Our walks

My dog and I have been walking every day along the creek. It is so nice. It takes about 40 minutes. Everytime she has to stop and swim in the water and stop to smell all sorts of smells. Lately there have been hundreds of grasshoppers. The all jump away with each step you take. Sometimes they land on you and then you can feel their scratchy legs pinching as they jump off of you. It is nice there have not been any mosquitoes. I just cannot bring myself to go out when there are swarms of mosquitoes. We are very lucky to live in a neighborhood surrounded on three sides by a creek.

The Terrors of Flowers

I have a large flower garden, well to be more precise many little flower beds. I remember growing up having to weed my mom's garden in the hot sun and hating it. I also remember about the age of 12 having my own little garden and how much fun it was to plant everything, but that was where the fun ended and my little garden never got weeded and soon was overgrown that you couldn't tell it from the field beside it. And now I have many flowers and many weeds, the only good thing is they are perennials. My rule is if you cannot survive with minimal care then you do not belong in my garden. So slowly for the 2 years we have been in this house I have been trying to downsize my gardens. I would rather have a few nicely cared for plants than many wild weedy plants. Also with all the gardens and the dog pen we do not have that much grass, I like cleanly cut nice smelling grass. So today I killed some of the plants along the fence in front of the Virginia creeper that covers an arch. Why do we need plants there? Also they are kinda ugly plants, for all I know they could be special lifesaving rare plants, but ugly none the less. So I chopped them up and raked and raked the wood chips at there base. Finally got fed up with creeper vines tangling my rake and picking up sluggy wood chips and poky weeds, I decided to call it a day. At least it is mostly done. Now just have to pick up small pile wet slimy wood chips and put down some grass seed. Next target is the long oval shaped flower bed under a tree. I will leave the part directly under the tree, but why have flowers across the middle of your grass so you have to walk around. Those flowers hopefully will get moved to the flower bed against the garage to replace the ones we had to dig up when we got power routed to the garage. Then I plan to mulch wood chips over the flower bed at the west side of the house as they are mostly weeds and iris'. The irises will fight through the mulch, i would think, and then hopefully the weeds will die and maybe it will protect the little evergreens there. Also on the east side of the house against the fence I plan to kill those flowers and weeds and grass that in, just leaving the little crab apple tree. I told you, I have alot of flower beds, total maybe 12. Way too much for a non gardener like me. And if I get so inclined I can always kill grass to put in flowers or even a little vege garden. In this whole plant infested yard there is no veges at all. I also hope to one day convince Jon to gravel the small muddy patch of grass off the deck on the west side of the house where the dog pees all winter. It never seems to properly recover anyway. Lots of plans, I feel like I will never get done. But I did do alot last year, killing some huge ugly buggy evergreens and a few trees that would have had no where to go had they grown more, and cleaning all under the plum tree and hedge that was full of leaves and misc and rotted plums that smelled like bad liquor.

I love rainy days

I love rainy days. The air is so fresh and the sky is dark and the wind fills the house with freshness.

My Husband is MacGyver

So for our Sunday, Justin's only day off he wanted to go fishing. He had bought a map showing the backroads in our area so we were sure we could find our own secluded fishing place on the river. We loaded the dog in her big kennel and off we went with a route picked out. The 1st route the map showed was one we had already tried, goes through someones field and onto fenced private land with no trespassing signs. Our second route shown on the map wants you to drive right through someones yard. Again and again we tried, the map showing us proper roads where their are fields and farms and no access to the river. At one point we could see the beautiful blue water but still could not get to it. Finally after 3 hours of driving and searching through muddy trails and after Jon had drove over the map in his anger, we decided to go to a park we know about on the river and pay to fish and swim. Driving to the park Justin was not talking much so I was quiet. Once there I let the dog out for a swim throwing her tennis ball in the water. Justin did not seem like he was enjoying his one day off at all. Then he mentions, how far is it to the the nearest town H..? Why I ask? He says that we are mostly out of fuel, not sure if we can make it, should we try to go back to our town or will little H.. have a gas station open. We load up the dog and away we go slowly and carefully, using neutral when going downhill. Thinking about the fuel situation we hit a bump in the road we previously hit and should have remembered. At the crossroads we decide to go to H.. as it is a little closer and should have a gas station. Next corner we turn Justin suddenly stops the truck and jumps out. We have broken a tie rod holding and steering the right front tire. What are the odds. Still 20 km away from H.. Justin says as long as the tire points straight we can keep driving, the gas tank is past red. Up and down hills we go and around gentle curves in the road we get to H.., and there is a gas station, open, but now we have to wait for a train before we can get there. When we go to cross the tracks our gas tank light is flashing and beepbeepbeepbeep. I thought, Oh please do not let us get stuck on the tracks, but we roll in to the gas station. As the attendant fills our truck we realize that this is also a hardware store. Justin searches for something to hold the wheel in line follow the steering. We buy some wrenches, washers, metal clamps and duct tape. Adding a tie strap from the dog crate, Justin is able to put it all together like a metal enforced cast for the brocken tie rods arm. Then it is the 30 min drive back to our town. We made it back to our house and just barely as the wreches were breaking through our cast. Now how is that for your only day off! How come every thing we do turns into an adventure?

My loves

The two things I love most in life are my hubby and my dog.

I have loved my hubby for almost 10 years. I feel very privileged that he chooses me to share his life with. My hubby is very strong, confident and good. Also he is always right, as he often reminds me, but I cannot argue.

My dog is my baby. When she was little I couldn't wait for her to be old and calm enough to cuddle and now she is big I miss how tiny she was. She is a very good dog and she loves her Dad more than anything. She has such caring and intelligent eyes. I also love how she kicks and growls softly in her dreams.

Vacuum

I hate my vacuum. We bought it about 5 years ago for about $80. It is good because it is fairly lite weight and it has a canister that you just dump to empty, no bags. But it is bad because the rotors do not work really well anymore. It is heavy to push on the carpet, maybe the wheels don't roll well and it is hard to steer, and above all it does not clean very good. It does not have much sucking power. I checked the rotor spins and the air sucks but still it does not pick up clumps of dog hair, let alone inbeded dog hair, paper, dust, mud, rocks etc. You have to go over and over a spot from different angles for it to even try to pick something up. After vacuuming the carpet looks greyish still just as if the dog hair, dust etc has been neatly pushing down into the carpet fibers to even the look. Thought the carpets are not great it is not their fault, after steaming cleaning them they looked remarkably different. We don't have much carpet but what we do have I would like to keep tidy. Also we have carpeting up the stairs and it is difficult to carry and work the vacuum on the stairs and it still does not get the hair etc. It works better to pick up the hairs and feed it into the mouth of the vacuum. Justin mostly vacuums the stairs because I hate it and it is difficult, but that being said they do not get done that often. So I am hoping to buy a new vacuum as soon as I feel we have a little extra money. I have one picked out that is moderately priced and looks ok. It is specially for animals, or so it says. And is supposed to pick up pet hair off carpets and furniture and stairs easliy. We shall see.

First Post

Well I have started a blog. Justin wont be happy, he does not want me writing about our life for people to see, but really, who is going to look! No one needs to know it is me unless I want them to know. That gives me the freedom to talk about what I want. The trouble is I don't think I have anything to say. Nothing interesting anyway. I have never been good at writing a diary or anything like that. I think I am too boring, and the stuff that isn't boring, I really don't want to share with others.