vet, the poor Basset whimpering in the back, only to head straight for the X-rays. Twisted stomach, is what the vet called it, and Angie needed to go into surgery immediately. First was anesthetic, then a large needle in the side of her stomach where air spewed out (Angie promptly started wagging her tail at that) before we moved her on to the surgery room where I helped in-tubate, prior to us leaving for the night. Regardless what (if it was just the stomach or also the spleen) she was going to have to stay for the night. I’ll hear tomorrow how the Basset is doing, but it’s a big operation, apparently.

But anyway, where was prior to the problem. The market. Well, I had lots of nice chats. I spoke with a Spanish man (he’s in real estate) who spoke English really well. Turns out he lived in the States for several years, Michigan, Utah, etc. His wife is one of the vendors at the market, and he hangs out there with their young baby girl, while their other two kids were…well, elsewhere, this time. Hmmm.

Also chatted with a young Argentinean woman, who, as it turns out, also lived in the States (Ohio) for several years while she studied chemistry. She appeared to be somewhat sad, not to mention worried, for some reason. I think times were tight. I asked her if she liked Ohio, and she said she liked it well enough. When I asked her if folks were nice over there, she said, meh, but nicer than here, anyway. Hah. By the time I (curiously) asked if she ever thought of going back to Argentina, she said she doubted it. Instead she wanted to stay in Spain, but in one of the bigger cities like Barcelona or Bilbao.
All the talking does help to pass the time, I’ll admit.

We did sell one of the big dog beds. There was some haggling, but nothing too bad, or annoying. It is all in the way it is done, I guess. The folks who had reserved that big basket, didn’t turn up, regretfully.

There was a bit of rain early in the afternoon, so we tossed everything under the tarp, and then after four the rain really hit, leaving us, and lots of the merchandise wet. Darn it. Cousin Ed spent most of today drying it all.

Had two donation trips, one of which was at a charity drug rehab center where we got overdue food that we could use for the dogs. And I spoke with a lady who wondered if we also do clearance, because she was planning to clear out her garage and wondered if we would be interested. I told her, sure and gave her my phone number. We’ll see how that goes.

Saturday was mostly about preparing to go to market. Nothing grand, nothing really interesting, which is good, because, let’s face it, it’s almost one in the morning, and the new day is rapidly approaching. It’s been a long day, thirteen of which I spent on my feet (my left one is not appreciative, by the way) hauling stuff.

We’re having another wind storm at the moment, by the way. It’s blowing light mad overhead. I better get to bed before I get blown off. Hah.