Poor puppy...

Song of the day: “The voice” by Eimear Quin. There was something else earlier this morning, but by now it has faded into the bustle of no other than Grocery Shopping Day. Yay.

Yep, it is that time of the month again, and though I would have gladly postponed, it had to be done. For me it was a long day for sure. First of I had to head for the doctor’s (podiatrist, really) to pick up my insoles. The nice girl doctor was there again, but regretfully she forgot to bring my old ones in, meaning I have to go back around Monday to pick them up again. I got the new ones today, and at the moment, after walking on them for a solid eight hours, I am not pleased with them. Hah.
Seriously, they look cheap, as if they’re made of some sort of stuff that will fall apart within a week, and though they are softer (after a fashion) they are not all that comfortable. Seriously, it felt as if I was starting from scratch with the blasted things, and to add to the insult, they were twenty bucks more expensive. Grrrr. If I pay for something like that more than I do for the average shoe, I would like to see smooth edges, nicely trimmed colors and whatnot.
Ah well, no helping it now, I guess. I’ll just have to get used to them…or better yet, find a way to heal the effing foot. Yeah. That’s a much better idea. Hah.

But enough about today. It were just groceries and that really isn’t all that interesting. I mean, really, we went into stores, out, packed, unpacked, loaded, unloaded and again once we got home. All very boring…like usual, but since I can hardly just repeat any other grocery shopping day that I did before, we’ll just skip it.

Let’s do yesterday…which wasn’t all that more exciting but at least it was different. Hah.
Also an early day, by the way. We had an appointment at the MOT (blasted government demands that you have an all terrain vehicle checked every six months) and had to leave a little early because we wanted to stop at the gas station to pump the tires. Then it was off the Málaga where we arrived at the exact time of our appointment. Yay. There was some waiting involved, along with a short chat with a guy who also had a Land Rover and who was waiting for his turn. He ran a touring agency, like safaris through the local country-side. Got to talking a bit, since I was curious as to where he was located and how business was going these days. Though slower in the winter (which is normal, apparently) he was doing well. Good for him! By then our license plate number was broadcasted and we had to get into the hangar for our turn.

Gawd. The mechanic checking us over was there with about five percent of his attention, where he was with the other 95 percent, I don’t know, but he only checked the absolute basics, stamped our papers and sent us on our way. Now, personally I didn’t mind all that much, seeing as I consider the car’s condition/safety to be our responsibility and not that of the government, but I paid the obligatory 45 bucks for that check, and got a guy for it who stood staring vaguely in the distance the whole while.

Ah well, no matter. The brakes work, so do the lights, and that’s the stuff the cops look at, right? But anyway, we got our stamp and our sticker so we started homeward with only a slight detour to a Chinese food store to get coconut milk and a variety of noodles. After that it was on to home where the sun was shining beautifully and grandpa was waiting for help up at the storage. Big brother went there, while I headed down into the yard to water the greenhouse and raised seedbed, and then the sowed alfa alfa fields lower in the yard. Such a wonderful way to relax. I really wound down ‘round then.

The yard seen to, I headed up to the storage and helped sorting through panels and such which could be set in the sections big brother and grandpa had put together. It took until the end of the afternoon, but it was well worth the effort. It looks way better there now. Hah.

While we were busy there, the lady from the other day drove down with the her car. She was a bit upset seeing as she had found a podenco puppy by the side of the road. It was tiny, she said and had a ripped ear. And she was wondering if we could take him. We couldn’t, of course. We have strict rules about new dogs, and we made a decision not to take any anymore.

So I explained to the woman that we can’t risk a dog that isn’t vaccinated (seriously, we’ve had several contagious deceases raging rampant through the pack, and it’s not funny). She then of course offered to get him all his shots and whatnot, if only we’d take it. She clearly didn’t realize that getting the pup vaccinated wouldn’t do anything until a minimum of two weeks (which is the incubation period of most diseases) but ideally a good 3 months.

But that was all beside the point. We are trying to get less dogs, not more, and thankfully she did understand in the end. We ended the conversation with me giving her directions to two good vets in the village, and after she cooed a little with Knight II (who was being his beautiful self, of course) she departed with puppy and all.

So sad, puppies being dumped…gawd, the horror stories I could tell…but you can do only so much. There have to be limits, and ours is our present pack at the moment.

While big brother and grandpa finished up in the storage Cousin Ed and I went inside to start on supper. Noodles with veggie under a rather spicy satay sauce. Yummy.

There was a rather turbulent edit, where big brother and I really got into a row about several sentences. What I consider to be suspense, he thought tedious, which of course led to some serious discourse. Moments like that can make a body despair, and then I have to remind myself that every edit makes the story just a little bit better, so it really isn’t for nothing. *sigh* Sometimes there are moments I forget, however. *double sigh*

Well, I’m going to leave it at this. My doggie are demanding attention, and I for one wouldn’t mind an early night at all.

Small emergency

Song of the day: “Fireflies” by Owl City. Still a fun song, even though I do tend to get stuck on the chorus most of the time. Poor big brother who has to endure the continuous repetition most. Hah.

