Over-extended and too tired to blog?

 

That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.  Normally this phase hits me in about July.  It came late this year.  Just one or two too many social things, including social with dogs, and it becomes that proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me.

This photo was an experiment, taken Thursday morning, pre-sunrise with a flash.  It shows Ember chewing on the playhouse ladder, while two tennis balls I attempted to distract her with lay on either side of her.  We do try to play a bit of chase the ball, even before the sun comes up.

It's been a busy couple of days since the birthday dinner for DIL's mom.  I had my personal trainer session on Thursday morning.  Ember and I did a turn around the block on leash before I went to my workout.

Then in the afternoon, with naptimes somewhat skewed again on Thursday, I took Ember to the dog park for the first time "solo".  We had gone a couple of times when we were coordinating with when my son and his wife were bringing Carl to the "big" dog park.

This time I took her to a smaller one, and we got very lucky.  There was a nine-month old Rottweiler named Cora, and an 18-month-old Bernese Mountain dog named Neffie, and it was just the three musketeers (would you believe Ember is 8 months old now?)  For the first 15 minutes or so, it was just them, and then a few more dogs showed up with their people.

Ember was not particularly happy with the thought of coming home, but someone who was just arriving with her dogs helped me lure her into my backseat, and home we came.  She was tuckered out and went to bed easily.

Friday morning's leash walk ended in our own back yard with some off-leash time playing with Barnaby.  Unfortunately, Bill (Barnaby's human) and I did not handle the entry very well, and Bill ended up on the ground when Barnaby took off with Ember in full flight.  Bill was mostly unharmed, no broken bones or anything, and we sat in lawn chairs watching the canines cavort, but we're both already strategizing on a better way to enter the back yard.  I think we need to insert Barnaby through the gate before letting Ember out through the back door... it was particularly hard this morning as they greeted one another on-leash at the sidewalk/driveway intersection before we tried to get them into the yard.  

Human lessons learned.  Bill had a bit of a scrape on his elbow, and I checked in via text later in the day to make sure he was washed up and patched up and OK.  We'll do better next time.  As Bill said, Barnaby needs to run like he does off leash with Ember.  And I have this big backyard space, we may as well get the use out of it!

During Puppy nap #1 on Friday, I filled out my ballot for the November 5th election.  When Ember got up from her nap, among other things we went for a ride in the car to go put that ballot in the election commissions drop box.  I can now ignore the political ads for the remainder of election season.  Did my civic duty.  The ballot issues are worth watching in our state.  I mean, we are unique... we have only one legislative house, the Senate.  "The People's house", if you will, in Nebraska, is not a "house of representatives", it is the voters.  And we take our role seriously.  We the people of the State of Nebraska will decide by our votes if we want to fund private schools out of our tax dollars, if we want to de-criminalize medical marijuana, and if we will leave the issue of abortion between a woman and her medical providers.

Enough about politics... my favorite political sign is up the street.  In red, white and blue, it simply says "Dogs / 2024".

I promised Ember that if we took that ride, we'd stop somewhere fun on the way home, and we did.  We stopped at the park closest to the home where I grew up and got out to sniff at just about every tree in the place.  The park has changed since I was a kid (obviously).

There is now a disc golf course in the park, a nice cushiony floored playground, and the drainage is now protected from children exploring it the way my brother and I did as kids.

The park was in good use while we were there, in the 11 a.m. to 12:30 time frame.  A mom and her child on the playground.  Several disc golf players.  A couple picnicking at one of the tables.  Someone sleeping on the wall at the edge of the playground.  And a caretaker with her wheelchair-bound charge.

Ember got pets from a few of them, and in general behaved very well.  At the end of our visit, I prevailed on one of the disc golfers to help me entice her back into the car.

The short trip home was too much for her little tummy. We got home to a seat-cover full of what used to inhabit her stomach.  Poor baby.  Got her inside and settled, then cleaned up the car.  I pretty much let her nap outside the crate until suppertime.  I fed her and tucked her into her crate.  I came back upstairs, where I'm typing this out to let folks know, that Life is Still Good, here in Emberville, and to remind us to Keep Sparking!

Mid-week family celebration

 

First attempt at executing the Thrasher guy's suggestion.  After I took the picture, I tried to stamp down the topsoil a bit more.  

Wednesday morning at 4 a.m. the automatic sprinklers went off.  She had not completely dug it out again, yet.

Ember was due for her bordatella vax Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m.  I let her nap outside the crate ahead of that.  It also gave me a chance to weigh her: 76 pounds.  She's now 8 months old, and that's a new feeding amount range, for her kibble, in fact reducing it a bit.  

I felt like I was doing a guessing game with the amounts, between kibble, canned food (1/2 can a day), training treats and "just because" treats, including chew sticks and bones.  I asked the vet tech whether I'm feeding appropriately.  Vet tech felt for her ribs, and could not find them easily, so she's a bit "chunky" at this time.  She gave me some tips on what's healthy in a dog... in terms of feeling the rib cage.  

So, we shall work further on reducing things like whipped cream lures to get her into the crate, reducing the IYC treat amounts, etc., and monitor, as they say.  I think I can also work on getting her a bit more exercise.  Since her spay in August, I have not been taking her on as many leash walks.  And I think at 8 months, and with an improving recall, maybe it's time to introduce her to the dog park, not just her back yard.

