It’s 6 days to our departure from the house here on Roosevelt Lake, hopefully for the winter. The summer has been a mixture of fun, water sports, company, trips, some anxiety, some fatigue but for the most part just plain life.
I had the wonderful opportunity to meet my first Great Grandchild. Ayleigh Adele Gerber is 6 weeks old when we met for the first time. Of course, she is beautiful just like my granddaughter Sarah and her husband Shaun. Dale and I drove up to Grand Forks to meet them as they were travelling from Creston back to Vancouver. Ayleigh couldn’t visit us in Washington as she doesn’t have a passport yet.
Life with a new puppy is always interesting. The latest list of things chewed is shorter but still a bit disconcerting. We lost a couple more books, fortunately not from the library, Dale’s wrist blood pressure cuff, a flashlight, shoelaces, shoes, plastic anything, paper anything, a toilet brush (yum) and 4 rolls of toilet tissue. We now have to introduce Bandit to life on the road.
Dale’s sister Pat and her husband Bob have also been waiting for some time to depart on a two-week cruise. We got a phone call the other morning from Pat telling us that her husband fell last night and broke his hip quite badly. So their trip was cancelled. What a shame! Fortunately, they had trip insurance. It just reminded us all how quickly things can change.
Late last Spring, just before we headed home Dale was adjusting our phone booster on the roof of the trailer and a wind came up and threatened to break it. He grabbed it and held on and pulled some muscle in his shoulder. It didn’t seem too bad at the time but got worse as time went on. When we got home he had it examined and was told it would take a long time to heal. He had finally healed enough that he could lift his arm without grimacing. The other morning when he was walking the dogs he slipped on some wet pine needles and fell hard. He landed on his elbow shoving his arm bone up into his shoulder. He completely re-injured his old shoulder injury. So back to the ice packs and rest. He will not be able to lift his arm above his shoulder for six more weeks. On the bright side, he didn’t break anything and we have a number of friends who have insisted on helping us get loaded next week. (That’s loaded for travelling south, not loaded to drown our sorrows).
I thought I’d share this with my faithful readers for a giggle. This conversation took place in the Library last Wednesday.
Two lady friends and I were chatting…
Me: Hi M and D, how’s everything.
M. We’re great, we were just talking about our goats.
D. By the way, how’s your puppy doing?
Me: He’s coming along though he just chewed up Dales reading glasses, I found out that they were plastic. But he’ll soon be old enough that we can have him fixed.
D: You know you can do it yourself for free.
M: Yeah! I castrate my male goats myself. I am a bander.
D: Not me, I don’t like how much time it takes for them to fall off. I am a cutter, one swipe and its over.
M. But it is so easy with a bander. I have one and it’s fast and effective.
M to D. Haven’t you got that 400-pound boar to do? OMG!!
D. I know !!! But I’ve got a plan. I can tie one leg to that big fence post and run the rope across to the other post for the diagonal leg. That will immobilize him, and I can reach through and do the deed. I should be OK.
M. Better you than me!!
Me: Thanks for the advice but I think I’ll just take Bandit to the Vet.
Such is life for women in the country. This illustrates what a riot it is to live in the country.
By the way, my girlfriend S. will come and shoot your horse if it needs to be put down.
More to come…