First of all, Grandpa got something in his eye, so he’s going to to emergency room as I write this. Do hope that they can spray the stuff out.

For you, the reader, my last couple of days will probably sound incredibly boring, but to me they were splendid. Seriously, forget about the stupid foot and my complaining back, the weather was so great, I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Yay.

First off, I started yesterday, right after the usual morning chores, with making, leek and carrot soup of today’s lunch. All the ingredients came from our own yard this summer, so that made it extra yummy…have you ever noticed how stuff from your own yard tastes better than stuff from the store. Heck, I even eat broccoli, and enjoy it, from our own yard. I don’t know why that is, it is just fact. Added to that, I know that our stuff doesn’t have chemicals, or whatever, on them, meaning that basically I can pluck them off a plant and devour them.

As is at the moment the norm, we immediately went into the yard (tenant and caregiver went along) to start on the work that needs to be done. First up was transplanting the young seedling tomatoes, and four broccoli from the multipots into the small pots that now already fill half a table in the greenhouse.

While I was doing that, grandpa and big brother turned earth of two more potato patches, and watered what needed to be watered. Which meant that after transplanting said seedling, and changing my clothes into shorts and sleeveless top, I could go down into the yard and plant one field of potatoes. We decided to leave the second one for later.

Next I went down to gather the pumpkins big brother harvested, along with the big batch of peppers and gershkins. The latter tenant offered to cut so we could boil them into a soup to feed the dogs later. Was nice of her to do that, and it kept her busy for several hours.

Next I trimmed the big poplar tree on the berry terrace. Seriously, it was so full with small branches that there would be no sunshine whatsoever on the new potato field, and since summer is gone and sunshine is good then, it didn’t matter. Took of a good amount, leaving four massive trunk on the corner beside the stairs, which is an impressive sight, to say the least.

Since I was busy there anyway, I also trimmed one of the acacia, leaving the rest for tomorrow…ehm, yeah that would be today. Okay, will get to that later. Hah.
That done I went a level down, had two axes, a chop and a saw. With that, Dani and I took out poplar roots with 7 feet high sprouts that were rapidly multiplying there. It took a while, but then they were gone, leaving only two more spots on the property to clear in that particular way in the near future.

Had french fries for supper, which went down rather well, I’ll admit. Sometimes it is just bloody wonderful to be unhealthy. Hah. We took the meal as an opportunity to go through our messages of the day, and then headed down to the second patch which had been prepared for potatoes.

Though the fire was doused yesterday, we did hear choppers go back and four for an extra 24 hours afterwards. Turns out that they had to evacuate several more neigborhoods and that they had to shut down the toll highway. That’s some serious shaite. They’re actually comparing it to the fire of 2001, which was massive and scary in its own right. They had to fly in materials and aid from Cordoba, for crying out loud. I, for one, am extremely happy that it didn’t come our way this time.

Finished the day with another edit of course, what else? Hah. It went relatively well, even though the evening before ran into another argument about sentence structure and heated words that made me decide to quit early, rather than risk wrecking the story, or going for each other’s throats. Hah.

Went to the yard this morning, after tenant came home from her doctor’s appointment. All was well with her. Good bloods sugar levels, blood pressure fine too, and then when they were ready to leave, she asked the doctor if she could weigh herself. Her weight startled her. Tenant always was a devout dieter in the past, but according to the doctor it wasn’t too bad for her height, which I would have to agree on. I like the fact that she has a bit of reserves these days. If not, just a few days of the flu could do some real damage. *sigh*

Trimmed more trees, in particular the Acacias and another poplar, and that done I headed down into the yard to re-hang more tomato plants and trim them off their dead leaves. This took me several hours, but in the end it turned out that quite a few of the plants are still doing well enough for production. We’ll see, eh?

That done, we had yesterday’s soup with bread, and it was nice. First time I made this soup, and I wasn’t displeased about the result at all.
Afterwards we managed to remove two mats from greenhouse. Considering the roof is covered with pumpkin vines, this was quite a feat. Hah.

We had wanted to go to the garage to pick up the parts that arrived this morning, but mom and little brother got a phone call from a friend who needed a tow from the beach. So they needed the Land Rover and we decided to wait ‘till tomorrow. Good thing too, since after they were gone we checked out the Opel’s exhaust and discovered that the lost tailpipe was rusted through. We’ll probably need a new muffler and everything. Grrr.

I’m seriously contemplating (I had an hysterical fit of laughter about this while we were checking the car out) walking into the garage with the tailpipe and saying: “I think I need a new exhaust.” I don’t know why, but for some reason it had me double up. Guess I was a little too enthusiastic thinking that the Opel troubles were finally over.

At the end of the evening we sorted paint buckets at the storage, which was on grandpa’s insistence.

Which brings me to Grandpa. I just got a call that he needs to go to the hospital with his eye. Apparently something got stuck in it, and now we need to go to the big hospital to get it out. Darn it, that is his only good eye.

I better load the computer now. This is going to be a long night.