It's been a long time
Part of visiting here was remembering a dear friend who I found out has unexpectedly passed. It left me with a sense of loss and heartbreak. We met on this site 14 years ago...our love of sheepdogs brought us together. I've always said this site was special bringing so many people from all walks of life and from all around the world together...sharing our love of this wonderful breed. My reason for joining many years ago was to find solace after the passing of my beloved Shaggy. I found a kinship and understanding here. Later, there were my stories of my boys...Big Dog, Blue, Merlin, Panda, Gilligan (all passed now) but I have my "Silly Sally" a OES/Newfie mix of 140 pounds of rescued pound pup that keeps me smiling. It's nice to be back amongst friends. Marianne |
|
|
| Nice to see you here. You'll be here more when (IF!!!) you retire. You are so so incredibly busy! |
| Hi Ron. You know at least I'm never bored! This summer was much anticipated as I planned on using my entire 9 wks vacation doing long awaited neglected jobs around the home and garden. I had planned on doing that last year but my sister sadly was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She also has an animal sanctuary, like myself, however those animals were mainly barnyard ones like sheep, llamas , rooster and chickens as well as cats and dogs. Her residence was on top of a mountain so eventually I took time off work as well as the summer and looked after both her animals and my own. I didn't post about it on FB as she wanted kept a secret and even though she was down to 81 pounds and her throat has closed to the size of a pin prick she was so adamant about returning to her animals that darn if she not only survived the surgery but the cancer was gone! So back to this summer...had lots of plans (okay I admit it's boring stuff) cleaned the yard, arranged for the leak to be fixed on my garage roof,have made arrangements for new gutters and thanks to Kaj's work bonus which would of been a nice vacation for some...we chose to have aluminum fencing to replace our wooden fence thanks to Sally. Not the entire acreage of course because I like some privacy. I had plans of one day being able to sip tea in the garden and read books....ha! Then, the horrible fires started in our province in the interior and so many people have evacuated. The Red Cross, the Government and numerous agencies stepped up to help. I became certified with the Canadian Disaster Animal Response Team CDART and have spent countless hours at the Evacuation Centre one of which is located just mins from my work. So in some ways I feel I go to work daily as I'm in the area and know all the folks at the Reception Centres as I normally come into contact with them via my own job. I care for the domestic animals that have been evacuated and hand out much needed animal supplies to those who are with their people. It's a sad time for hundreds of families. Thus, I have no complaints how my summer is going so far. I'd better finish off with that or else I'll be writing a novel. |
| WOW. As usual. |
| So happy to see you back Marianne. Is "Silly Sally" still swimming in the hedges. I think of you and her often. |
| Hi Ilene! I chuckled when you remembered her nic name...Silly Sally - which I find myself saying the name in it's entirety quite often. While she stopped her habit of "swimming" in my hedges (it's probably because they are no longer upright but splayed at all angles- groan). She has now taking to diving in the fishpond, rubbing herself in dirt and then running along the large cedar hedges so the pine needles drop on her now wet, dirty body. How lucky I am to have such a thoughtful dog! Then she became quite fond of standing on her hind legs which gave her a height of aprox 6 ft tall and would flip open my upper cabinets and steal all the bread, cookies and treats I kept in there. We tried to outsmart her and placed baby locks on the upper cabinets as well as the lower ones to prevent that from happening again. It worked for aprox a week until I arrived home to find her nose kinda looking rough and realized she has squished her nose in the cupboards and broken all the baby locks. I then started putting the bread in the lower part of the oven where one sometimes stores pans. I know sounds silly but I was trying to outsmart her. Nope arrived home to find she had pulled the oven drawer open and eaten the bread. She also had removed the 2 frying pans I had in there and probably licked them for good measure. Thankfully she hasn't figured out how to open the fridge yet....... I believe it's the Newfie part of her that is silly as we all know it would never be the OES in her that would cause this mischief. Missed you as well ICH and thanks for the welcome back! |
| Great to see you still checking in Marianne! Did I see you post on facebook? I sometimes have difficulty matching names here to names there. You have so many things going on! How do you keep doing it? It makes me tired just imagining. Shellie |
| I had to have a nap after just reading about what you are up to! Praying for some solid days of rain in B.C. |
| Having had a Newfie, yes, there is a side to them that keeps you laughing. I hope the pans were cast iron, dog drool probably helped with the seasoning. Haven't had a kitchen helper since Glacier (Great Pyr) who not only cleaned the counters, stole more break loaves than I car to think about, but also also licked all the cabinet faces and the floor. I miss Merry Maid. |
You do have fun!!!! It is amazing how clever our fluff bums are- I always say it takes a lot of brains to look that daft! You have to be an owner to understand how amazing they are. Love hearing your antics, We all seemed to drift away and are "heading home again", great seeing "old" folk on here again. Good luck and you can have some of our British rain if you like!!xxxx   |
| Hi Again and a big thanks for all the comments. Shellie - yes I'm on FB so you probably "see" me there. I had the hardest time too matching names with people and their nic names. Had to peek again at the post to thank the ladies below instead of calling them by their pet names which I often do....oops. Thanks Kim, Susan and Allyson. Thankfully it rained a bit yesterday but not sure if it made much headway for the fires. BC however had help from across Canada, NZ, US, and Mexico. Some have been contained and there are towns that have lifted their evacuation alerts and people are returning home. Susan I got to pet sit a PYR X at the evacuation centre who went by the name Snow Wolf...OMG!!! kept me on my toes ,playful and goofy once he overcame his initial shyness of me. Gorgeous dogs. |
| Our local restaurant's owner' son is up your way on the fires. Unfortunately most of the blazes won't go out until the snows come.........but hopefully they can be contained. May be wind be at your back blowing the smoke away from you. |
| I guess that is a good thing about living in England- don't get these type of fires, poison snakes, spiders or what have you. Hop you stay safe. xx |
Didn't find exactly what you're looking for? Search again here:
Custom Search
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|