Barnaby (rough coated collie) and his humans are back from their Summer in the Pacific Northwest, so inviting him over to play off leash is another option.  

Wednesday morning, after leash walk, before vet visit, "outside, looking in".

The day continued, kind of time-skewed, as I was also trying to make the birthday dinner thing work out so Ember would be OK in her crate while I went.

She went in for puppy nap #2/bedtime a little before 4 p.m. giving me time to shower and change and drive across town for the 6 p.m. dinner.

It was held at a rather posh place, with outdoor seating, called The Barred Owl.

DIL's mom picked the place, and invited me to come, and it was perfect!  The weather was perfect for the 6th floor balcony at sunset.  We had plates of hor d'oerves, pretty much, and "special drinks", one apiece.  Mine and Kam's matched, a cherry limeade, while the rest of the crew enjoyed adult libations with creative names, like "The Bobfather" (which, naturally, Bob had to order).

Partway through, I noticed the reflection of the sun on its way to setting on that window you see in this photo... had split the sun into two suns.  It did not photograph that way, but my mouth dropped the words, "We're on Tatooine!  Double Sun!"

This place is on the University's Innovation Campus, which is on the former State Fairgrounds land.  It's flat, and being elevated, the views to the horizon are stunning.  The airport takeoffs and landings can be watched.  The lights in the background are the ones that light up Memorial Stadium for night football games.  The old folks in the crowd were musing on the buildings that used to occupy this space.  The old industrial arts building from the fairgrounds still stands.

Shortly before sunset, I took one of my typically pathetic selfies... proof of presence.

I am respecting the rules about no photos of the foster family, including child... but let me just say, for a six-year-old, this boy does amazingly well in adult settings!  As he got a bit more tired, he started to act more like a normal child, swinging on two chairs, and wandering about the balcony.  His parents split the child-watching duties, to make sure he stayed safe and didn't fall off the edge or anything of that nature, or bother other patrons of the bar.

I drove home about 7:40 p.m., after sunset, and it only confirmed my decision to have the cataract surgery sooner rather than later.  It's the left eye this time, and the glare from headlights is more bothersome than it was when it was the right eye.

When I got home, I quickly changed shoes and shirt, then let Ember out for her "last call".  She once again, as she did last week, sniffed suspiciously at mommy's jeans.  Clearly mom had been someplace having human fun, eating human food, with other humans!

But she did her business and went back to bed in her crate with a little treat encouragement. 

Life is good!  Keep Sparking! 

Tumbling through Tuesday

 

Tuesday morning started with me oversleeping.  I didn't wake up until nearly 6 a.m.  The household has been about an hour behind all day ever since.  

I was glad that I had waved off the personal trainer session when I had my driver's license renewal scheduled for Tuesday morning.  I'm just too wiped out to do more than I'm doing minute by minute today.

Since we started the day late, and I had my oatmeal on the regular schedule, Ember was not ready to go down for her nap yet.  We went for a neighborhood leash walk, and then she went down for her nap at 9, rather than 8.

I got into the car to drive over to pick up dog food, and my phone rang.  It was the Thrasher guys.  They had a cancellation, could they come this morning instead?  So, shuffle the plans.

The gentleman came, looked at Ember's excavation, and pronounced that given how they had installed those pillars it was in no danger of collapse. He had the records of what they had done, with a concrete bottom layer, topped by crushed rock, and then that square metal platform before those solid pillars.  He showed me how it was supporting well.  Ember had dug down to where we could see the metal platform.

His recommendation for correcting the dog's efforts was to keep filling it in with topsoil and tamping it down, each time she re-digs it.  Cost to me?   $0 for the assessment.  $2.99 a bag for a few bags of topsoil.  That takes the October 14th appointment off my calendar, too.

I picked up topsoil, the dog food, and a replacement toy for the turquoise unicorn that was destroyed during the two-dog weekend.  This one is a cow, I think.  I also got her a beef center bone, as that was one of the things she really liked during the dog swap day, over at Carl's house.

Ember gnawed on that bone for an hour!  

Then while I was getting ready to go outside, she disappeared and was very, very quiet.  Suspicious, I checked the basement:  the laundry room door was open!  My mistake. I must have left it open when I escorted the cat out during puppy nap #1.  Ember had snarfed all the cat's dry food and was not going to leave the laundry room.

I put a leash on her.  She resisted.  Tossed treats to "search" into the big room... she was still surfing the carpet under the dryer for leftover cat kibble.  I ended up having to go get cheese out of the fridge and run away to entice her to chase me. That got her moved beyond the laundry room door.  I reached back and closed it behind me.

I fed her "salad", then observed that she was getting sleepy.  Sure enough, we were about an hour late starting puppy nap #2, at about 1 p.m.  I came upstairs to write this blog, and then I intend to close my eyes again for a while.

Meanwhile, across town

Got a text from my DIL... they will be signing papers tonight.  They are accepting placement of Kam, the little boy they provided respite for last week, and a prior weekend, the one who joined us for family dinner.  We're all thrilled!  The stability of my son and his wife on a regular basis, hopefully for at least several months should be good for this child.  I hope the new foster parents are ready for this!  It's pretty for-real, and parenting is always a work in progress, as those of us who have been through it know.

Life is good.  Keep Sparking!